White Hill Reserve and Fackenden Down

Too cold and breezy for butterflies today, but some nice flowers!

It has been a particularly good year for Cowslips at White Hill - because of the dry conditions or the earlier mild winter perhaps?

Grizzled Skipper at White Hill

While I was photographing a Peacock Butterfly, Aglais io, in the middle of his territory, it flew off and was almost immediately replaced by a rather nice Grizzled Skipper, Pyrgus malvae, which somewhat amazingly I recognised!

Here are a few photos of it nectaring on Wild Strawberry, Fragaria vesca, a little cropped, but a nice fresh specimen.

This species is decreasing, and this is the first individual I have seen for certain. Its abdomen looks like that of a male.

The males bask, chasing rivals in fierce dogfights, and are more commonly seen than the females. However, the females can sometimes also be spotted fluttering about, investigating possible egg-laying sites.

The small bun-shaped eggs are laid on Rosaceous plants such as Wild Strawberry, Agrimony or Creeping Cinquefoil among others. They take 10 days to hatch and the first stages feed around the edges of a silken shelter, then fold leaf edges over to make tents of increasing size. Warm wet weather in July tends to correlate with better emergence the following year.  The pretty chrysalis is found at ground level in silk webbings, most overwintering over 9 months, in warm springs a very few forming a second generation in August.

Preferred habitat is a mosaic of short vegetation, bare ground and taller plants, on land such as chalk, rough ground, railway cuttings and unshaded woodland glades and rides. Now rare north of the Cotswolds and Chilterns. 

Dingy Downs

A nice Dingy Skipper, Erynnis tages, on Fackenden Down - I wish I'd found my own, but very gratefully received anyway! This is a butterfly in trouble nationally, and I've only seen a very few, and only singles at any one time. It might be worth repeated visits to try to hit the peak.

Its not at all bad patterning when you get up close. I like the abdominal edging and the antennal stripes. This one might be a male (left hand forewing):

Its quite a hairy butterfly on the underside - I wonder if that helps it to collect warmth from the ground?

And this is a slightly better view of the underside of the wing:

This species lives in fairly small colonies, say of 50 adults at peak flight time, and is relatively sedentary, a few individuals flying perhaps a few km from the original colony. Meta-populations may not remain very effectively linked as habitats become increasingly fragmented and distant. The species is a priority species on the UK Biodiversity Action Plan.

Common Bird’s-foot-trefoil Lotus corniculatus is the usual foodplant in all habitats. Horseshoe Vetch Hippocrepis comosa is also used on calcareous soils, and Greater Bird’s-foot-trefoil L. pedunculatus
is used on heavier soils.

Eggs are laid singly on young leaves of the foodplants and females choose the longest shoots of large plants growing in sheltered situations. The larvae hide in tents formed by spinning the leaves of the foodplant together and feed through the summer months. When fully grown, each larva spins more leaves together to form a hibernaculum in which to spend the winter. Pupation occurs the following spring in the hibernaculum, without further feeding.


It was great to see the cowslips, Primula veris, out

The dark blue of the Germander Speedwell, Veronica chamaedrys

White Hill Reserve

Trying out the camera settings when I climbed the hill to the reserve, I caught this honey bee on a Devil's Bit Scabious, Succisa pratensis.

I think this might be Common Rock-rose, Helianthemum nummularium, and something has been nibbling the edges of some of the leaves. There is a Brown Argus adult to the bottom right, but i don't think the damage is entirely typical of the Brown Argus caterpillar - but maybe its not too far off.

The Dogwood, Cornus sanguinea, was in full berry.

And the yew arils are coloured up as well:

There were a fair number of Carline Thistle, Carlina vulgaris, on the shallower soils at the top of the slope.

and I think this a Dwarf Thistle, Cirsium acaule - amazing tubular structure of the individual florets.

and quite a few possibly different "hawks" in flower, possibly different members of the Asteraceae.

One of the Guelder Rose plants was colouring up very well indeed!

There were fair numbers of Chalkhill Blues, Polyommatus coridon, on the reserve today, perhaps more up the hill than at the bottom. Here was a female that looked as though it was exploring laying an egg.

This is another female, settled on a fairly bare patch of chalk at the top of the hill, and in slightly better condition:

These quite bare patches are really interesting. If you look at the top photo above, you can seen a grey thallose lichen below the butterfly.

And here is a tough moss, partly dessicated, in the section below the nibbled plant.

This is another female with the fringes very much worn away, but otherwise I think recognizeable. The only really worrying thing is that I cannot see a white streak on the v4 of the rear underwing, so I cannot be sure that it is not a Common Blue:

This is a male Chalkhill Blue,

This is another male Chalkhill Blue:

and another:

and a close-up of another head:

Here on the other hand is apparently a worn but originally very blue form of the female Common Blue, Polyommatus icarus.

This is a suspected female, but definitely a Brown Argus from the rear underwing pattern of spots.


This is another Brown Argus, this time possibly a male:

I also came across this vicious looking Robber Fly:

White Hill

Wonderful Chalkhill Blue butterflies, and great flowers