My Kind of Burgundy 10th May 2018

May is always a glorious month, despite the weather not always co operating, but for once the recent Bank Holiday heat wave has brought everything to an ultimate perfection of fresh and rejuvenated life.

The almost constant sunshine has stimulated many butterflies to take wing and the woodsides and hedgerows are alive with the paper thin, white flutterings of Orange Tips, one of the earliest of our native butterflies to be flying and which seem to be having a good year. I have also seen Brimstones, Small Tortoiseshells, Holly Blues, Peacocks and Large Whites out and about, busying to complete the cycle of their short lives.

Today, however, I was seeking a much scarcer butterfly, rare even, which I have only seen once before in Britain. The insect in question was the Duke of Burgundy which has declined rapidly and is now very much endangered with only around two hundred small colonies surviving in small reserves that have the right habitat, especially created for its needs. Late April and the beginning of May is when 'The Duke' flies, reaching a peak towards the end of May.They are gone by the middle of June.

Its requirements are grassland sites on sheltered, north facing, chalk downland slopes with a profusion of its preferred foodplant, Cowslips, on which to lay their eggs and the larvae to feed on. Just such a site is Noar Hill in Hampshire, virtually at the western extremity of the South Downs and which is now managed by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust and is famous for its wild orchids, over twelve different species are to be found here, and for its thirty five species of butterfly of which by far the rarest are 'The Dukes'. 

Today, Peter and myself made a southward journey to Noar Hill which is near the village of Selborne, forever sacred to any naturalist's heart due to it being the ancestral home of Gilbert White, a Parson/Naturalist who is regarded as England's first ecologist and who, to a great extent, influenced public opinion towards a respect for nature. His book The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, published in 1795, has never been out of print, is regarded as a classic of its kind and remains relevant to this day. 

The reserve at Noar Hill is the site of former mediaeval chalk excavations and the workings, in the form of hollows in the rising hillside, are obvious to one and all but now carpeted, at this time of year, with Cowslips in magnificent abundance.

It was a beautiful Spring day of sunshine as we drove south but with a brisk and rather chilly southwest wind to keep us on our toes once we left the car and walked up the slight incline to the reserve itself, meeting a work party attending to the entrance gate.

After passing into the reserve we followed a track into one of the many sheltered hollows formed by the excavations and immediately a brown butterfly flew from our advance and there was our first Duke of Burgundy. 

The hollow where we got our first sighting of 'The Duke'

They are small and superficially insignificant but on settling the intricate beauty  of the orange chequering on their upperwings can be appreciated. Remarkably for such an  insect it is the only European representative of a much more tropical group of butterflies found mainly in Central America. 

They do not fly far and usually return near to where they have been disturbed, landing on a blade of grass, flower head or leaf to settle down and open their wings to the sun, turning so they get the full warming effect of the sun's rays.The majority are males and they wait to intercept a passing female or, more often, to tussle with another male, spiralling up in a brief whirling of aggression, before separating and flying back to their respective perches.

We spent a good time wandering from hollow to hollow, calling out to each other as we discovered another 'Duke'. I noticed that there was quite a bit of variation in the colouring on their upperwings with the majority being a rich dark brown overlaid with the orange chequered marks on their forewings but some were paler and were chequered buff. It was almost impossible to see the beautiful patterning of two parallel bands of white squares on their underwings, as all without exception were inclined to hold their wings wide open to the sun.Who could blame them?

This individual had much paler chequering than the others I saw
Compare it with the image below

Their lives are very short, no more than a week but their irrepressible liveliness and innate charm is all the more appealing because of this and makes one want to spend as much time as possible with them, as soon it will all be over for another year.

The only view I got of a Duke with its wings partially closed

The colonies of this tiny butterfly are said to be small, just thirty to forty individuals in any one colony, living close to each other but not all individuals fly on the same day. There are a couple of colonies where over a thousand can be found but this is exceptional. Sometimes the colonies are only in single figures but wandering around Noar Hill we found up to thirty present, not all together but scattered in small groups of twos and threes in each sheltered hollow we examined. Cowslips were everywhere in this carefully managed reserve, their yellow heads nodding and slender stems bending as they were buffeted by the gusting wind. The cerise pink spikes of Early Purple Orchids added an exotic touch of colour and violets peeked shyly from the grass.

A very pleasant morning indeed and it was good to be back on The South Downs once more.