A gloriously sunny day saw us at Bishops Itchington in Warwickshire at the site of a former Limestone quarry working. The area now being conserved as a community green-space and nature reserve has as a result of it's former life become a Calcareous grassland and supports flora such as the Kidney vetch which is what makes it the ideal place to find the Small Blue Cupido minimus.
The Small Blue is Britain's smallest resident butterfly and because of its diminutive size and it's habitat choice is often overlooked. As a result of it's choice of Kidney Vetch as it's sole food plant (The larvae live only in the flower heads where they feed on developing anthers and seed )and the habitat required it is a rare and declining butterfly in Britain and as such carries a high conservation status.
However when you have the Warwickshire county moth recorder with you you can pretty much be sure he knows where and when to go to 'guarantee' seeing them. We were not disappointed, and although we only saw two of them during the visit it was within the first ten minutes that we had or first sighting. However you soon realise how easy they are to miss when they are down amongst the vegetation due to their small size and very pale colour when they are at rest with wings closed as pictured below. In flight they live up to their name with a blue dusting on their upper wings which unfortunately I couldn't get a photograph of.
The two were the only ones we saw on the day and other Lepidoptera started to catch our eye with Brimstone, Green-veined white, Orange tip, Holly blue, Small Heath, Treble bar moth and Green carpet moth, Dingy skipper, Grizzled skipper and Mother shipton being seen. Mother Shipton (pictured below) getting it's name from the very distinctive crooked nosed witch shaped markings on its upper wings, the name Mother Shipton alluding to the famous 17th Century witch. Green hairstreak was the other target species for the day along with Small blue, however unlike the latter the Green hairstreak totally eluded us.
The only other species to stay still enough for long enough on the day to snap a photograph was a Dingy skipper and this time in a place that was more accessible to get to try and photograph.
A planned trip to Shropshire later in the week didn't quite turn out as planned with the M5 suffering from some serious issues which meant turning the car around and heading back for a quick visit to Chaddersley Woods on what was an extremely warm day.
Half term and sunny days have brought everyone out onto the country park and with it the heathland fires quite often caused deliberately or by illegal cooking on the hills which has the consequence that the staff have to attend the fire with the bowser to dowse what are potentially very dangerous situations. The other side of lots of public is the human condition that it seems to have to leave a trail of detritus everywhere it goes. How people sit there amongst the discarded carrier bags, drinks cans, food wrappings and used nappies, yes you read that right, used nappies is way beyond me. Litter picking is a fruitless and thankless task as within a couple of hours it looks like you haven't litter picked in the first place. I bet people even say 'isn't it lovely here on the hills and under the trees' as they sit amongst the trash and then add their own small or sometimes not so small contribution. However this isn't every minute of the day, just more than you would ideally want and I did get out with another ranger to carry out some flora surveys on another gloriously sunny day with nothing but peace and quiet a bottle of water and a wild flower key. There weren't any Small blue unsuprisingly but there were plenty of Common blue to keep me company (photo to right).
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