In search of the Green Hairstreak!

These days I find myself often going out to wild places with a particular mission in mind. Today, my mission was to track down a relatively elusive butterfly- the Green Hairstreak.

A few years ago I went birdwatching with some friends of mine and I was thoroughly impressed with their knowledge of butterflies and decided that I should learn more about them. Last year I began to take this new pursuit more seriously and tried to see and photograph as many of Norfolk's butterflies as I could. As a result I saw 28 species out of the 38 species that can be found here! Isn't that great?

This year I thought I might try and track down the last 10, although some may be significantly trickier to find than others.

I knew the Green Hairstreaks had been seen near where I live on Mousehold heath a few years ago but I was not sure if they still occurred there as they are one of the species that seems to be in constant decline around the country. I did my research and read the best place to find them is on the edges of their breeding sites which I assumed would be the woodland edges of the heathland.

I set of with my camera in the early afternoon to go hunting and concentrated my search on the 3 relatively small patches of heath. It was not long before I got my first glimpse of one of these beautiful green butterflies. I was surprised to find one so quickly and followed it for a minute. I managed to get the ID shot and a reasonable image of the insect on some oak leaves.

Further on in the next clearing I had stopped to investigate some strange sounds which turned out to be little shrews rummaging around in the heather and just when I was trying to take a picture of one I noticed a second hairstreak! This one seemed much tamer and I followed it for a few minutes and I managed to get a good shot with my 300mm lens. A bit further on it allowed me to get close enough to switch to my macro lens and I got the lovely image at the top.

These are Britain's only truly green butterflies and they live in small self contained colonies throughout the country. Their caterpillars have the most varied range of food plants of any British species and when they turn into a chrysalis they are capable of making strange sounds to deter predators.

I own an excellent book called the 'Butterflies of Britain and Ireland' by Jeremy Thomas and Richard Lewington where I get much of my information from and which I regularly consult. If you are an aspiring naturalist in this country it is the main book I would recommend!