I promised Simon Hales that we would head to Oxfordshire in August to show him both the Brown Hairstreaks at Otmoor and the masses of butterflies at Aston Rowant. Sunday 02/08 was the said earmarked day. The forecast looked decent enough, with sun and a bit of cloud. As it turned out, it was an absolute scorcher!
Once Simon had dodged the Silverstone event traffic, we took the straightforward 30 minute drive over to Otmoor. Arriving in bright sunshine around 09:30am-ish, we began meticulously scouring the many patches of bramble and creeping thistles along the old Roman Road. It was a shame to see big patches of path-side habitat trampled back by photographers, in the more favoured nectaring spots.
While there were no hairstreaks initially, there were plenty of active butterflies including Gatekeepers, some lovely looking Commas, Brimstones, Meadow Browns, Green -Veined Whites, Small Whites, a Large White, a Large Skipper, a Red Admiral and a flyby Purple Hairstreak.
It wasn't long before eagle-eyed Simon spotted the first of our Brown Hairstreaks, a male nectaring away on a creeping thistle in vegetation a little way from the path. Brilliant! We watched it for some time, as it avidly fed away, flitting to a nearby leaf briefly to take in a bit of sun, before heading back to the same thistle.
After a fair while, I took a walk back along the path and soon found another male fairly high up on brambles. We saw it for probably about a minute before it shot off to the top of a nearby blackthorn.
After more wandering around, we returned to the original male to find it was now showing far closer allowing a pretty close approach. Wow, what a beauty it was too, 'fresh out the box!' We enjoyed it for a fair while, getting some good pictures, before deciding to have a short walk out onto the reserve for a bit of a scan.
We took a walk through the car park field & along to the bridleway to scan over the reserve. This revealed a few Common Blues and a Hobby hawking dragonflies over Greenaways. Walking back to the Roman Road we came across 2-3 mobile Holly Blues, singles of both Essex & Small Skipper and a small family party of Spotted Flycatchers which was cool, comprising of I think, 2 adults and 2 juveniles.
A nice couple we met earlier on had now found yet another male Brown Hairstreak, again nectaring on a creeping thistle. This one was immaculate on one side, with a decent chunk missing on the other. Again it allowed a very close approach, refusing to show it's 'good side' for the majority of the time!! Was still a pleasure to see though, no matter what condition it was in.
With time pressing on, we decided to head back to the car. We'd walked no more than 15 feet when yet another Brown Hairstreak flew in front of us before alighting on a leaf. It was a super-fresh female! It did a little basking for a minute or so before zooming off along the path and out of view.
After that, we did this time make it back to the car and headed off on a relatively short journey along the M40 to Aston Rowant NNR, a chalk downland butterfly paradise!
It wasn't too long before we were enjoying great numbers of the specialities...Chalkhill Blues as well as several Silver-Spotted Skippers, however with the sun at it's hottest, nothing settled for too long.
Under scorching sunshine and a bit of a breeze, we had a good wander around the hillside. The place was alive with insects, with butterflies and grasshoppers jumping up after nearly every step. Together with the Chalkhills & Silver-Spots, there were several Brown Argus, the odd Small & Essex Skipper, lots of Meadow Brown, a few Gatekeepers and quite a few Large White.
Walking down to the bottom of the slope to the old sunken road, we were pleasantly surprised to see a Dark-Green Fritillary still flying, cruising up and down several times with no hint of stopping!
We then had a good look for second-brood Adonis Blue without success before slowly heading back towards the car park. Eventually, things began to pose a little better with a couple of very showy Silver-Spotted Skippers & Chalkhill Blue.
I then spoke to a guy towards the southern end who thought he may have seen a Clouded Yellow briefly. He wasn't wrong, as 10 minutes or so later one zoomed past us! It continued to zoom up and down the hillside, stopping only briefly to nectar for a few seconds before moving on. A great sighting as they certainly don't seem to be as numerous as the Painted Ladies have been so far this summer.
Talking of Painted Ladies, Simon then spotted a stunning, immaculate one a little further along the path nectaring away and nearby a late Marbled White in surprisingly decent condition was also flying around. A top way to end a pretty damn good day!!
