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White-letter Hairstreak - Favourite Photo of 2022

Week 19

The Penultimate week and the 2023 butterflies are already flying – it could be that someone already has a Favourite for next season in the bank!

Please could I ask that everyone waits until a topic has been opened by me for a particular species before posting photos as then it will be easier to keep track of things? Of course our overseas members are very welcome to fill in the obvious gaps relating to rare UK migrants. As in previous years details of locations, dates, times and circumstances would be welcome as would any accompanying stories and anecdotes or other observations of behaviour and interesting other points.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

The distraction a hungry bird might see

I love their red warning taillights, Paul...

I made my usual trip to Hadleigh Country Park for this species, and as often happens picked a very warm and sunny day which made getting non-silhouette shots a bit tricky. Dave

The only example I saw this year - Asham Wood, Somerset, 31 July 2022.

Despite at long last the WLH finally adapting our butterfly garden as part of their local domain, I missed their main emergence (being on holiday after the High Brown!) but did manage this rather different shot of one nectaring from globe thistle.

This caterpillar, photographed on 11th May, perfectly mimicked the unfurling elm leaf he was sitting on:



One of the great joys of my recent four years in Woodbridge were the white-letter hairstreaks in the centre of town, a couple of minutes from my house. I'm sure they weren't there in my youth. During those four years, I would hunt for the caterpillars by night, by UV, and then sometimes (as in the above photo) look for the same caterpillars by day. At night, they fed. In the day, they rested up.

Guy

The only White-letter Hairstreak that I saw low down in 2022 and the first one that I have seen low enough to photograph for a few years, was a rather worn but still pleasant surprise example seen at Warton Crag when we stopped off there on our way to Arnside on the last day of July.
Cheers,

Neil

Padfield wrote: ↑Tue Feb 21, 2023 8:08 pmThis caterpillar, photographed on 11th May, perfectly mimicked the unfurling elm leaf he was sitting on...

Perfect mimickry indeed, Guy. Sometimes, one is just left in wonderment by what nature is capable of.

White-letter Hairstreak

My Favourite shot for this species came from Alners Gorse during the ‘July Bake’. I’d completed a tour of the site including the Banks and the day list had some great stuff on it – White Admirals, Silver-washed by the bucket load including a brace of Valesina, a few silvery Purple Hairstreaks flittering up high and a fly-by of an Emperor. I still felt a little early for the Brostreaks here and so I sought some shade and waited in the little field in the corner. While I was there I scanned about and walked up and down the wall of Bramble looking for a little grey shark fin that would hopefully become a Whitter.

I’d had a few fly-bys which I was fairly sure were Whitters but they were all at the back and top of the hedge so in need of hydration I retired to the shade and poured a coffee. While I waited a few other people passed by and one couple asked what I watching out for. “A White-letter Hairstreak” I said and almost on queue I spotted on flutter down and land on the head of a Creeping Thistle in the middle of the field. It was almost bombproof and another reason I chose it was that it did a little wing rolling revealing a hint of the topside.
Have a goodun

Wurzel

This individual from north Greece was the only one I got close to last year:

The first photo is a bit special as it was taken on my first ever visit to Alners Gorse where I saw three Hairstreak species during the day.
The second photo because it was taken just 3 minutes from where I live. Sandridge Common, Melksham, Wiltshire