Very rare encounter with Butterfly in Gwent

26th May
Wentwood

Its not too often that butterflies get posted on this blog but this one certainly demands attention for it is very rarely seen.
A chance find of 3 Small Blue whilst rummaging across a site Saturday afternoon brought a wave of excitement across me despite me seeing a few before in the Gloucestershire vice county.
Gloucestershire and Wiltshire counties have plenty of sightings. Herefordshire one of our other neighbouring counties as far as I know has an extinct population (I may be corrected on that) and indeed Monmouthshire has had very few records.

Small Blue butterfly

Martin Anthoney tells me that this was only the third record of the Small Blue butterfly in Gwent, the others coming 8 years ago in 2010 in the Newport area. I'm not absolutely sure but its quite possible these sites might not be there in Newport as it undergoes structural changes.
2010 was the first glimpses of this butterfly in the Vice County underlining the absolute rarity of seeing this butterfly.
The biggest problem tends to be the difficulty in finding a suitable site for the foodplant, Kidney Vetch to establish. I've only seen it after years of visiting different sites on 3, or maybe 4 occasions.
Kidney Vetch is here in scattered locations but extremely rare in the Monmouthshire/Gwent areas.
As often is the case though, just because the foodplant is growing at a site does not necessarily guarantee the Small butterfly resides there.

Rare site for Kidney Vetch the foodplant for the Small Blue 

Such are the requirements for recording it in the county, the Small Blue, a photograph is needed for proof of a sighting.
For me that day obtaining a photograph caused me no end of problems as the butterfly was down amongst grasses due to increasing late afternoon cloud cover making it impossible to get my camera to focus.
I ending up disturbing it as I shifted position causing it to take flight, however I watched it like a hawk to another more exposed site, never taking my eye off it.

This time thankfully the new resting place enabled me immediately to obtain focus and a good picture, shown above.