Going on a Butterfly Hunt - The Duke of Burgundy

Compared to all my recent 'exercise' posts, and the hit and miss Moth Trap posts, it's time for something a little different. My partner Hive account@dawnsart and I decided to go on a hunt to search for a new species of Butterfly

And what a hunt it was haha! We walked miles and miles on that day...

Right, lets start at the beginning.

There are 59 species of Butterfly in the UK (wikipedia link)

We have seen 35 species, most of which of are the common ones that can be seen across most of the country. The ones that are left are often restricted in someway, whether that is due to distrubution (eg only seen in Scotland) or habitat (eg only seen in Chalk Meadows).

This means that if we want to see species of Butterfly that we haven't seen before, we will have to travel further afield to try to find them.

One on our wishlist is the Duke of Brurgundy (Hamearis lucina)

The common English name is surprising extravagant considering how small it is, but it is quite a pretty little Butterfly. It is mostly found in the bottom half of the UK, but there are a few colonies located in the North in Cumbria and Yorkshire.

Of a small selection of locations available, we chose the closest one at Hawnby Hill, which was in the middle of the North Yorkshire Moors and 120 miles away. After a very early start, we arrived at the Nature Reserve at just after 11am.

As one of the few sites in the North for this species, there were directions on the Butterfly Conservation website of where to find them. It told us to park in the car park at the North of the reserve, and find the path that goes straight down into the center to a broken stone wall, where we would be able to see them.

Path found, we headed off into the reserve. The land on either side was used for sheep farming, and we saw loads of sheep that day.

Lots of pretty views to be had while we wandered. It was quite overcast with the clouds, but was still bright enough. It was also reasonably warm at 17C. There was rain due later, but hopefully we would have found the butterflies before then!

The path goes ever on and on...

A small patch of Bluebells

And some more walking!

I wasn't concerned though, I knew we'd get to the right place eventually.

Besides, there was stuff to look at on the way, such as the Bluebells earlier, and the Germander Speedwell above.

It was lambing season, so pretty much every sheep had a Lamb or 2 in tow. we were mindful of course not to get too close to disturb them (as the mothers would get very grumpy!)

This carried on quite happily until....

Oh?

Is that the road?

There is no road that goes through the reserve. This can only mean that we have gone all the way to the end of the reserve, and thus have gone wrong somewhere.

Goddamnit!

Only one thing for it, we're gonna have to go all the way back to the start to try to find the right path...

As the name of the reserve suggests, the Hawnby Hill reserve is dominated by, well, a hill!

The butterfly like to feed on flowers on the side of the hill (presumably as the hill provides shelter). After heading down on one side and get lost, we retraced our steps and walked round the other side.

And still no luck.

As we stood pondering over an OS paper map, and 2 different phone maps, 2 walkers wandered past

"oh, are you looking for those butterflies? They're just round the corner, you need to follow the path that goes up the hill itself... we've just see 14 butterflies up there!"

It turns out we had taken a path that was too low down, and needed to find the path that hugged the hill tighter.

With renewed enthusiasm we set off...

And then we came across the broken stone wall from those early set of instructions, finally we knew we were in the right place

By this point the skies were becoming more ominous by the minute!

While my partner looked for the butterflies, I noticed in the distance there were 2 people in the distance, both with their cameras out.

After a few minutes, the Wife quickly walked over to us

"Are you looking for butterflies? We've found a mating pair over here!"

We dashed over to join her Husband, who very slowly, very carefully pointed to a pair of Duke of Burgundy's together on a piece of Bracken

Finally! Success!

It had been a lot of walking, but with a little bit of perseverance and the kindness of strangers we found them.

They are absolutely tiny, and also exquisitely beautiful. We were also very lucky to find an individual willing to stay still for so long.

After the pair had finished mating, one flew away leaving the second butterfly sitting there

And here is the food plant - a Primrose (Primula vulgaris).

Part of the reason for the restricted distribution of this butterfly is trying to find the perfect mix of habitat (north or west slope of a hill) with the right food plant of Primroses or Cowslips, and for the surrounding vegetation to be managed in such a way that the area is kind of rough or 'scrub') but not overgrown.

In the conservation of this butteffly, lots of effort is required in appropriate management of the land (Wikipedia)

After a bit of patience I managed to find an individual with its wings open.

Job done, we had managed to tick off another new species of Butterfly, and all that walking was now worth it haha.

We slowly started heading back to the car.

We spied some Green Tige Beetles...

... and then a nice little bonus, and a lovely way to end our walk, we found a Green Hairstreak butterfly (Callophrys rubi) resting in amongst the Bilberry. I have seen this species only once before, and the flash of iridescent green was great to see.

Now its time to start planning our next trip out... we will be going to stay in Scotland for a week in June, so I suspect there will be an opportunity to see something new while we are there I'm sure!

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