Pages

▼

Monday, 5 May 2014

Green Hairstreak - Big Moor

Met James mid-morning and went across to Big Moor where I finally caught up with Whinchat, a singing male. We also had a couple of Green Hairstreak butterflies which were our first for the year. The Green Hairstreak occupies widely varying habitats; we were on grassland with last years bracken, I can only assume there is Rock-rose or maybe Bird's-foot-trefoil in the area as I couldn't see any other food plants. Very different habitat to the Buckthorn scrub where it is found in the dales.
We had one Common Lizard which I would have loved to photograph it was the same colour  as the hairstreaks.

Green Hairstreak
at

5 comments:

  1. Unknown5 May 2014 at 17:03

    Looks like you had a good day Andy, the Hare and Warbler shots are top notch, we might have passed at some point I was out and about early today, and had a bit of a foray onto big moor, I had my first sighting of a Polecat, it took me a while to realise what it was, never seen one before in Derbyshire, to be honest I didn't know we had them, it ran across the road in front of the car and set a pheasant up, before disappearing over the wall, I grabbed the camera but it had disappeared into the bracken mounds :-(

    ReplyDelete
  2. Andy Butler5 May 2014 at 18:06

    That's interesting Ian. According to The Mammals of Derbyshire records have been increasing with around 8-20 records per year since 2003. I have never seen one or met anyone who has. Where were you at the time?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown5 May 2014 at 19:12

    I did a circuit of Unthank Lane then onto Fox Lane Andy, just to see if any Skylarks or Curlews were about in the meadows on Unthank Lane, the Polecat came out not far before I was at Shillito Woods car park on Fox Lane, it ran from a double gate on the left same side as the car park and across the road, there is a small footpath gate opposite the car park, it would be about 40 yards to the right of that (looking from car park), it was a good clear sighting no mistaking it, the time would be about 6.30 - 7.0am never thought to check my clock, same as I said Andy I didn't realise we got them until now :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Andy Butler5 May 2014 at 21:31

    Certainly an interesting record Ian. I'll mention it to some of the guys who cover that area regularly and see if there are any other reports.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Unknown6 May 2014 at 09:55

    Cheers Andy, let me know if you get any feedback it would be interesting :-)

    ReplyDelete