Over the weekend we visited Heather's brother in Ashwell in Hertfordshire to help celebrate Maureen's retirement. Knowing that there was a strong colony of chalkhill blue butterflies on Therfield Heath just outside Royston I was keen to explore as July is in the height of their flight period. The heath is a nature reserve and site of special scientific interest on the chalk escarpment near Royston. Although there is a golf course it is common land and sheep are still grazed there. I managed to squeeze in two visits: one on Sunday morning with Malcolm and Maureen and one with Heather on Monday morning 'on the way home'! On both occasions it was warm but very windy making photography very difficult. The blues were easy to find being right next to the car park and on the Monday I counted over 30 within an area only a few yards square. As its name implies, this is a butterfly of chalk and limestone downland, to which it is restricted because the larval foodplant, horeshoe vetch, is similarly confined to this habitat. The males are a lovely silver-blue whilst the females are brown as in common blues. I was much take with the beautiful white heart-shaped mark on the underwing of both sexes. In Britain it is restricted to southern England, south-east of a line from the Severn Estuary to the Wash
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