Skip The Essex Girl Jokes :)

I have been spending time this week in deepest Essex with my Essex-born sisters, so am very happy to have found the first Essex Skipper butterfly that I have seen for a few years.

These used to be quite rare but started to become more plentiful when the rabbit population plummeted  owing to Myxomatosis. The grass was no longer nibbled short. Essex Skippers prefer long grass. (I keep my meadow grass long.)  Also, motorway grass verges have provided corridors along which these butterflies spread. 

The Essex Skipper is very similar to the Small Skipper but they can be told apart by the  dark undersides of the Essex’s antennae tips. This is the butterfly that Zahra Freeth found in the sixties in the vicarage garden in Mayland, our home village. She helped with a scientific survey of butterfly distribution. She was not pleased when Head Office refused to believe that there were rare Essex Skippers in her garden. (She was right, though she never did persuade them.)