Grizzled and Dingy Skippers in Rother
1st May 2009, Friday
I was going to post a photo of a Poplar Hawkmoth found in my moth trap today (my first hawkmoth of 2009) but this takes precedence. I’ve long suspected that these skippers might occur at a site near Cripps Corner, but my previous searches have failed. There are 4 acres of what looks like ideal habitat - it even has wild strawberry! This morning another thorough search turned up 3+ Grizzled (top photo) and a Dingy (bottom photo) (click to enlarge, though I couldn’t get macro shots). These tiny butterflies are highly specialised, mainly to flower-rich chalk downs and quite bare heathland. In Rother we have no chalk and very little open heath, so they’re extremely local. At this small site there are clearly not many, and the ground is much broken up with sparse bracken, bramble, heather and lichens, so they’re hard to spot as they buzz about low over the heath. It will not be easy to get an accurate count of the population.
