Since at least 2015 Long tailed Blue butterflies have been seen at a particular location near to Brighton Racecourse in the fair county of Sussex. It is not a large area they frequent, in fact it is quite small, comprising a meadow that you could almost call rough ground with scattered patches of Everlasting Pea growing amongst the coarse grass and which is the main larval food plant of the butterfly,.
 |
| A patch of Everlasting Pea |
The meadow lies at almost the highest point on the Brighton Downs and is bordered by roads and housing on all sides, an area of allotments, a huge radio mast and transmission station and the nearby racecourse.
I noticed that six Long tailed Blues had been recorded from here in the last two days, so I called Peter, who is a fellow but more knowledgeable butterfly enthusiast and asked if he wanted to accompany me on a foray to my former Sussex haunts. For me it would be a pleasurable trip back to Sussex and the South Downs, both of which hold so many happy memories.
I collected Peter at 8.30am and we made good time, leaving a cloudy and dull Oxfordshire and driving two hours later into patchy sunshine as we approached the South Coast.The satnav did its job and guided us through the maze like streets of Brighton and we found our destination, Whitehawk Hill Road with little bother. Parking on the other hand was another matter. All the roads were signed 'permit only' so in the end we drove a little further and found free parking at the back of the Brighton Racecourse Grandstand. A short walk brought us to the meadow but the butterfly enthusiasts we hoped to encounter and give us a pointer to the exact location of the Long tailed Blues in the meadow, were absent.
Now for a little background about Long tailed Blues and how they came to be here in this unlikely corner of Sussex.
Long tailed Blues are native to southern Europe, and around the Mediterranean they breed continuously throughout the year and are highly successful. They are migratory and appropriately the first two ever recorded in Britain were near Brighton in 1859. Few were recorded from then until 1945 when 38 were recorded visiting southern England but in 2013 there was a major irruption in early August and they were found in nine English southern counties, ranging from Devon to Kent and managed to breed in England for the first time. Sussex, which has always been a traditional hotspot, recorded a minimum of 65 adults and breeding was confirmed from no less than fifteen locations. There was another influx in 2015 when they reached as far inland as Surrey.
However they are unable to survive our winters, well up to now at any rate but continuing global warming may change matters. Currently those seen here in early summer are annual immigrants while those seen later in the year are the progeny of eggs laid by those immigrants which hatch and result in small numbers of this lovely butterfly flying in southern coastal counties of England from August through to October.
We walked up a track by the meadow to reach the mast, which was the given location of sightings from the last two days and a couple of ladies walking their dogs recognised what we were about and indicated two gents we had not seen, crouching and pointing cameras into the grass on the other side of a small area of bushes to our left.This was obviously the spot, so thanking them we made haste and joined the two enthusiasts who were now peering at the pink flowers of Everlasting Pea, on one of which sat a Long tailed Blue, clinging on for dear life as a strong gust of wind shook the flower.
It really was as simple as that and a great relief to me, for last year I drove all the way here and failed to find a single Long tailed Blue even though they had been seen the day before. One of the enthusiasts, a local man called Trevor who seemed to know all about them, stood back and motioned to us to come closer and we took our photos. Unfortunately the butterfly, a male, was rather worn, with one of its thread like tails missing and its wings hardly blue at all when opened but faded to a dull brown.This did not matter at this precise moment as, faded or not, it was indisputably a Long tailed Blue, a new species in Britain for me and indeed Peter. Now the focus was to find a fresh male with two intact tails which Trevor told us he had already seen this morning. The 'tails' are in fact thin wispy appendages, one at the bottom of each hindwing, that freely blow in the wind and are quite hard to see.
 |
| The faded male Long tailed Blue |
We stood around waiting and were joined by another couple from Norfolk, which made six of us, and inevitably when the faded blue settled there was a bit of a scrum as everyone homed in on the insect. Social distancing seemed to be forgotten and the usual lepidopterist etiquette of waiting your turn to photograph the butterfly was distinctly absent.This was undoubtedly due to the fact that the blue often remained static for only a very short period and everyone got twitchy about missing their opportunity to get their photo before it flew off.
Un-necessary really, as there was sure to be regular appearances of the butterflies and ample opportunity for everyone to get all the images they required.
The faded male was the only Long tailed Blue in evidence for quite some time but eventually, in a period of welcome sunshine, a pristine male arrived. This was more like it, as it settled and opened its wings to reveal uppersides of violet blue and a tail at the bottom of each hindwing with an adjacent black spot. What a beauty. As if this was not enough, when it closed its wings, the undersides were the colour of milky coffee liberally crossed with wavy lines of slightly darker brown and a broad white band also crossing the closed lower wings. An utterly distinctive pattern from any other underwing of our native blue butterflies.
 |
| The pristine male Long tailed Blue.Note the wispy tails at the bottom of the hindwings |
This male stopped long enough to grant a photo or two for all of us before it was off in a fast and jerky flight, more reminiscent of a hairstreak than a blue. Then it was a case of waiting for this male or the faded one to make a re-appearance, which they did fairly regularly, flying fast and low and not that easy to follow. Often the two males would be sparring together, flying up into the air and usually disappearing at speed into the adjacent allotments or down the hedgerow of brambles by the allotments. Eventually though one would return to settle on a pea flower or grass head.
 |
| The two male Long tailed Blues we saw. One faded and one pristine |
The meadow was well endowed with Everlasting Pea but the small sheltered area where we stood was exclusively favoured by the blues and we saw them nowhere else in the meadow despite searching and finding plenty of Everlasting Pea. Maybe the strong breeze blowing over the meadow was a factor.
More enthusiasts arrived but we were no more than nine or ten in number. Even so, for that number of people to crowd round one tiny butterfly was a struggle and in the end I had enough photos to feel satisfied and so stood back and watched as the others went about chasing after a blue when and wherever it settled.
I was very pleased to have at last seen this butterfly but distinctly underwhelmed by the fact that there was such a scrum whenever a blue appeared, which they did fairly regularly in the two hours we were there. It's a sign of the times that whenever one of us found a Long tailed Blue it was impossible to watch it without accepting the too close presence of the rest, as everyone naturally gravitated to the latest sighting.
At just after noon Peter and myself mutually decided we had sufficient of the Long tailed Blues. We had seen by our calculation three males although Trevor told us he reckoned he had seen twenty males and females yesterday when it was sunnier. The constant chasing around after the blues in such a small area was trampling the grass badly and I was getting concerned, so we walked away satisfied with what was probably our last butterfly expedition for this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment