Thanks
Wurzel, hope you find some Meadow Brown abs in your back catalogue. From what I've seen this year it would seem they're relatively common
August 2020
Saturday 8th. After the no show at Ashtead I decided to return to Bookham for more Brown Hairstreak action. It had even more to live up to today, not only to make up for the poor previous day but also this was the day I’d planned to visit Shipton Bellinger until those plans fell through a few days previously.
There was significantly more cloud cover than the previous day but it was still going to be uncomfortably warm and muggy so I had no plans to stay all day. Arriving at around 9.30 I saw very little save a few Meadow Brown and Gatekeeper, most of which were ignored for once this year. I couldn’t resist a Common Blue on some Fleabane though.
An hour after arriving I came across the first of the targets, a male (it would seem to be all males this year). This one seemed so obsessed over the Thistle that he proved to be almost undisturbable (not sure that’s actually a word).
5 minutes after finding him, and nearly a hundred pictures of every conceivable angle, I left him to see if I could locate some more, returning an hour later empty handed to find he hadn’t moved from his flower, it’s almost as if after generations of licking up Aphid bum juice they’ve suddenly discovered nectar this year!
He was there for at least another 20 minutes when I left him for a second time to go looking for more, this time coming up trumps. Just a short way from him I noticed a sandy shark fin sat on top of some Hogweed. This one was a particularly tatty individual so after a few snaps I moved on a bit more and saw another. A few steps closer and I noticed a second on the same flowerhead then a little closer I saw a third on a neighbouring Hogweed. I wasn’t able to get all three in shot at once with my camera but my phone came to the rescue.
The third one fluttered off after a while but the other two were as equally as bomb proof as the first one I’d found, the only disturbance that really seemed to bother them was when a hornet came nosing around, which I think is a fair enough reason to be disturbed.
Looking at the pictures on the way home I noticed one of them was, you’ve guessed it, an ab!
uncilinea, where the inner white streak on the hindwing curls back on itself to form a hook.
Whilst taking these pictures the first female of the day turned up nearby bringing my running total to six.
1pm came and went and gradually the Hairstreaks vanished back to the tree-tops so I began a slow meandering walk back to the station, not getting very far when I noticed a female fluttering around some mint with a few Gatekeepers. Seven in a day is pretty good going by anyone’s standards.
Reaching the station I still had a bit of time to kill, enough time to go for another little wander, a Brimstone stopped briefly and nearby I found Hairstreak number eight, another male obsessed with a thistle flowerhead.
There was another male a bit further along sat on Hogweed who didn’t really settle for me and then just returning back to the station I found a couple taking a picture of something in the hedge. The lady showed me the picture on her phone, a freshly minted female Hairstreak. All I saw of her in the flesh though was her rear end vanishing over the hedge. Still, a grand total of ten in one day (including an ab) was way more than I was expecting and ample compensation for the cancelled trip to Shipton
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
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