Purple Hairstreaks in an Ipswich Garden

Patient observation allowed Richard Stewart to record this species

Three factors have undoubtedly contributed to our garden records of Purple Hairstreaks since 2003, with observations each subsequent year, except for 2007. The first factor is a series of mature oaks stretching, with some gaps, right from the village of Westerfield into Ipswich, as far as the large specimen on the corner of Borrowdale Avenue, just a few yards from our house. Some of these oaks are several hundred years old. A few years ago I surveyed Westerfield parish and a number of these oaks had a girth, at chest height, of 4.2 metres or more, thus qualifying for veteran tree status. The second reason is that we are still just a few hundred yards from open countryside, on the northern edge of Ipswich. The third is that nearby gardens are relatively large and mature, with plenty of trees. Close by is the Spinney, a long and important green corridor stretching from Westerfield Road right through to Tuddenham Road.

After observing the butterfly in 2003 and 2004 I suspected the Spinney as having the host oaks, but a walk through revealed a scarcity of this species. Eventually in 2005 we at last saw Purple Hairstreaks around the top of the oak at the corner of Borrowdale Avenue. On the same sunlit evening at least six were observed flying high up in a tall sycamore, just beyond our back garden fence. This is only about a hundred yards from the Borrowdale Avenue oak and has an abundance of honeydew, as revealed on the leaves of plants in our vegetable plot below some of its branches. This sycamore also catches late evening sunlight and most of our sightings have been of a few Purple Hairstreaks spiralling around the higher sunlit branches.

2009 was probably our best year so far, with the first on the 30th June, one flying low over our heads on 4th July, as we sat near the garden pond, another low over the lawn on 3rd August and on 6th August one actually landed in the garden, feeding on our tall buddleia.

Purple Hairstreak by Douglas Hammersley