We know our Alners Gorse Butterfly Reserve is pretty special, but we didn’t expect this! Mark Pike is a regular visitor to the Reserve and says he at first thought this was a Common Blue aberration, but when he spotted the tails, he know otherwise. Seen on 15/08/2019.
This is the second recent report – another was seen near Weymouth on 03/08/2019. If you want to read more about this previous sighting and what our Records Officer said about the species, click here.
I wonder if it is breeding in this country?
Our Records Officer, Bill Shreeves speculated the same. The way climate change is going, you have to think it’s likely to happen at some point.
This is a very strong migratory species and judging by the condtion of the 2 examples seen they dont appear to be local breeders,not yet anyway.Have these been one off sightings or have they lingered at the same sites ???
These sightings are part of a big migration all along the coast from Cornwall to Kent & inland to Surrey. One has reached Wales for the first time ever.Dorset so far has had 9 sightings already more than in the whole 20th century.When the females arrive from across the channel they have already mated & one in Dorset has laid eggs on Ever-lasting Sweet Peas which have hatched & the caterpillar has tunneled into a seed pod to feed. We would expect new LTBs to fly in late September & reverse migrate to France. So far none have been able to get through our winter but with global warming we would hope to be able to welcome an addition to the British list at some time in the future.