The Brown Hairstreak (Thecla betulae) flies in late summer. It’s one of the latest species in Finland and can usually be spotted from late July to mid August. Nevertheless, the species can be tracked down almost all year long. This year, I gave it a shot and tried finding caterpillars. I’ve never photographed larvae of this species in the wild, hence I was motivated to find some.
Spring this year has been exceptionally cold. As a result, the two caterpillars I found on June 17th were only about 1cm in size. Perhaps I should also mention that I did not wildly browse random bird cherry (Prunus padus) bushes. I concentrated on such plants where I was able to spot eggs of the species last winter. I remembered one spot that counted three eggs. I was able to first confirm that two eggs did hatch. Moments later, I was also lucky enough to first find one larva, then the second one.