by Lawrie de Whalley

28th June was sunny and breezy but warm enough for a good display of Silver-studded Blues, mostly perching in the shelter of grass and shrubs.

This emphasises the care needed to maintain a mixed structure of plants on this exposed limestone grassland site. It was good to see both main colonies doing well and spreading to the full limit of the suitable habitat. This is important for this species which only flies 20-50 metres in its lifetime.

This would be a good day for taking photographs, as a number of males and females sat with their wings spread wide to catch the sun. Some freshly emerged Marbled Whites were rich cream coloured and good numbers were out all over the reserve making a contrast to nearly black Ringlets and dark Meadow Browns.Large Skippers were buzzing around every where and a few early Small Skippers were on the wing.

It was a real pleasure to see so many butterflies on the Reserve and a big thank you to all the volunteers who have turned out on winter days to carry out habitat management.