The Grayling Colony At Winterton

outstretched on a Carline Thistle. The drab head of the thistle seemed to heighten the shimmering blue wings and we were, crucially, also able to make out fine black lines radiating into the white wing margins. None of us had recorded a second brood Adonis Blue in July before and none of us (I think I’m right in saying) an Adonis quite so pale. It was a memorable sighting upon which to reflect as we pushed through a narrow gap in the hedge line and began the descent to Dorking.

Species List; Dingy Skipper, Large Skipper, Silver-spotted Skipper, Green-veined White, Small White, Large White, Brimstone, Purple Hairstreak, Small Copper, Holly Blue, Common Blue, Chalkhill Blue, Adonis Blue, Brown Argus, Peacock, Comma, Red Admiral, Silver-washed Fritillary, Marbled White, Speckled Wood, Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown, Small Heath

Richard Stewart

Although Suffolk still has good numbers of Grayling, there are few colonies of any real size. Consequently we travel to Winterton, on the east Norfolk coast. Here is a long and deep dune system, with Suffolk at its best having only short stretches of this habitat, such as those at Walberswick and Kessingland. We usually concentrate on the section to the left of the beach road, heading eventually to Waxham. Our initial visit was to see Dark Green Fritillaries but now we tend to concentrate on Grayling: 157 in 2009, the highest Norfolk total for the year, a miserable 12 in 2010 and then came the day of blue sky and light breeze that accompanied September 1st , 2011, our wedding anniversary. We counted small numbers of Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell, Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown, Small Heath and Small White, but two species dominated.

The first was Small Copper, 67 in total, the four var. caeruleopunctata being the most of this aberration I had ever seen on one site. A few also had a lime green and yellow colouring near where wings joined the body, a variation not noted before. With the Grayling we first walked through the dunes close to the beach then inland to count butterflies attracted to the many flowering and sunlit heather clumps. Our day total for this species was 314, more than we had expected, in fact twice the 2009 total. Even then that was probably lower than in reality, such was the difficulty of counting as many as seven flying close together and at least forty on or around two sunlit beds of heather just five yards apart. They came in different sizes and condition, with a rare opportunity to see their open wings as they displayed the courtship behaviour fully described in Thomas and Lewington’s ‘The Butterflies of Britain and Ireland’ . Once again though, this particular site failed to produce any instances of Grayling landing on us – something this species often does, both in Britain and on the Continent.