Sunday May 2nd 2021

Butterfly Species: Dingy Skipper


The beginning of May brought some fine weather, albeit cool. At around midday I made a short dog walking trip to Tucking Mill. Rather than going along the cycle path I walked down a footpath from Combe down village and across the fields where I would expect to see Grizzled Skipper butterflies at this time of year.



With the temperature struggling to reach the heady heights of 11c, I was not expecting to see many butterflies on the wing. It was a nice surprise then to see this Dingy Skipper basking in the weak sunshine.

This small butterfly is often hard to follow as it darts rapidly around over it's grassland habitat. This one was much more approachable given the cool weak sunshine. Sadly this is a species has declined greatly over the decades but showing a modest improvement in the last ten years. It remains a priority species for Butterfly Conservation.


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