Brown Hairstreaks 9th August 2025

A casual visit to Farmoor Reservoir this morning to check on the presence and well being of the storm blown European Shag that has been there since the 5th of August, proved positive on both counts. While there I met Brian and Mark and after they got some photos of the Shag we decided to abandon the increasingly populated and windy reservoir and head for the more tranquil environs of the RSPB's Otmoor Reserve at Beckley.

Brian had not seen a Brown Hairstreak this year and was keen to rectify the matter and Otmoor is as good a place as any to see one, so a half hour drive brought us to the secluded car park at Otmoor and with not much further ado we took to the Roman Road, which is actually a narrow bridleway running down behind the car park.

Crucially it is also sheltered due to the trees, bushes and rampant high summer vegetation forming  thick, impenetrable ramparts, growing on either side of its narrow course. 

Home for Brown Hairstreaks

Although windy today you would never know it here as there is no wind disturbance whatsoever and with the increasingly sunny periods, it was warm  too and as a consequence a micro climate develops that is immensely attractive to insects of all sorts including the much desired Brown Hairstreak.

A previous solo visit a couple of weeks ago had brought the delight of no less than four Brown Hairstreaks here so hopefully this mid morning visit would be just as productive. 

From my experiences on previous visits I have a favourite short section along the bridleway that becomes a sun trap from mid morning to mid afternoon.This is where I choose to look for the hairstreaks or should I say wait for them to come down from the larger trees to nectar on the frothy white wild angelica flowers, punk purple thistle heads and any remaining blackberry flowers, or less often, to sup honeydew from ripening blackberries or the trailing green, triangular leaves of greater bindweed. 

We stood at the appointed spot but of hairstreaks there was not a sign. Visits such as this often require a long wait for one to appear although on other occasions, admittedly not often, one can be lucky and encounter that familiar ginger triangle of delight almost immediately. Today was not to be one of these.

Brian decided to walk to the end of the bridleway as the hairstreaks can literally appear anywhere.He was gone but ten minutes when a hairstreak flew down.I almost missed it, so small and inconsequential, disappearing from view into a tangle of grass and bindweed. Had I really seen one or had I imagined it? I moved closer and confirmation came as a Brown Hairstreak flew up out of the tangle and after agonisingly fluttering around looking to re-settle, the orange flashes on its brown upperwings revealing it was a female, flew higher and disappeared over the tops of the surrounding blackthorn bushes.

I was in two minds, deflated that it had not remained but excited, as I always am, to have seen one of these elusive butterflies. I called Brian to inform him and he came back to stand with us and hope the butterfly might return but of course it didn't

We waited for quite some time with no more excitement. Gatekeepers, Meadow Browns and a flashy Red Admiral were the only other butterflies we saw.

I checked an adjacent area of greater bindweed and the bright yellow daisy like heads of common fleabane that had proved productive in the past but there was to be no luck there either and eventually we decided to walk a further few hundred metres to the end of the bridleway, as a passing butterflier had told us of a sighting of one  down there feeding on a thistle.

As we did we passed the patch of bindweed and fleabane once more and from  the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a tiny orange and brown butterfly facing us, perched at eye level on a bindweed leaf. Gatekeepers can  look superficially similar to a Brown Hairstreak but this was not one.

It was a female Brown Hairstreak, unmistakeable and absolutly pristine, sunning itself with wings wide open, which is unusual but allowing me to see those two delicious crescents of rich orange on each of its brown upperwings.

I shouted to the others in the spontaneous excitement of discovery, pointing and crying out 

Look! Look! There's one!

At the very last moment here was a Brown Hairstreak and even better at eye level and in perfect condition.

For the next hour the tiny insect sunned itself, fed and fluttered around to various positions, high and low in the small area in front of us. For most of the time it behaved as they normally do, perching with wings closed revealing the lovely ginger undersurface of the wings, crossed with a wide band of darker brownish ginger and bordered by the iconic thin white lines from whence the second part of its name derives.

At other times it opened its wings to accept the heat of the sun on its furry body and we could see the full glory of the upperwings, each marked with a single splash of orange.

Eventually even we had to accept we had taken enough photos and subsequently stood back to enjoy the experience. I think maybe the hairstreak remained so long here in order to get away from the attentions of the males that reside higher up in the ash trees above. 

Brian found two Willow Emerald Damselflys, one clinging to an iris blade, the other hanging from a willow shoot. Needle thin and with gossamer net curtain wings as delicate as silk, they clung to their individual support, their metallic green bodies and diaphanous wings almost invisible to the naked eye against the surrounding vegetation.

After at least an hour another Brown Hairstreak descended  to feed on an angelica flower head right in front of us.

This latecomer proved to be a male and a rather worn and tatty individual at that with underwings mouse brown and infinitely less intensely colourful than those of the female currently clinging upside down to a blackberry further above and hidden in the shade. If only he had known!

He did not stop for long and disappeared in a spiralling tussle with a truculent Speckled Wood, the two insects careering up and over the surrounding bushes of bramble festooned blackthorn.

A lady enthusiast came down the ride and we pointed out the female hairstreak clinging to the blackberry but she pointed out that there was another one above it! So now we had seen three females and one male.

The female hairstreak remained as ever, glued to its blackberry. It had been here, unmoving for over forty five minutes and by the time I left the butterfly had been on permanent view for over two hours, a record length of a hairstreak sighting for me.

It was time to go. Reluctant as ever I departed as the sun shone down the ride and all was well in my world as I  made my way back to the car park.

The Brown Hairstreak, the last of the hairstreaks to appear and in my opinion the best of our five native hairstreak species had been well and truly discovered and enjoyed, bringing another pleasant memory to keep safe through the months ahead.