Long tailed Blues in Kent

[CJB]

Good morning UKB'ers,
I couldn't stand temptation any longer and on Friday left my office, jumped on a train to Dover with my bicycle and headed for Kingsdown Leas, which took rather longer than I expected, especially as there was a headwind! When I got there, it didn't take too long to locate the 'hotspot' which was marked by a collection of men with long lenses. The weather wasn't perfect as there was a strong wind and the temp wasn't great, although this didn't stop the other species, so you can but wonder if they were there or not. I walked around the area and saw some sparkling newly-emerge Adonis, a tatty Chalkhill, Large and small whites, Speckled Woods, Comma, Red Admiral and Small tortoiseshell.
I met some great likeminded people and the recurring theme was the 'collector', whom one of them had seen on the Tuesday, but rather failed to get a picture of him. So after a few hours, I left empty handed but somewhat thinner after the cycle ride!
I will keep at it as I would dearly love to see one and wish the best of luck for those of you who are looking this weekend, especially Lee and his boy who travelled all the way from Cornwall.
Flutter on!
CJB

[woodnymph]

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping to come down from Cheshire to try and see if there are any LTBs left. I don't know the area at all, and was wondering where the best place to park would be, and how you access the area where the butterflies have been seen? If anyone could help that'd be great

Thanks,
Steff

[Testudo Man]

First post for me, Ive only just found/joined this forum/site.
Took my son to Kinsdown leas this Saturday, in the hope of sighting the target species(LTB).
We arrived on site at approx 10.45am and stayed for approx 4 hours. Like the other enthusiasts there, despite searching the area, we couldnt find any LTB's. We did see red admiral, common blue(worn male), adonis blue(male), chalk hill blue(female), small whites, a possible speckled wood, silver Y moth, angle shades moth, large brownish purple caterpillar, small light brown/white caterpillar. Also good numbers of common lizard(both adult, sub-adult, and the juveniles(probably born august 2013). As well as a wasp spider,and both kestrel and sparrowhawk.

Great to meet up/chat with fellow enthusiasts, speaking mainly to Paul, and later in the afternoon Suzie.

My thoughts on the day are, that there was certainly enough people on site looking for this butterfly. If they were there? then Im pretty sure one of us would have got a sighting. The conditions were best before lunch, when the wind was not that strong, and there were good spells of sunshine. If the other usual species were seen/photographed basking with wings spread, then Im sure the LTB's would have also mirrored this behaviour too.
I really dont think that those LTB's were there anymore, i think they have relocated(either naturally) or moved off site by the "Netter"!!!
Ive read through this thread, and the user name/member "millerd" saw with his own eyes, a male with a net...So its not just a "windup" or "chinese whispers" then, a netter was seen by at least one member of this forum. We all talked about this phantom netter, and we all came to the same conclusion...if this guy did take these rare butterflies from Kingsdown leas, then he spoilt it for a great many enthusiasts(and thats putting it mildly)...which is unlike me, but hey, Im a "newbie" on this forum...I dont know the limitations on bad/foul language on here
I didnt have to travel too far(110mile round trip) but some of the people there, came from far greater distances!

Will I make the trip again? sure i would...but best get down there rapid, when the emerging LTB's are fresh!

[Goldie M]

I thought netting was forbidden nowadays?

When I was in Kent I went to St Margarets-on cliff, Long Tail Blues were suppose to be there, is that the same place as Kingsdown Leas? I'm not sure of that coastal area. I didn't find any ,on the other hand I didn't do a 20 minute walk to where they were supposed to be. I could kick myself now Goldie

[Pete Eeles]

I thought netting was forbidden nowadays?

Only netting of highly-protected species.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Paul Harfield]

Hi All

Sorry to hear that people are not having much success with LTBs now at Kingsdown Leas. The sightings seem to have dwindled away. I can not get there until next Monday and by the look of things at the moment I might be wasting my time The lack of LTBs there now could of course be due to natural reasons. If it is down to one or two very selfish individuals and they are reading this, I hope they are very ashamed of their actions and that they realise there are a lot of very unhappy people out there now Good luck to anybody who makes the effort

Hopefully there is still a few more LTBs to be seen yet at other locations

[Neil Hulme]

Hi all,

Just received a text from a friend who visited the Leas today. She saw and photographed a female and I believe that Lee may have got lucky with a male LTB - I hope so! They're certainly still around and we will hopefully see some reports in due course. For those going to look for LTBs, you really do need favourable weather conditions for this species, which is more demanding than some of our residents.

