I found a colony of White-letter Hairstreaks in the middle of Manor Farm Wood, Rampton. I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone mentioning this species in this woodland before. It’s a relatively young woodland. The butterflies were emerging from a tall blackthorn and coming fairly low to nectar on bramble and flitting back into the blackthorn. There are elms in the vicinity, the foodplant of this species’ larvae.
I was then surprised to see another hairstreak flying in the top of a willow tree on the Lode-side edge of the same woodland – Purple Hairstreak!
As I watched I counted perhaps 9 or 10 Purple Hairstreaks and got photos of a few when they settled. Turned out that at least one or two of them were White-letter, but there is definitely a colony of Purple HS on this site. Not sure if either species have been noted here before.
Les King Wood back towards Cottenham from this spot had a report of Green Hairstreak in 2020 and I caught up with that species there in 2021, but I have not seen them there this summer, sadly, but did see lots along Devil’s Dyke in Cambridgeshire when I went chasing the Adonis Blue and Dark Green Fritillary.
I have only previously seen Purple Hairstreak in Woodwalton Fen NNR (2021 and 2022) and Brampton Wood (2022), so as with the White-letter Hairstreaks, I was quite surprised to see them in this relatively young woodland so close to home.
It is wholly unlikely that the most uncolonial of our hairstreaks, the Black Hairstreak, will turn up here, restricted locally to Brampton Wood and Monk’s Wood as they seem to be.
Hairstreaks I have photographed so far
White-letter Hairstreak (2021) – Satyrium w-album (Knoch, 1782)
Green Hairstreak (2021) – Callophrys rubi (Linnaeus, 1758)
Purple Hairstreak (2021) – Favonius quercus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Black Hairstreak (2022) – Satyrium pruni (Linnaeus, 1758)
I am yet to see Brown Hairstreak, the largest British hairstreak butterfly, and the only one missing from this list. It is scarce and found only in the South and South-West and Wales in the UK. However, there are seventeen “tribes” of hairstreak worldwide amounting to dozens of other species. Some of the Theclinae (the hairstreaks subfamily) are known as elfins.