The black hairstreak is a dark, elusive and rather plain little butterfly. And yet it inspires great passion, and not just because of its rarity.
There’s something deeply restful and lovely about this midsummer insect, especially when it lets you creep close and admire it sunning itself on blackthorn.
It only flies for a couple of weeks in June, and guidebooks say it is only found in middle England woodlands, roughly between Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire.
But this butterfly has bamboozled experts since it was belatedly discovered in 1828 and this June has seen a glorious population explosion. Black hairstreaks have been discovered on many new sites, including miles from their heartland – in East Sussex.
It was undoubtedly moved to East Sussex by a butterfly breeder (some butterfly-lovers secretly drop their favourite species into random places) but locals believe it’s been there, undiscovered, since the 1980s.
Many butterfly recorders report lower-than-average numbers of common species this year but fine weather has boosted another normally elusive wood-and-hedge resident, the purple emperor. The emperor obsessives Matthew Oates and Neil Hulme this week recorded 349 sightings in one day at Knepp, West Sussex – a world record, if anyone keeps such things!
