Brilliant Blues
Despite their rarity this season (we had around 4 on transect when I was there), Large Blues performed fairly well for visitors when found. Best spots to look were 'The Eastern Glade' (on cooler days), the bottom of the gravelled path that takes you down from the bench to the bottom of the site (quite often egg - laying females here in the morning) and the slope in the middle of the site above (in the morning) and around the gorse (on cooler afternoons). It was however, largely pot - luck as the Blues do range over the site in their search for either females of thyme.
Males were virtually unapproachable, and I only ever got photos of one as it rested after mating, but females were relatively easy to get close to once found, perching on thyme to lay eggs and nectar. A very fresh female was found on the open day that stayed pretty much within 10 metres of where it was found at 11:00 all day, still being there when I left at 5:00. This lack of any meaningful activity was seen in several Large Blues and is perhaps why they were so difficult to find, and numbers so low as they rested on grass stems in the intense heat.
The jury is still out on why the Large Blues are in such low numbers and so late. One theory is that Collard's claggy, clayey soil stores water, lowering its temperature and retarding the development of the thyme and the Large Blue larvae in the ants' nests, this explaining their lateness, whilst the drought conditions last summer caused thyme to wilt and starve the young larvae, resulting in a high mortality before they reached the ant's nests and low numbers this year.
Time and science will tell, and hopefully there'll be some interesting answers after the yearly egg counts etc. have taken place, certainly, many of the females were busy laying eggs, here is the first one I photographed on Sunday morning on the upper slopes.
- Large Blue - Female
The legendary open day female...
- Large Blue - Female
- Large Blue - Female
With a crowd of suitably respectful admirers...
- Large Blue - Female
And Jono, the Large Blue Warden...
- Large Blue - Female
More females...
- Large Blue - Female
- Large Blue - Female
- Large Blue - Female - Close Up
- Large Blue - Female
- Large Blue - Female
- Large Blue - Female
A few oddities, a Large Blue and (blurry) Small Heath...
- Large Blue (female) and Small Heath
And two sitting together, post - cop.
- Large Blue - Male (top), Large Blue - Female (bottom)
With all the egg - laying females around, having watched Dave Simcox at work, I picked up the trick of finding Large Blue eggs...
- Large Blue Ovum
- Large Blue Ovum
Finding eggs was very satisfying, but there are few feelings as satisfying as watching a butterfly that until not so long ago was extinct in Britain, fluttering over the grassy sward, in a field filled with wildflowers, in its search for thyme to bring on the next generation....brilliant.
- Large Blue - Female
- I've been lucky enough to get out to some really great places recently, and it's nice to take some of that away in the photos. There should be some Collard Hill stuff soon as I've had 4 days (another tomorrow) there helping the wardens - a fantastic experience 
