When Tuesday 7th dawned with unexpected sunshine the next item on my local butterfly agenda beckoned quite clearly. And so I set out for a year’s first attempt for the Oxon / Bucks seasonal jewel that is Black Hairstreak. My choice of location as in the past two years was Bernwood Meadows (SP608109) on the border between those two counties.

Arriving around 9:30am at the 7.5 hectare, BBOWT-managed traditional hay meadow, it’s expanses of more than 100 wild plant species stretched out before me in all their beauty. It was an uplifting sight as for a week and a half I had been laid low by what I assumed to be a viral condition, though not Covid as I tested negative. This kept me in a state of daily exhaustion, with aching limbs and much more marked than usual asthma. But I still need to get out and do something each day and was not going to stand up this opportunity.

Walking out slowly to test my “fitness” towards the hotspot I usually check for today’s quest the meadows seemed very quiet for butterflies, and all I noted were one each of Small Heath, Common Blue and Small Copper. Then another butterfly almost flopped into the grass to one side of me, a very pristine Black Hairstreak (pictured above). I assume this was newly emerged by its appearance and because once it assumed the pose in the images herein it kept very still for a while. I was thus afforded a first ever opportunity to gain pictorial records of this more usually hyperactive species at ground level.

Eventually my subject flew away, having provided ample reward for my perseverance in locating it today. This was a third evolved item for the season on my 2022 BC UTB agenda, following those with Duke of Burgundy (see here) and Wood White (previous post), and just as pleasing as those earlier two. After around an hour on site and as the day became warmer, things were becoming more lively in terms of both butterflies and a variety of odonata, but I didn’t have the energy to check it all out.

This Black Hairstreak showed itself just in time, because the following evening I was hospitalised for the first time ever. After two nights in emergency assessment I landed on Friday morning (9th) at the most excellent Osler Respiratory Unit in Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital. That is an elite facility, caring for just 24 patients each in individual en-suite rooms, and the care I received was fantastic. I have been diagnosed with an auto-immune / blood disorder called EGP Vasculitis, which fits with my history of chronic mild asthma and allergies. I was discharged on 19th and will remain an outpatient.

There is now very little I can add in this journal to on-line published information on the Black Hairstreak butterfly. But for those new to observing the species, who might have accessed this post via a web search, the following references from past years may hopefully offer some entertaining and informative detail.

A celebration of the Black Hairstreak – June 2017 – 146 views

Four Hairstreak butterflies at home and abroad – June 2018 – 144 views

The first precious jewels of summer – May 2020 – 70 views