UPDATE: 2025-06-10 Several White-letters in the elm 60m in from Rampton Bridge, possibly Purples nearby, will check that again in days to come.
UPDATE 2024: I’d almost given up hope on the local Purple Hairstreaks for 2024, but had a last look at the oaks on the outer edge of Manor Farm Wood facing out over the Cottenham Lode and spotted one, then a couple more. Six sightings in all, so perhaps 3-4 individuals.
I found a colony of White-letter Hairstreak 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, although it does have some old, established trees on its periphery. 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, so assume that was their actual origin.
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. I don’t believe either species have been noted here before. Certainly, Ed Pollard, the County Butterfly Recorder was unaware of this wood and had not had records of butterflies there until I logged mine with him.
Les King Wood back towards Cottenham from this spot had a report of Green Hairstreak in 2020 (from Martin Fowlie) and I caught up with that species there in 2021, but I have not seen them there summer of 2022, sadly. UPDATE: Saw one 29 Apr 2023. But none seen any in 2024. I had Green HS on Church Lane, Cottenham, on Dogwood in the spring of 2025.
I have seen lots of Green HS along Devil’s Dyke in Cambridgeshire when I went chasing the Adonis Blue, Chalk Hill 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 that 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, Woodwalton Marsh locale, and a couple of other spots, as they seem to be.
UK 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)
Ilex Hairstreak (2024, Greece) – Satyrium ilicis
Blue-spot Hairstreak (2024, Greece) – Satyrium spini
Sloe Hairstreak (2024, Greece) – Satyrium acaciae
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. UPDATE: July 2024, now present at RSPB Frampton Marsh near Dartford.
Quoting the UK’s Butterfly Conservation: The Oxford and Ampthill Clays are the only place in the UK where all five of the hairstreak family of butterflies can be found.
There are seventeen “tribes” of hairstreak worldwide amounting to dozens of other species. Some of the Theclinae (the hairstreaks subfamily) are known as elfins.
UPDATE: June 2024 – Butterflying holiday in northern Greece. Saw Green, Purple, White-letter Hairstreak, and added Ilex, Sloe, and Blue-spot Hairstreak to my international list, as well as many other butterflies.