Neil

[Susie]

My feelings were that ltb were and still are at the site and I am glad they have been seen since. It was so cold and windy on Saturday I don't blame the critters for taking a duvet day.

It was nice to meet you too, testudo man, and the zombie slayer. Hope to see some of your excellent photos on here sometime. Likewise it was good to meet Paul and your good lady.

Thanks for the commiserations chaps. If we were successful every time there would be no thrill of the chase and triumph in victory! Onwards and upwards

[Neil Hulme]

Having just arrived home from a weekend away, I see my LTBs on Friday (27th) were not the only ones seen in Sussex! A report and image of a nice male in Bury village (Arun Valley) by Paul Stevens at http://www.sussex-butterflies.org.uk/sightings.html
Neil

[Padfield]

I've been reading all this with great interest and trying as hard as I can not to butt in with unwanted advice. But here is some anyway!

Firstly, male LTBs know exactly what they like and home in on it. This is purely a migrant species near me but they turn up in exactly the same corner of the same field every year, even in years (like this year, curiously) when the species is uncommon. The photos I took a week ago were only a few metres away from where I took them last year and the year before that. Thus, whether or not individuals have been taken, you can expect other individuals from the same brood to find their way to the same sites in due course. Tim Cowles, in Lyon, has reported the same thing to me. The species is generally uncommon around him but he sees it in the same place in the same garden every year.

Secondly, they're complete pussies and stop doing their stuff as soon as the sun goes in.

Thirdly, like most butterflies, they get cheesed off if there is persistant interference in their chosen spot. When enough is enough they suddenly stop their ritual roding and duffing up others and zoom off to another corner of the site.

My method for finding LTBs at my favourite site is this:

Sit on a smooth rock and open a beer.
Survey the whole site from a distance, while enjoying the hoppy flavour of real ale.
If there is more than one male long-tailed blue present, there will inevitably be a sky-climb before you are halfway through the bottle. No other blues zoom up into the heavens like this.
Go to where the spiralling ascent happened and wait. Within a few minutes, one or both will come down.
Stand still and follow one of them with your eyes. Each blue will track around a course at regular intervals and there will be particular places on its circuit where it stops to nectar or perch and defend the territory. Typically, it will stay at these places only a short time, before continuing on the circuit, flushing out other LTBs and zooming into the sky. When you know where they stop, you move in while the blue is elsewhere and position yourself for the photo. Wait patiently and the butterfly comes to you.

I can't guarantee they behave the same way in the UK but this always works for me here in CH.

Guy

[dave brown]

CJB said: I met some great like minded people and the recurring theme was the 'collector', whom one of them had seen on the Tuesday, but rather failed to get a picture of him

The reference to Tuesday is a bit strange as I was there myself for over 2.5 hours on Tuesday and saw no sign of a netter. I believe Neil stayed almost all day and I am not aware that he saw one either, but obviously he will speak for himself. Had there been one there enough of us were present to notice and say something.
I am aware that other Dungeness locals were present in the afternoon and I am sure that they would have noticed something. Collecting may well have happened on another occasion but I would be surprised if it was Tuesday.
I thought that society had moved on from the Victorian times and collecting had been replaced by digital photography. Lets hope any butterflies left, or yet to emerge, will be left alone for everyone to enjoy. The weather forecast for the next week for East Kent does not look too promising at the moment so opportunities may be limited for anyone planning to visit.

[David M]

I've been reading all this with great interest and trying as hard as I can not to butt in with unwanted advice. But here is some anyway!

Firstly, male LTBs know exactly what they like and home in on it. This is purely a migrant species near me but they turn up in exactly the same corner of the same field every year, even in years (like this year, curiously) when the species is uncommon. The photos I took a week ago were only a few metres away from where I took them last year and the year before that. Thus, whether or not individuals have been taken, you can expect other individuals from the same brood to find their way to the same sites in due course. Tim Cowles, in Lyon, has reported the same thing to me. The species is generally uncommon around him but he sees it in the same place in the same garden every year.

Secondly, they're complete pussies and stop doing their stuff as soon as the sun goes in.

