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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jos Stratford" data-source="post: 3439113" data-attributes="member: 12449">6 August. Success on the Belarus Border!Ominous looking skies nearly turned me back, blanket cloud clover and spells of rain on route. I persevered however, my destination once again the Belarussian borderlands to the far south-east of Lithuania. My goal was yet again Chalkhill Blue, plus I planned a perhaps optimistic search for the super star of the week previous, the female Meleager's Blue.No sun on arrival, but the clouds had thinned to a considerable degree, it was quite bright and certainly warm. Some activity amongst butterflies. I checked a couple of excellent meadows, including the site where I had found the Meleager's Blue, to rather better results than I had feared - along with a dozen or so more common species, one Queen of Spain Fritillary, three Large Grizzled Skippers and several Silver-spotted Skippers. Not bad for starters, no Chalkhill Blue however and, despite quite extensive search, no sign of the Meleager's Blue.Moving a kilometre further, I then began a search along the wide margins of a sandy track, rough pasture to the one side. Bingo! Almost immediately ran into a male Chalkhill Blue, the uppers appearing an almost ghostly pale whitish-blue when in flight. 100th species in Lithuanian in 2016! Quite a few Common Blues at the same locality. Quite active initially, the Chalkhill Blue briefly had a run-in with another largish blue butterfly at one point, my thoughts running along the lines of 'hmm, that looked interesting' but as it did not settle, I did not pursue it beyond that as I had not yet photographed the Chalkhill Blue. As the cloud thickened slightly, the Chalkhill Blue became a little less active, sitting on flower heads for rather longer, I got my photographs!The largish blue butterfly began to bug me, I had a sneaking suspicion that I had perhaps walked away from a rather significant butterfly! With most butterflies now inactive, I began to search for the butterfly and about ten minutes later, I found it sitting quietly on a stalk of grass. My suspicions were confirmed - a male Meleager's Blue! Not sporting the classy features of the female, the male is far more subdued male and moderately easy to overlook ...and that was what I had almost done! Weak scalloping to the rear wings, underwing markings shadowing the female's more prominent pattern - the identification was secure.Amazing, second record ever for Lithuania! However, giiven that this is a non-migratory species, the presence of this male at a distance of only 550 metres from the female location must further strengthen the likelihood that a hitherto unknown population may well exist in the vicinity, potentially across the border in Belarus or quite possibly on the Lithuanian side.Rather chuffed with this, I continued my day, finding two more Chalkhill Blues at another location nearby, plus an assortment of other species, including two Camberwell Beauties, several Reverdin's Blues, a few Dusky Meadow Browns and one Weaver's Fritillary. Markedly though, I saw no Marbled Whites, the impressive flights of weeks previous seemingly over.BALTIC YEAR LIST105. Chalkhill Blue (100 in Lithuania).</blockquote>

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