Green Hairstreaks at Sidwood

I had a wonderful walk at Sidwood today, looking for wild flowers and hoping to photograph an Orange Tip (Anthocharis cardamines), one of my target butterfly species this spring. I'm increasingly perplexed as to how I am going to achieve this aim because they never seem to settle long enough to have their picture taken and I'm certainly not athletic enough to keep up with them as they flit about one way and another.

The woodland was certainly at its best as here, amongst the beech trees ...

And here, walking back along the road to the car park ...

Just beyond this stand of trees, the verges on either side of the road open up into wide stretches of rough grass dotted with young birch trees. It was here that I first noticed a number of tiny, dark-coloured butterflies and I stopped to take a closer look. They were flying and settling on the birch leaves, making them almost invisible. With a wingspan of only 25-30mm, I felt privileged to observe them let alone take this picture.

Green Hairstreak (Callophrys rubi)
If I had gone out intending to look for Green Hairstreaks, and they were a delightful if unexpected surprise today, I might have had better luck with the Orange Tips.