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...

First for me: White-letter Hairstreak Butterfly

We came back from the north a few days ago and have needed to attend to various matters (including a poetry reading) since our return. Despite the wild weather we encountered, I am looking forward to posting some photos of our holiday in due course.

Meanwhile, I am delighted to say that I believe I may have seen a new butterfly - well, new for me, at any rate. I watched it flutter into the pink Convolvulus flower above, little realising what it was. We were taking part in the Big Butterfly Count, but it was only when I uploaded my photos that I registered the distinctive hairstreak.

To the best of my knowledge I have only ever seen one other hairstreak butterfly and that was the Green Hairstreak: that butterfly was also here in Suffolk. You can read more about the White-letter Hairstreak on the Butterfly Conservation site here. Since this butterfly spends most of its tine in the tree-tops, I guess we were fortunate to see one nectaring almost at ground level. According to the Wildlife Trusts website, these butterflies have declined by 99% in the last quarter of a century: Dutch Elm Disease may be partly to blame as the eggs are deposited on these trees. I shall be reporting this sighting to the Suffolk Wildlife Trust.