Getting the Blues

After a week of cold northerlies and plenty of the wet stuff I was beginning to go stir crazy, cooped up inside staring at the outside world.  Sunday the 2nd was forecast to be good, and so it proved.  After early cloud cleared the sun shone, winds were light and the mercury reached the dizzy heights of 20c.  You could almost be forgiven for thinking that it was an early summers day!  Oh wait a minute……

So where to go?  Last year I was shown a photograph of a butterfly that I did not know existed in my home county of Norfolk, the Small Blue (Cupido minimus).  I was intrigued.  I did not know the exact site but a lot of delving on the ‘net and I came up with a name Cranwich Camp in the Breckland area in the south/west of our region.  To me these butterflies have been released, something that has caused a bit of a debate on fakebook with a lady who ‘discovered’ the first in 2019 and maintains they have colonised naturally.  More on that later but would there be any there now?  As I keep saying spring has been very poor in my part of the world.

The Small Blue. Well that was easy guess we can go home now

Cranwich Camp was founded in the 1930’s as a labour camp for the un-employed to work in the massive forest surrounding Thetford which was then being planted.  Little remains visable at Cranwich, just a few foundations.  This is now a nature reserve of some 32 acres and on a lovely sunny day the flower filled site was beautiful.

In good light the underwing is silvery blue like that of the Holly Blue.  They do like to keep low down in the grass, for this shot I was flat out on the ground!

We had only walked a few yards when a tiny silvery butterfly crossed the path in front of us.  I thought Brown Argus but it settled on a buttercup and opened it’s wings to reveal a dark dusky brown with a neat white border, a Small Blue.  Well that was easy!  Following the path around the circumference of the reserve revealed another 14.  It was the second most numerous butterfly after the Small Heath which was everywhere in big numbers.

All very fresh. The males showing a scattering of glitter like blue scales whilst the females were more chocolate in colour

The Small Blue is the UK’s smallest butterfly with a wingspan of only about 3/4 of an inch (18mm).  It has colonies spread from the far north of Scotland to the south coast of England but it is scarce and declining.  The caterpillar feeds only on Kidney Vetch which was quite abundant here at Cranwich.  So where did they come from?  It’s the view of pretty much everyone that they were released here a few years back and I have since learned some were seen at another nature reserve site some 16 miles away.  Cranwich is 40 miles from the nearest known colony and this species is not known to ‘irrupt’ and colonise sites that far apart, so I think it’s quite conclusive they are not ‘natural’.  They are however very beautiful and seem established without causing problems to other species.

A very aged Green Hairstreak (Callophrys rubi) enjoys a Buttercup

A few Common Blues (Polyommatus icarus) were seen

The Cinnabar (Tyria jacobaeae) is a striking day flying moth but a pain to try and photograph, they just don’t keep still! In a few months it’s black and yellow hooped caterpillars will be found devouring Ragwort

After a quick picnic we decided to go to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserve at Weeting Heath as it was only a few miles away.  Not been here for many a year.  The attraction is breeding Stone Curlews (Burhinus oedicnemus) a rare summer visiting wader which looks like nothing else.  The vegetation on the heath in front of the hides was quite long, never seen it like that before but the birds were present though difficult to see at times.

I usually like my images to be sharp and in great detail. However the light sandy soil produces a terrible heat haze and the Stone Curlews were at the end of my 600mm lense’s range so these shots have a somewhat dreamy effect. You can only work with what you are given so I am fairly happy with the results

Happy families. An adult and two chicks. These birds have big yellow eyes which helps them feed at night. During the day they are usually inactive. They have several ‘local’ names my favourite being the Wailing Heath Chicken!

So that was a very enjoyable and productive day.  More of the same please!