A tiny number of damselflies have now turned up at Cleeve Prior Community Orchard – today I counted three Azure Damselflies and a single female Banded Demoiselle – but the season feels desperately slow in getting going there. Perhaps it was the same last year, but either way I can’t think of any good reason for such a late start at a well wooded and quite sheltered site.
Equally, this should be a butterfly haven, with swathes of wild flowers growing around and between the fruit trees, but until a couple of days ago I’ve only seen a couple of Whites and the odd Speckled Wood. Now though, the first brood Brown Argus are appearing, with two quite feisty little males competing for territory in a small section of the wild flower meadow. This specimen was feeding rather quietly though, which when added to the very prominent orange spots and quite short abdomen suggest to me that it might be a female.
The Brown Argus traditionally occupied chalk and limestone grasslands, and used the common rock-rose as its preferred foodplant, and in the late C20th it was struggling, but since then it has recovered, and has gone on to dramatically expand its range. This has been possible partly because climate change has allowed it to colonise areas that were previously too cold for its larvae, and partly because the butterfly now exploits a wider range of foodplants. First brood adults appear during May, and second brood adults in late July and early August. In southern England, in a warm year, there may even be a small third generation. The larvae from this spring brood will develop to adulthood in about six weeks, but offspring of the final brood will overwinter as larvae and complete their development next spring, up to nine months after the eggs were initially laid.
R: L2, C9, D11.
