Small Copper ab. schmidtii at Cerne Abbas, Dorset

[False Apollo]

On 14th June I visited Cerne Abbas, Dorset as I had received a phone call the previous evening telling me a Small Copper schmidtii aberration had been seen. The area below the famous giant is pretty extensive and I did not think I had much hope of finding it even though I had a vague idea where it could be. By chance I spoke to a couple of other people who were looking without success and I told them I had just seen some photos on Twitter. It turned out that the photographer on Twitter knew one of the people I had met, and after a short phone call we were pointed in the right direction, but we still had to find it. Eventually I picked it up in the area exactly as described in the phone call but it was very active in the heat. However it was extremely territorial and every time it flew off it eventually flew back to the same small area all afternoon. I have not seen this variety before but it was very striking and easily picked up in flight when seen flying. Being very hot it rarely opened it's wings but when it did there was a slight very pale coppery tinge seen in the bright sunshine. It was a very exciting butterfly to see and I found out it had originally been found 2 days earlier behaving in this territorial manner.

[Pauline]

Well found Mike and some lovely images there. Well done

[David M]

Stunning find, Mike. Looks quite other-worldly.

[False Apollo]

Thanks Pauline and David. It was surprisingly easy to pick it up in flight being so pale, it was easy to follow but occasionally disappeared. We searched the area thoroughly in our search but did not find any more Small Coppers on site. I spoke to a lady doing the transect and no Small Coppers had been recorded on the route.