skippers..
Two warm days!
Yesterday small skippers had emerged and they raced across our small meadow, as if joyous.
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The red antennae-tips of small skipper |
Today, pugnacious males are establishing territories and choosing vantage points like this birds-foot trefoil from which they can spot passing females and chase away insurgent males.
The Small Skipper almost exclusively uses Yorkshire-fog grass (Holcus lanatus), although several other grasses have been recorded as foodplants.
We also have the almost-identical Essex skipper here (black antennae tips rather than the red of small skipper). It is much less fussy. Its’ primary larval foodplant is Cock's-foot (Dactylis glomerata). Common Couch (Elytrigia repens), Creeping Soft-grass (Holcus mollis), False Brome (Brachypodium sylvaticum), Meadow Foxtail (Alopecurus pratensis), Timothy (Phleum pratense) and Tor-grass (Brachypodium rupestre) are also used.
(Source Butterfly Conservation).
Essex skippers arrive later than their red-tipped antennae cousins.
Locally there’s dingy skipper and also pretty little grizzled skipper. No garden records of these yet - but we live in hope!
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