THIS IS FINDON — www.findonvillage.com  created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

THE BUTTERFLIES OF CISSBURY RING — SUMMER 2002

Text copyright Valerie Martin 2002

Photography copyright Owen Burnham 2002.

Here are some more of Owen's lovely photographs as a result of his expeditions to Cissbury Ring.  He sent them to me and hoped they would brighten a dull day.   They sure did.

An Adonis Blue female on Cissbury Ring.

Owen has told me a fascinating tale about these butterflies and their helpers......the ants.... sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction....

An accompanying Adonis Blue Male.

A magnificent Brown Argus nectaring.  This butterfly is traditionally an inhabitant of chalk and limestone grassland such as Cissbury Ring.

A Brown Argus basking.

The Chalkhill Blues are confined to the grassland and chalk hillsides in the south of England and I guess this is why they inhabits Cissbury Ring for their home.  The male is blue on the upperside.

Chalkhill Blue — underside.

Newly hatched female Chalkhill Blue — underside.  A superb little nectar drinker.

This is a Female Chalkhill Blue basking.   The females are less conspicuous than the males, being dull brown in colour, more secretive in their habits (like most females) and they spend less time than males in flight.

A variant of the Chalkhill Blue female

Owen caught these Chalkhill Blues in the process of mating.

Chalkhill Blues mating

Male Common Blue feeding...... this is my favourite photograph of the butterflies. The brightly coloured males are conspicuous but females are more retiring in nature. The colour of the upperwings of females varies to almost completely brown.  

Female Common Blue.

A Common Blue nectaring.

 

Male Common Blue basking.  They love the downland like Cissbury Ring.

A late season Male Common Blue.

Clouded Yellow on Cissbury Ring.

A Comma butterfly with its distinctive ragged-edged wings, basking on Cissbury Ring.

A female Small Copper basking after laying her eggs on sheep's sorrel.  Alas the true Large Copper is extinct in England.

A Small Copper nectaring.

The Dark Green Fritillaries like the downland and coastal areas so Cissbury Ring is an ideal habitat.  They are extremely fast flying and rarely stop for more than a second at each flower so Owen was lucky to get this one resting!   Owen follows them in the vain hope that one will eventually land — he went back and forth.  Up the ramparts of Cissbury and down into the ditch again! 

Dark Green Fritillary basking.

This is a lovely pair of courting Dark Green Fritillaries.  They were so preoccupied that they crawled on to Owen's hand when he put it in front of them.  They continued to flutter there before flying off in the sunshine.

A Dark Green Fritillary on Owen's hand.

The Gatekeeper of Cissbury Ring.   These butterflies are strongly associated with woodland and the vicinity of country lanes and scrubland.

This Green Hairstreaks cannot be mistaken for any other butterflies on the Ring.  They are the only ones to sport green wings and when inspected closer you can see that they have an almost metallic sheen.   The inside of their wings are brown and theses butterflies are perfectly camouflaged with green underwings.  They are usually seen near gorse bushes which as are also on the summit and is where they lay their eggs. 

A poised Holly Blue.  The Holly Blue butterflies' habitats are holly and ivy.   They are slightly silvery in flight and they are found on subby hillsides such as Cissbury Ring.

A Holly Blue butterfly basking in the sunshine.

Ethereal Holly Blue nectaring on a Cissbury bramble.  Owen says that the Holly Blues only bask with their wings in a V so they are hard for him to photograph.

Grizzled Skippers are small lively moth-like butterflies.   They flutter around the Findon hillside at Cissbury and fly in early spring, darting here and there busily on warm sunny days.   They almost disappear as their wings blur against the abundance of surrounding downland flowers and grasses.

Sometimes the males soar skywards to court females or chase off rivals.  In dull weather or at night they rest, often communally, on grass or flowerheads. Although well-camouflaged and hard to spot, for a sharp-eyed naturalist (like Owen), this is a good time to observe and count them.

The above is a Grizzled Skipper feeding.   Owen tells me that these particular butterflies often lay their eggs on wild strawberry plants that can be found on the summit of the Ring, especially in the area of the Neolithic flint mines on the western side.  

This is a Ringlet butterfly on a Cissbury Ring leaf. 

At first glance the Ringlet appears very similar to the Meadow Brown which is on the wing at the same time.  

Meadow Brown.

Ringlets have have weak fluttery flights and can be seen flying in light showers and as dusk falls. Best places to find them are near damp shady areas or around a mass of brambles such as on the Ring.

Often they will be seen with tears in their wings which sometimes occur due to crawling through the middle of bramble bushes in search of nectar. As with other butterflies with eye spots these are thought to divert the attack by birds on an otherwise vulnerable body.

The Small Heath is an inconspicuous butterfly and could easily be missed on Cissbury Ring.   It flies only in sunshine and rarely settles more than a metre above the ground. Its wings are always kept closed when at rest.

The Painted Ladies are regular long-distance migrants and each year spread north from the desert fringes of North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia to recolonize mainland Europe.   They finally arrive in England.   These migrations of such delicate little creatures never cease to amaze me.

The adults tend to congregate where there are plenty of thistles — the reason they can be found on the Cissbury hillside ....as I know from pricking my toes in the summer!

A Red Admiral that Owen found poised on a Cissbury bramble.

This is the Speckled Wood Butterfly on Cissbury Ring.  Do you notice anything particular about this one?    That is right — it has no antennae.   Owen suspects it lost them in a bird strike and narrowly escaped with its life.   Without them it looked forlorn and was easy to approach and photograph.  Owen does not think it would have lasted much longer and it demonstrates the importance of the feelers to a butterfly.

The Speckled Woods do not feed from summer flowers but instead on aphid honeydew — a sticky sugary substance secreted by aphids as they feed on plant juices.   Individual Speckled Wood butterflies rarely live longer than a week to ten days but are continuously brooded while the weather is warm.   They are unique in that they have the ability to overwinter in England in either the caterpillar or chrysalis stage.

This Wall Brown Male was fanning his wings excitedly as he followed a female over rough Cissbury terrain on foot! 

These are the most common butterflies that I see.   The Small Whites, often called Cabbage Whites.   They are seen in profusion because of their migratory nature and from late April until September can be seen almost anywhere.  Like the Large White, large numbers migrate long distances and arrive from Europe each year. 

I remember chasing these with a butterfly net over the Maidstone Boys Technical School playing fields in Maidstone in Kent as a little girl.  I do not think I ever caught any!

Last but not least, the above is a rare butterfly.   No, it was not found at Cissbury Ring... nor anywhere near Findon.   I know you will forgive me for mentioning it when you hear that Owen is the only person to record the species in Senegal.  The record was taken down and noted by the great entomologist, Dr. T. Larsen. .The photograph is of the dry season form.  Isn't Octavia a little beauty!

Thanks, Owen, for the gorgeous butterflies on Cissbury — I had no idea there were 28 different species recorded on the Ring.

Has anyone come across the magnificent Banded Grayling Butterfly in this area in recent years?  This is a question Owen has put to me.

They were once a common butterfly but officially exist only at one site  in Sussex now....and that is the downland form....not the heathland variety.  I'm on Cissbury Ring doing a dog walk each day but I'm not really into butterflies so I am may have seen one and didn't know it.   A distinctive feature of them is that they never rest with open wings as other butterflies.  they are quite large and have a soaring flight. 

Photograph by Owen Burham

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