Local Lepidoptera - 24th July 2011

Sunday morning started off with glorious sunshine in my garden. This brought a couple of butterflies into my garden in the form of a Speckled Wood, Red Admiral and a very elusive Holly Blue. I went about trying to photograph these but my dad soon got into gardening mode and asked me to move!

With a hunger for butterflies running through my veins, I decided to go for a wander into Haighton House Woods as I'd never concentrated on Lepidoptera here. Being a very well established woodland, I knew I was in for a treat...I wasn't wrong!
I found an opening with a decent meadow in the middle of it where highlights were 2+ White-letter Hairstreak, 3 Small Copper, 10 Gatekeeper, the '3 Whites', Small and Large Skipper and Comma among others

Small Copper - One of my favourite species of Butterfly and my first for the year, which was a treat.

Apparantly this is the first time White-letter Hairstreak has been seen at Haighton House Woods, so I am very lucky to have experienced such close up views. It was so obliging that I was able to see the detail of its 'face' with the naked eye. Stunning!