Thirdly, like most butterflies, they get cheesed off if there is persistant interference in their chosen spot. When enough is enough they suddenly stop their ritual roding and duffing up others and zoom off to another corner of the site.

My method for finding LTBs at my favourite site is this:

Sit on a smooth rock and open a beer.
Survey the whole site from a distance, while enjoying the hoppy flavour of real ale.
If there is more than one male long-tailed blue present, there will inevitably be a sky-climb before you are halfway through the bottle. No other blues zoom up into the heavens like this.
Go to where the spiralling ascent happened and wait. Within a few minutes, one or both will come down.
Stand still and follow one of them with your eyes. Each blue will track around a course at regular intervals and there will be particular places on its circuit where it stops to nectar or perch and defend the territory. Typically, it will stay at these places only a short time, before continuing on the circuit, flushing out other LTBs and zooming into the sky. When you know where they stop, you move in while the blue is elsewhere and position yourself for the photo. Wait patiently and the butterfly comes to you.

I can't guarantee they behave the same way in the UK but this always works for me here in CH.

That has to be one of my favourite posts ever on here (particularly the sentence in bold).

Guy, you are normally the absolute personification of experience, patience, virtue, fieldcraft and common sense, but I think even you have finally succumbed to frustration over the UK LTB saga.

Oddly, my respect for you has actually INCREASED, rather than diminished. Sometimes you've just got to use the vernacular to get your message across.

[Paul Wetton]

Hi all

I didn't get a name for the culprit or culprits but it was people from Kent BC who passed the information on to me if I remember correctly. They also mentioned that LTBs had been found at various sites along the coast.
I hope more emerge and more are seen by all the lovely folks we met on Saturday.
I hope to make another trip to see this species in the UK.
Please keep us all informed if anyone sees more LTBs.

Good luck to all

[Testudo Man]

Hi all,

Just received a text from a friend who visited the Leas today. She saw and photographed a female and I believe that Lee may have got lucky with a male LTB - I hope so! They're certainly still around and we will hopefully see some reports in due course. For those going to look for LTBs, you really do need favourable weather conditions for this species, which is more demanding than some of our residents.

Neil

This is good news, and it would also prove me wrong which in this case, is not a bad thing

I would be interested to know what the weather/climate conditions were like on site today, because 55 miles inland(the other side of Maidstone Kent) it was cool, cloudy, dull and stronger winds than Saturday.


Paul.

[IainLeach]

Very disappointed if people really have been netting these butterflies. Not only is it completely unjustifiable to kill any of them but it really spoils it for the many people who have made very long journeys and not been able to seen them. Hopefully the culprits will at least be photographed if they reappear.

[lee3764]

