Skipper-di-doo-dah

I have a list of species that I want to try and give a home to in my new garden. High up on that list are meadow butterflies, species such as Meadow Browns, Gatekeepers and Common Blues, but it also includes a number of our smallest butterflies, the skippers.

And this week, as I walked the new paths I've mown through the few open areas of the garden, I was delighted to see a flash of amber dart by me at knee level, a typical view of these speedy-Gonzalezes of the butterfly world. Skipper-di-doo-dah, skipper-di-day!

I followed it as fast as my eye would allow and, fortunately, it alighted on the seedheads of some Yorkshire Fog grasses.

The four triangular wings, held rather like the open pages of a four-page book, instantly point to one of three species - Large, Small or Essex. (Yes, a very few people in Dorset on chalky soils have the chance of a fourth 'open book' species, Lulworth Skipper, and by August a fifth species called the Silver-spotted Skipper emerges on a few limestone grasslands in South East England).

But which one is it? Well, the Large Skipper has subtle dark patches on the outer half of the wings, whereas this one is golden all the way out to the thin dark-then-white outer lines.

So we're down to Small or Essex, for which the main technique is to check whether the undersides of the antennae tips are black or orange. Yes, it was time to ever-so-slowly drop onto my belly and crawl towards the butterfly to get a sneaky peek. And here was the result:

Black under the antennae. Ta-dah! Essex Skipper.

And it does make a difference in terms of giving them a home. Small Skippers need Yorkshire Fog grass to breed on - well I know I've got that. Essex Skippers prefer Cock's-foot grass, a taller rougher grass.

So a-collecting I will go later this summer, collecting some Cock's-foot seeds from the footpaths around home. And, with luck, in future I will have a colony. My oh my what a wonderful day!