OXFORDSHIRE: Silver-spotted Skippers and some chalk grassland

Mid August 2022

Mid month I joined Carl Chapman for one of his butterfly day trips, this time heading to Oxfordshire to look for Silver-spotted Skippers. Our destination was Aston Rowant, a lovely bit of steep-sided chalk grassland that at some point was unfortunately halved by a large motorway. It was during the spell of particularly hot weather, which wasn't ideal, but there was at least some shade around the car park area for lunch. The trip was a success, with lots of Silver-spotted Skippers seen - almost all of which kept their wings resolutely shut, but they did at least allow lots of closed wing photos.

The other butterfly highlight of the trip were the blue butterflies. We saw a few Adonis Blues, mostly concentrated in a small area near the bottom of the slope, but even more interestingly I noticed one had been taken by a robberfly. This was later identified from the pictures as Downland Robberfly, Machimus rusticus, a nationally scarce species and only the second site record according to the national recording scheme coordinator Martin Harvey. Chalkhill Blues were very common, and Carl found a nice abberation as well.

I had been keeping an eye out for Juniper trees, which are apparently common here. I hadn't seen any and was wondering if I was going mad, but scanning through binoculars spotted quite a few on the opposite side of the road. Other highlights were Pale Toadflax and a couple of galls, Mikola fagi on Beech and Aceria thomasi on Thyme.