Alners Gorse
It is slightly ironic that the first site that I write about was actually the last site that I visited. Alners Gorse is a Butterfly Conservation Reserve and it is comprised of 14 hectares of scrubby grassland with veteran Oaks. It is a remnant of one of the old Blackmore Vale commons. The grassland is being restored to encourage Marsh Fritillary but I was there for the Hairstreaks. I am aware that this site houses three, possibly four, hairstreaks but my visit in mid August proved to be too late for White Letter, although I did manage to see two species.
Having arrived I wandered down the approach path and right in front on me at the bottom of the hill was a large bramble bush at which I took a left along a large hedgerow. I then spent a couple of hours doing laps from the gate at one end, along the hedgerow to this bramble bush and back. It did pay off as I managed to find both male (very worn by now) and female (much fresher and brighter) Brown Hairstreaks.
Highlights included a very worn old male missing his "tails", another male that flashed the upper side of his wings - a very unusual sight, a lovely open winged female sunning herself and another female that was trying to hide behind some Sloes! Usually I'd expect them on the brambles where their colourings helps them blend in, but today they seemed to prefer the thistles; the contrast of purple and orange made for much easier viewing and they were relatively easy to find.
Having seen my target species I took to further exploration. Amongst the hedgerow edged pathways was a small area with conifers and rough almost heath like scrub. Here I found a surprising array of butterflies. Amongst the expected Meadow Brown, various whites and Gatekeepers were a few Small Heath as well as what seemed like several pairs of Common Blues. There were also
Nymphalids here with Small Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral and Peacock all looking stunning in the midday sun. A Brimstone added yellow to the to the colour wheel and on my way back to the original hedge where I'd found the Brown Hairstreak a single, aged Purple Hairstreak completed my rainbow of butterflies.
It was then that I saw something out of place. It was far too yellow to be a Brimstone and had black edges to the wings? I was stunned, "surely not" I said - but it was, a Clouded Yellow. Now some years there are thousands of these visiting us from the continent, but this year wasn't one of those years so I could not believe my luck. I let it settle and it was happy for me to click away for what felt like half an hour. Having got about 100 plus shots I left it still in the same place, still marvelling at the strange "eye" on the underside, the canary colour and the peach legs; which it is thought act as camouflage protecting it from Crab Spiders when it nectars .
So that was Alners Gorse then - perhaps I'd saved the best until last?
Have a goodun
Wurzel
