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Purple Hairstreak "Hat trick"



If you have read some of the blog entries from June, you may recall that I saw Spanish Purple Hairstreak in Monfrague in Spain and Purple Hairstreak on the Bristol Downs in the UK. Spanish Purple Hairstreaks were easy to see with many nectaring on roadside plants or perching on low tree foliage. In contrast, Purple Hairstreak is a more difficult species to see as they spend the vast majority of their time high up in oak trees. With persistence, it isn't too difficult to see small dark butterflies flitting around in the oaks, but even with binoculars it can be hard to get a good look. I was fortunate that one chose to come down to a bramble bush for 20 seconds after a 45-minute wait.

Santa Barbara County, in California, where my home town of Goleta is located, is very good for hairstreaks, with over 10 species. One of the hardest to see is the Great Purple Hairstreak. Although Great Purple Hairstreak appears to have quite a wide distribution in the county, it is remarkably difficult to see in most areas. For example, I have never seen one on the south coast where I have lived for 25 years. The species uses mistletoe as a foodplant. Mistltetoe is usually located high up in cottonwoods or sycamores along creeks and the butterflies only occasionally come down to the ground or hill-top. Not only are these trees even higher than most of the oak trees I search for Purple Hairstreaks on in the UK, but Great Purple Hairstreak appears to be at a much lower density and I have had no luck scanning mistletoe clumps up in the tree tops. In fact, the only area in the county I have seen them is in the semi-desert Cuyama Valley, where they utilize mistletoe in low juniper trees. I have still never seen one around the host plant but they are evidently more common since I have seen one three times - once each of hill-topping, nectaring and imbibing minerals on a wet stream bank.

On July 16, I headed over the pass to the Middle Santa Ynez River Recreation Area along Paradise Road with Hugh Ranson and Lynn Scarlett. The goal was to show Lynn a number of dragonflies species as she had recently developed an interest in them. It was heavily overcast even at the pass but, as I had predicted, the marine layer dispersed as we headed up the river valley. We made several stops looking for 'odes'. Although numbers still appeared lower than before the long drought, we saw several Giant Darners, a couple of Gray Sanddraggons and two or three Pale-faced Clubskimmers. The latter species only returned to the river last year after an absence of over a decade resulting from the drought. 

While waiting patiently (and in vain) for the club-skimmer to perch up in the vegetation for a photo opportunity, I noticed a fairly small dark butterfly with a blue flash in its wing come down the water's edge - a Great Purple Hairstreak! I had always expected to find one along the Santa Inez River, given the plethora of mistletoe in the riparian zone trees there. In fact, several other folks, including Hugh, had been fortunate enough to find them along here. This one posed for great photos for several minutes before heading back up towards the tops of the sycamores, never to be seen again. I have included a couple of Hugh's great photos.



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