Blacks and Whites at Salcey Forest

 

 

Salcey Forest is pretty good for butterflies.  Wood White is one of the specialities.

If you park at the car park circled above…this one…

…and then walk down this track (marked in yellow above)…

…you’ll stand a very good chance of seeing a Wood White before you turn the corner, if yesterday is anything to go by.

Wood Whites are white, and live in woods.  They have a fluttering flight – they look like active ditherers. We saw several, but they kept on flying – we didn’t get good views of any settled individuals.  The first butterfly we saw was a Small White  but all the other whites were Wood Whites. they flutter close to the vegetation, looking as though they are just about to settle, but none of them did.

I remember first getting to know Wood Whites in my local woods, south of Bristol, in the 1970s – it looks like they aren’t there now.  But they are in sites like Salcey Forest where FC has managed the site so that butterflies benefit.

Further down the track we saw at least two Black Hairstreaks at a spot where there is blackthorn on either side of the track. It took quite a while to get good views of them but one finally cooperated.

Here’s an account from five years ago of a visit to the same spot at a similar time.  And here’s a mention of Wood Whites as being a conservation success story in this part of the world.

 

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