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Today at Tugley Wood (Botany Bay) I found something even rarer than a Purple Emperor on the ground - a Purple Hairstreak on the ground! I think it was freshly emerged, it was sitting very quietly on the path with its wings open. After a while I helped it up on to a piece of fern, because I was worried that someone might step on it! When I returned to the spot 4 hours later it had gone, probably up into the oak tree immediately above.
I then saw a Purple Emperor on the ground 5 minutes later

Cheers
John

And a male as well

Absolutely stunning photos John, and what a brilliant find It was nice chatting to you yesterday. I hope you are pleased with your PE and PL shots also. Looking forward to seeing some of them.

Great find and photos, John!

I agree it is rarer than a purple emperor on the ground ..... four years on since i got mine. remarkably similar dont you think

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Phil

Cracking photo John, Goldie M

It's great to be able to look at images of this species properly, rather than peering up into a tree with binoculars. It's also interesting to see how both examples (Philzoid and John W) are on what looks like dampish gravel - presumably imbibing salts soon after emergence. It would be interesting to know the time of day, so that one could maximise the chances of seeing a similar spectacle

MikeOxon wrote: It would be interesting to know the time of day, so that one could maximise the chances of seeing a similar spectacle

The one I got wasn't found by me and it caused quite a stir among the butterfliers who'd turned up for Emperors. I think it was discovered around 10:00 in the morning but may have been there some time before then. It looked a perfect example but somewhat moribund showing very little inclination to move about . It remained more or less in the same spot for the next three hours making it easy for people to get their pictures. Eventually it was moved off the path onto some herbage to avoid it being trampled.

I have encountered a far livelier example albeit closed wing, imbibing salts off the gravel paths at a garden centre. Also they do come down occasionally to nectar (bramble flowers) on hot days but on the whole you are most likely to see them high up flitting around branches and leaves of oak trees.

MikeOxon wrote:It would be interesting to know the time of day, so that one could maximise the chances of seeing a similar spectacle

I saw mine at 11.36am. I'm sure it had been there a while though. As Phil observed, it was very torpid, I actually thought it was dead at first.

Pauline wrote:Absolutely stunning photos John, and what a brilliant find It was nice chatting to you yesterday. I hope you are pleased with your PE and PL shots also. Looking forward to seeing some of them.

Hi Pauline, it was nice to meet you too. Here is the Emperor that I saw (3 minutes after leaving the Purple Hairstreak, I wonder if that's a record?). And one of the Painted Lady that we both saw. Did you get that underside shot?
Cheers
John

An open-winged, grounded, fresh male Purple Hairstreak is definitely rarer than His Nibbs in similar pose!

Great spot.

Interesting observation.

The first ever Purple Hairstreak I ever saw was one which settled on the ground. It was a female in Epping Forest and had fluttered down from the Oaks above and settled close to my feet. We were near the Royal Forest Hotel on the outskirts of Chingford in East London which back then, was much more rural than it is now. I was a small boy then and it was not long after WWII had ended. Family treat visits to the countryside like these were rare in immediate post war relatively impoverished UK for many families living in East London back then. Later that fabulous summer's day, another unforgettable sight. My first ever Holly Blue although I did not know exactly what it was then. Never had a reference book not even the 2/6d ( 12.5 pence today ) Observers' Book of British Butterflies.... I did get one of those fine little books a few years later in the early 1950s. That Holly Blue settled on the dark green glossy leaves of Ivy which was growing all over a three metre high dead tree stump. What a vision with that beautiful Blue Underside compared against the dark glossy Ivy leaves.

In my East London Garden we sometimes saw Wall Browns, Large and Small skippers, Common Blues and the larger Vanessids on my father's dahlias... Yes, it was far more rural back then and those distant images of beautiful butterflies are still vivid in my mind's eye and no doubt sewed the seeds of a lifelong interest in Nature and Natural things. Oh yes, on the leaves of the massive English Elm ( remember them ) which grew at the bottom of our garden was a very distinctive larva. Had no idea what that was back then. I know now ... They were a Comma Larvae. In that same garden, a completely black ( melanistic? ) adult Garden Tiger Moth... again had no idea what that was but do now...

I have a long standing friendship with someone who lives in that area only five minutes walk from that Hotel. I visited him a couple of months ago. Previously, his son arranged a "secret" 70th birthday party for him a few years back. The son casually mentioned to his father about going out for a curry on his birthday as a treat that evening. The two of them arrived at the Hotel to be greeted by fifty friends and relatives where his son had arranged a surprise party. Great time had by all and as I walked back to the car later, I looked across at the area where many moons before, little me had those unforgettable first butterfly sightings.

Great days gorn forever ... as we used to say down the East End...

I've had Purple Hairstreak in a moth trap on Inchcailloch in Loch Lomond - quite surprised me at the time (although I knew that they were present on the island)!