TL:DR – Purple Hairstreak butterflies are present in Gamlingay Woods in the summer along with Purple Emperor and various other species.
I’ve visited a few of the old woods to the west of Cambridge in the last couple of years including Hayley Wood, Wareseley Wood (and Brown’s Piece), and Overhall Grove. One that I’d attempted to visit this time last year was Gamlingay Wood. It’s not far from the village of Waresely, and for that matter, not far from Gamlingay.
Google Maps gets you to what it thinks is your destination at a farm gate on the B1040 road. Unfortunately, this isn’t the nature reserve managed by the Wildlife Trust. That’s further along the road up a gated track, there’s no parking now, and the nature reserve sign that was apparently opposite the track and the erstwhile parking is missing.
Anyway, I was visiting as this is another site with some old oaks and a sighting of Purple Emperor butterfly. So, I found a layby back up the road, parked there and walked back down to the sign that isn’t there and up the gated dirt track. There’s a Y in the footpaths when you go through the accessible style-gate and after a quick look to the tops of the oaks there, I took the right fork and then a sharp left to cut across the woodland. Within 100 metres or so I spotted a Purple Hairstreak fleetingly basking on the ground.
So I hunkered down with my camera and macro lens and watched for more. There were plenty. Perhaps a couple of dozen. Interspersed with Silver-washed Fritillary, Large White, Ringlet, Large Skipper, Speckled Wood, Gatekeeper, Comma, and Meadow Brown. I was just about to move on, when a Purple Emperor wafted towards me and flew overhead never to be seen again. I lugged camera and camera bag a little further into the wood, saw more Frits and lots of Peacock nectaring on Purple Loosestrife, there were insects on Chichory flowers, and an occasional moth, and at least a couple of Brown Argus in a scrubby clearing. All nice enough to see, but I was peeved that I didn’t get a snapshot of Gamlingay’s Purple Emperor. That will have to be for another day.
