This was an evening meeting starting at 6pm to try and see purple hairstreak butterflies, which frequent the tops of oak trees and often come out on warm summer evenings, preferably with no wind. The weather forecast was good and 6 members gathered at Windy Gates car park full of hope.

Gill led us down to the run of oak trees where the butterflies are known to be (no time for botanising on the way down!), and as we arrived the sun came out. Our luck was in, and after 10 or 15 minutes the first slight movement was detected at the top of the trees. A little later we were treated to two butterflies lifting off from the tree and circling round each other before settling back down; this happened two or three times, and finally we were able to make out one of the butterflies settled on a leaf. Even with binoculars it was hard to see any markings - after all this is a small butterfly that seems to prefer the very tops of the trees, but this was a real thrill.

The “hairstreak trees”

...and Ryenats members looking for the butterflies

We then wandered back to the cars at a much more sedate pace and looked at some of the interesting botany along the way, but we did not make a list as the primary reason for the trip was the butterflies. Some of the plants we saw and studied included knotted pearlwort, both fragrant and common agrimony (compare and contrast), hop trefoil, hoary ragwort, hemp agrimony, common valerian, greater burnet saxifrage, marsh and fen bedstraws (another compare and contrast) and various rushes. We returned to the cars at about 8:10pm. Hopes fulfilled!