Prees Heath Common Reserve, Shropshire
I took the day off work last week and visited Prees Heath Common Reserve in Shropshire with my family.
My mum had visited the Common before and loved it, so it was lovely to be able to pay a socially distanced visit with her and my brother.
The reserve is on a large Common that had been a Second World War airfield, and is the last sanctuary for the Silver-studded Blue butterfly in the Midlands. A fantastic restoration project is re-instating heathland and grassland vegetation across much of the site to encourage wildlife in this area.
We picked a gorgeous day for it, and it was glorious to explore the quiet heathland in the sunshine together and see such a variety of beautiful wildlife, including, to our excitement, hundreds of Silver-studded Blue butterflies fluttering around us in the heather.
I was fascinated to find out that these butterflies have a close friendship with black ants, which is formed quickly after they hatch from their eggs. The ants take the caterpillars into their nests and keep them safe from predators when they emerge to feed, mainly on young heather shoots. In return, the caterpillar produces sugary fluids for the ants.
The adult butterfly emerges from its chrysalis in an ants nest on a warm morning, climbing usually up grass or heather stems by a few centimetres. Whilst the butterfly sits motionless drying out its wings, it is very vulnerable, so the ants continue to protect them until the butterfly is ready to fly off and find a mate. My brother spotted this mating pair in the act at Prees and was able to capture this beautiful shot!
Mating pair of Silver-studded blue butterflies
Silver-studded blues form dense colonies, which we certainly got the pleasure of witnessing! The females lay their eggs usually on heather, but also use other plants such as gorse and bird’s-foot trefoil, both of which plants we saw in abundance on the Common too.
Bird’s-foot-trefoil
We were also lucky enough to see lots of other species of butterflies, and lots of cinnabar caterpillars and moths feeding on ragwort. We saw rabbits, we had buzzards flying overhead, and could hear skylarks twittering.
But the most surprising spot of the day had to be this lizard! It almost appeared to be posing for the camera in this shot.
Since lockdown, I’ve been appreciating nature even more than usual, and this trip definitely didn’t disappoint. I got so much inspiration from this visit, so I’ll be sure to come back to these photographs soon for some new work.