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Green Hairstreak - Favourite Photo of 2017


Week 6 - Looks like Autumn has gone and it's starting to feel proper cold...so relive the warmth of the spring/summer while you select your Favourite photos.

Please could I ask that everyone waits until a topic has been opened by me for a particular species before posting photos? Of course our overseas members are very welcome to fill in the obvious gaps relating to rare UK migrants. As like last year 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

I'll kick off with a nice fresh individual photographed on 25th March in North Italy:



Guy

My favourite has to be the individual I spotted egg-laying in the main (north of the railway) part of Bedfont Lakes Country Park back on 18th May. I had not observed this behaviour before, and as numbers here are very small it was a double bonus. As I mentioned at the time, I hadn't realised the eggs were so green!

Dave

This photo is little more than a 'place holder'; it is one of only two of this species that I took on a sunny day at Aston Rowant NNR in the lull between Spring and Summer species. The only butterfly species present in any abundance was the Small Heath and there were also several small green Cistus Forester (Adscita geryon) moths skimming low over the short grass on Beacon Hill.

The Green Hairstreak was a chance, and rather fleeting, encounter and was not staying around to pose for photographs. My snapshot does, however, reveal the iridescent colours that appear when the sun catches the wings at an appropriate angle:
Mike

My only meeting with the Green Hair Streak was at Gait Barrow on the 10th of May, it was a chance meeting, we went to the place where for the last few years we'd seen them and found nothing, we were on our way back from filming the Duke when we saw this
one on the ground ,a few people were also filming so we waited and waited but they weren't for moving so I'd to take a distance shot because we wanted to move on, ( I was still looking for PBF) and thought I'd see the HS again but may be not the PBF, as it turned out I didn't see the HS again and didn't find the PBF either So I'm glad I got this glimpse of the HS. Goldie

This year in the south of France, my earliest Green Hairstreak sighting was March 3rd.
The 'hairstreak' is very faint. Chris

I didn't see many Green Hairstreaks this year but I stumbled across this nice one whilst searching for Dukes at Totternhoe in the second week of May.

I had a few good encounters with these this past season. I like these two, taken at the reliable Denbies colony, as they show how different they look under cloudy (matt) and sunny (sparkly) conditions This third one made it here since it represents a new colony for me I discovered on the way back from a Duke hunting expedition. Hopefully equally as reliable as the Denbies, there were certainly good numbers around

Very few Green Hairstreaks for me this season ,probably only around ten in all,took this shot at a small Duke site near Crundale ,(Kent) ,I,d just made a slight detour ,to see how the Lady Orchids were doing ,and this beauty caught my eye .
Regards Allan.W.

Green Hairstreak

This was taken during mid May at my Duke site. I spent a fair amount of time searching for the Duke with no success but instead there were Greenstreaks absolutely everywhere. So many in fact I think I might need to change the name of my site!

It was a fantastic Greenstreak day and I encountered them on a Cypress tree, Hawthorn, Gorse, some were low down in the grass, one was holding a territory and another was egg laying. There were one spots and two spots and inferopunctata and punctata but the crowning glory were the collective feeding on Bluebells at the top of the hill. This one was my favourite as not only was in amongst the group and the Bluebells but it was a stand-out individual; in some lights it appeared a golden brown and at other times it was a browny-olive colour so much so that perhaps it should also have been renamed as an Khaki Hairstreak!
Have a goodun

Wurzel

The only Green Hairstreaks that I saw in 2017 were at Ryton Wood Meadows when I saw good numbers flitting about around the usual 'hotspot' on a visit in early May.
Finding one on a bluebell is always a bonus
Cheers,

Neil.

Didn't see too many Green Hairstreaks locally this year mainly due to the weather.

This one was probably the most memorable, providing a nice contrast on the yellow gorse flowers at Welshmoor on the Gower on 1st May: