Thursday, 15 February 2018

Red Letter Day for White-letter Butterfly


Those of you who follow my blog may recall my excitement at seeing my first White-letter Hairstreak surprisingly close to my Suffolk home last summer. These are the photos I took at the time. I am posting them again in the light of the good news that three White-letter Hairstreak eggs were recently discovered in Scotland where this species had not been known to breed for over a century. You can read the story on the Discover Wildlife site here.

And as for me, well, I shall return to my spot later this year when these pink Bindweed flowers are blooming. White-letter Hairstreaks usually frequent the treetops in areas of elm, but, of course, so many elms have been decimated by disease in recent decades.  


Postscript: I have just ordered a copy of a children's novel, highly recommended by an adult poetry friend. It is called The Island at the End of Everything by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and is about butterflies and leprosy. I will report back in due course...

3 comments:

  1. That's very interesting to know. Your photos of really beautiful. If they may be in Scotland, perhaps these White-letter Hairstreaks could appear on Holy Island? We are very lucky in that the rare dark green fritillary butterflies thrive in the habitat there and last year I was lucky enough to see a swarm flying over the dune grassland (see my post with photos 26/07/18. Look forward to hearing more about your sightings in the Summer.

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  2. It's so exciting that these lovely butterflies maynowbe breeding in Scotland.

    I just hope that the elm in Sheffield where they breed which is threatened with felling canbe saved.

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  3. It's such a lovely Butterfly, we have some local to me too, sadly last year I missed photographing them, but like you will go back and hopefully find them this year.
    Amanda xx

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