The Purple Hairstreak is our most common Hairstreak butterfly, although that does not make it common in overall terms. This small species favours Oak woodlands, where it spends most of its time up in the canopy, making it very difficult to spot and especially to identify. They so rarely come down to ground level that I very nearly missed seeing it among the wood chippings on one of our woodland paths and I wondered about the health of this specimen. It did fly off however, after I got this shot.

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