Straw Belle and the Road Race

Encouraged by the recent excursions of blogger Steve Gale (of North Downs and Beyond) to Box Hill in search of rare lepidoptera, I couldn't help but make my own way up there on Monday, if it meant the possibility of catching up with my dream Surrey moths, the Straw Belle.

It may have the aesthetic appeal of a folden piece of white paper with two pencil scribbles down either side, and I'll admit it's not really much of a looker, but Straw Belle is the creme de la creme of rare moths, with an extremely restricted range covering just a few isolated sites in the North Downs (including one of the most reliable sites, Box Hill), along with a small isolated population in the west of Ireland.

The routing of the recent Olympic road race through Box Hill caused quite a stur, especially once it was released that crowds would be allowed onto the upper chalk slopes occupied by Straw Belle at this time of year.

On arrival, there were no obvious signs of damage to the wildflower slopes, and careful consideration had clearly been taken to ensure minimum disturbance to the most vulnerable areas, including the so called Straw Belle 'viewing point' below...

Despite a strong breeze, and spells of rain at times, at least 6 Straw Belle were weakly fluttering above the grassy slopes, dropping down to shelter on the underside of grass stems every few seconds. The caterpillars feed on low growing herbaceous plants, and it was worried that the high risk of trampling associated with large crowds could shatter breeding hopes when it came to egg laying on the foodplant. Of course, we'll have to wait until next year to note any possible adverse effects, but the condition of the hill, not to mention the lack of litter, was really pleasing to see...

With a slightly wider distribution throughout Britain that Straw Belle, but a similar restriction to chalky soils, Chalk Carpet were out in large numbers as well, but only started to settle for photographs once the rain kicked in...

A nice supporting cast of late summer butterflies were also about, including this slightly worse for wear Dark Green Fritillary...

Chalkhill Blue were staying low to the ground, perching for long periods of time on grass stems to shelter from the rain. I spent bloody ages with this one butterfly attempting to get an in-focus shot and the stem blew about in the wind. Not to dissatisfied with the results...

Never seen so many Silver-spotted Skipper before in my life...