You’ve arrived at Daneway Banks, the sun is shining, and you’ve come to find the large blue butterfly. As you walk around Daneway Banks, the excitement building, you come across a Large Blue Warden, one of our volunteers, who has the inside scoop on large blues at Daneway Banks and where to find them. You go up to talk with them and get the news you were hoping for, the large blues are out, and have been seen on the reserve today. With anticipation you make your way to where they have been spotted.

On your way, a flash of blue catches your eye, was that one? You follow it a little, peering through your binoculars until it lands on a yellow bird’s foot trefoil, focusing on you realize it’s a common blue, beautiful but not what you’re looking for.

So, on you trek, through the grassland, alive with the chirping noise of the field crickets and the buzzing of the bees passing by. To your left you spot a marbled white flying past and on your right, a couple of dingy skippers are chasing each other over the yellow meadow ant mounds. A flash of red grabs your attention, a cinnabar moth, resting on the ground, its bright coloring making it stand out amongst the softer green grass.

You walk past a patch of kidney vetch, the many small yellow flowers packed close together the place where the small blues lay their eggs (1). Up ahead flashes of purple stand above the yellow carpet below, the orchids are showing off. The common spotted, with their pale flowers and the deeper purple of the pyramidal orchid pull you in. A few steps ahead you come across an interesting find, standing slightly taller than the other orchids, with white flowers shaped like wings, a butterfly orchid stands alone. But still, no large blues appear.

On you go, passing the pink patches of wild thyme, hoping to spot a large blue amongst the tiny flowers, but no luck. You pass by an area of scrub, was that the slither of a snake you saw? Maybe an adder retreating into the hawthorn after basking in the sun. You wait a couple of minutes hoping it will re-emerge, but it stays hidden. You notice a small corded off area ahead, within which you spot the feathered leaves of the cut-leaved germander growing in a sparsely vegetated area, a rare plant only found on a handful of sites in the UK (2). A shadow passes overhead, the sun disappearing behind a cloud, have you missed your chance? Have the large blues disappeared for the day with the sun?

You carry on your walk, passing more wild thyme and marjoram, the latter yet to produce its purple flowers. You pass another yellow flower, Dyer’s greenwood, elegantly swaying in the breeze. An interesting plant catches your eye, with uniform oval leaflets and creamy-white flowers in dense clusters different from the surrounding vegetation, the wild liquorice, a small clump of it right in front of you (3). Walking on you look over the grassland, looking around at the view of the surrounding countryside, a mixture of grasslands and woodland in a variety of shades of green and gold, with a buzzard flying overhead on the hunt for its prey.

Wild liquorice. Photos by Katherine Keates

Suddenly you have to shield your eyes as the bright sun reappears. Lowering your gaze back to the grassland, a flicker of blue races past and settles nearby. Another common blue? Or perhaps it was a small blue making its way to the patch of kidney vetch in front of you. You look closer, binoculars at hand, your heart racing as you see something blue nestled within the pink flowers of the wild thyme (4). Holding your breathe you quickly lift your binoculars to your eyes, amazement as you spot distinctive black dots on shining blue wings (1), finally your search for the large blue is complete!

It’s an amazing experience seeing the large blues at Daneway Banks. The adults provide a brilliant sight to be seen for the few weeks of the year they are in flight however, walking onto the nature reserve you can’t ignore the many other amazing species making the grassland come alive. We are working to increase the number of wonderful habitats like Daneway Banks across Gloucestershire, providing homes for large blues and other species, helping to re-connect the wider landscape so that more wildlife can be found right on your doorstep.

¹We co-own Daneway Banks with the Royal Entomological Society

References

1. Tomlinson, D. et al., (2020). ‘The Species Accounts’. In Britain’s Butterflies, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p41-171
2. Online Atlas of the British and Irish Flora. Teucrium botrys. Downloaded from: https://www.brc.ac.uk/plantatlas/plant/teucrium-botrys#tabs-0-middle-7 [Accessed on 20/05/21]
3. The Wildlife Trusts. Wild liquorice. Downloaded from: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/wildflowers/wild-liquorice [Accessed on 21/06/21]
4. Hayes, M.P. (2015) ‘The biology and ecology of the large blue butterfly Phengaris (Maculinea) arion: a review.’ J Insect Conserv, 19, 1p037–1051