Butterflies - Silverdale, Lancashire

With some nice weather this weekend, I decided to switch birds for butterflies and head up to the Silverdale area, hoping to see a few scarce species I haven't seen before. In the past couple of weeks I've seen both Green Hairstreak and Small Copper close to home, but Silverdale is the closest place for the target species I was after.

I arrived at Warton Crag car park at around 11:00am with clear blue skies and surprisingly very few people! I immediately noticed several Common Blue and Small Heath flitting around the calcareous grassland below the quarry.

Common Blue were one of the commonest species

Moving through a small area of broadleaved woodland, I ended up on the craggy slopes with areas of calcareous grassland, stone outcrops and low scrub. I soon picked out my first target species - Dingy Skipper. These cool, yet slightly dull, butterflies were literally everywhere and I saw perhaps 50 by the end. Though slightly smaller than the Common Blues, they were constantly chasing them off. Though widespread, Dingy Skippers are a declining and fragmented species, so it was really good to see that they seem to be doing well here!

I couldn't make my mind up if Dingy Skippers look cool or not!

Further up the crag, I picked up a Lesser Whitethroat singing loudly from buckthorn scrub, which eventually gave me the best views I've ever had of this species. Aside from this, bird song was slightly subdued throughout, with Chiffchaffs, Willow Warblers, Blackcaps and finches being the dominant singers.

Still partially obscured, but better views than most Lesser Whitethroats!

Further into the nature reserve, there was a large area of bracken and closely grazed scrub with cattle ranging throughout. Here, several fritillaries were flitting around low to the ground. After one finally landed, they were identified as Small Pearl-Bordered Fritillaries. It seems that I needed to be earlier in the year for the rarer Pearl-Bordered Frittilary, though SPB were still new for me!

The fritillaries associated closely with the bracken and scrub areas

After watching the fritillaries for a while, I made my way back to the car, noting Brimstone, Holly Blue and Speckled Wood on the way back.

I then made the short drive to Gait Barrows nature reserve. Thanks to Austin, I had some decent directions to my final butterfly target. After a nice hike through some stunning scenery (hearing lots of Cetti's Warblers around the lake) I came across an area of sunny glades that were roped off. After a few minutes, I spotted several Duke of Burgundy butterflies whizzing around. These were much smaller than I thought they would be, looking Speckled Wood-like from above and fritillary-like from below. I also noticed another Small Pear-Bordered Fritillary here and a couple of Dingy Skippers.

Duke of Burgundy look so much better up close!

Duke of Burgundy are one of the rarest butterflies in northern England, and while the conservation work done to manage the habitat in the roped-off areas was good to see, it was a bit concerning to see how precarious their survival here was!

Overall a really interesting and educational trip - with three new butterfly species seen! Hopefully, I can visit again soon later in the season.

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