Hi all,

Well.....What a weekend!! Left home in Cornwall at 7:00am on Saturday morning with Robert aged 10, Michael aged 8 & Lisa my wife for the 330 mile drive to Kingsdown Leas in east Kent in the hope of seeing a Long-tailed Blue. Upon entering Devon on the A30 dual carrageway the rain started and absolutely chucked it down for the next 120 miles! Awful driving with fog too. Wife reminded me that I wouldn't see much in this weather!! Entered M25 in Surrey to see the warning that there were long delays from junction 7 - 9 which is 12 odd miles! Yep....we ground to a halt in the worse traffic jam I've ever known in my 31 year driving experience! nearly 3 hours and we moved just 3 miles! There had been a very serious accident where a 4WD Jeep had lost control in the same direction as us just an hour before and skidded across all 3 lanes and bounced over the central reservation and collided with several poor vehicles travelling in the other direction!! It looked nasty enough with the remainder of the carnage 3 hours later when we eventually crept past. It was a life threatening accident we heard on Radio Surrey so hope all involved survived. We eventually reached Kingsdown Leas at 3:30pm where it was pretty windy and no sunshine! All we saw in 2 hours of fruitless searching was a Speckled Wood, 2 Small Whites and a Chalkhill Blue. I realised that Sunday (this morning) was our only chance. Upon leaving the Premier Travel Inn at Dover East this morning (Sunday) the sun was shining so we again parked next to the shingle beach at Kingsdown and arrived to a similarly windy Kingsdown Leas at 10:45am. There was quite a bit of sun today and this stayed out for at least 50% of the time. We searched every Everlasting Pea clump along the whole Leas area to no avail. Robert especially was by now telling me this had been a wasted weekend & we were not going to see the Long-tailed Blue. Great!....nothing like keeping optomistic! We had earlier seen up at the back of one of the greens of the golf club 3 brilliant coloured Adonis Blues, one Common Blue, many Speckled Woods and several Small Whites and a solitary Small Tortoiseshell. It was sheltered there so we chanced it that there may have been our target species flying there but it was not! We met several couples during our visit today looking for the same target as us & they hadn't seen any either! At 1:00pm my wife, Lisa reminded me that we really now had to leave as it would take 7 hours to get back home and the children had school on Monday morning. Another couple who were actually local, were just about to leave too. We said goodbye to them and I kept walking round a sheltered area where there was everlasting pea just in the vain hope there was one sheltering from thw wind. I finally decided at 1:30 that time & luck had run out and we would just walk back to the car 10 minutes away & commence the return journey thinking we'd get back about 8:30pm or so. We'd walked about 40 yards back when my attention was drawn to this local chap again (from Ashford but I didn't take his name) who had left a few minutes previously and he was frantically waving at me and shouting that he'd found one!!! I didn't realise for a moment what he meant but instinctively ran towards him some 50 yards distant whilst yelling at the rest of my family that this chap had found one! I didn't realise that I could still run fast but as I ran towards the man he was running further away & eventually reached his wife standing guard over a small yellow flower resembling a dandylion adjoining the cliff path not far from the cliff. He pointed at this pretty small Long-tailed Blue sitting on the flower nectaring in the wind. The flower was very short so the butterfly wasn't being blown about too much. Well.....how pleased were we? We are so grateful to this man for running back to find us & point out this Long-tailed Blue. We would almost certainly have walked straight past it as especially when it's wings were closed it was not very noticable at all. It had it's wings partially open for a bit while we took what photos the wind allowed. The sun then went in & took some with it's wings closed but it was not easy as it had walked up a stem on grass from the flower & the grass stem was waving about in the wind. It was a male which whilst fairly fresh, had clearly been out for a couple of days at least or more as it was just a little damaged at the base of it's hindwings which doesn't surprise me with it flying amongst the grass on a windy day. We stayed watching it for 15 minutes or so and then left it as the sun had largely disappeared behind the clouds by now. Chuffed is an understatement for finding just one L.Tailed Blue after calling it a day! We did see a couple of ladies when we were nearly back to the car who showed us a photo they had taken of a fantastic perfect condition female Long-tailed Blue they had photographed well further down from Kingsdown Leas almost at the war memorial. It looked like it had just emerged this morning.
We eventually arrived home in Cornwall at 8:40pm somewhat jaded & tired after a 676 mile round trip in 37 hours. Well worth it and we are so so grateful to that unamed kind chap who beckoned me over to show us the butterfly we had travelled so far to see! Thanks also to those who gave advice to me over the phone (thanks Neil), private messages on here, this forum over the last few days and the very kind chap who said he was from Ashford who spotted the lone Long-tailed blue, but I didn't take his name but hope he may read this forum and see my thanks.
On a less windy/calm day there must still be Long-tailed Blues still emerging here in ones & twos and certainly the area towards the war memorial must be worth checking out but I didn't go that far so cannot comment. Don't just restrict yourself to the clumps of Everlasting Peas but look in the grass at every wild flower that you see.
Great day after admitting defeat (which I don't often do!!).
Robert is pretty chuffed too as he (and I) did actually reach 50 different species seen in England in 2013 and Robert has reached 53 different species in Britain and he's only just turned 10 years old!!
Cheers everyone,
Lee Slaughter, Robert, Michael & Lisa Slaughter (Cornwall).

[essexbuzzard]

Absolutely thrilled for you Lee,with the weather not being great and few reports coming onto this thread,i was getting a little worried for you!

Fantastic stuff. Robert will have a story to tell his stay at home Cornish school mates on Monday! Lets see some of those images!

[millerd]

Brilliant, Lee. The effort was worth it and well-rewarded. Glad you got home safely too.

Dave

[Paul Harfield]

Hi Lee

That is one of the nicest stories I have seen on here, with a very happy ending I am glad you had success after such a long trip and it is great that your whole family got to see the Long Tailed Blues

[Nick Broomer]

Really chuffed that you and your family got to see a LTB after such a long trip, well done. That fellow from Ashford must be a god in your eyes at this moment in time. Well done again.

All the best, Nick.