(Scopoli, 1763)
Woodland Brown
Description:
The Woodland Brown is fond of warm, open places in damp, deciduous or mixed woods with well-developed shrub and herbaceous layers. These habitats may be flooded in the winter. The butterflies rarely visit flowers, preferring to feed on honeydew, moisture on buds, and sap oozing from wounded trees. The males often settle on puddles on the ground, while the females tend to stay in the very top of the trees.
Eggs are laid on all sorts of grasses, including fescues (Festuca spp.), meadow-grasses (Poa spp.), small-reeds (Calamagrostis spp.), and false-bromes (Brachypodium spp.), and also on sedges (Carex spp.). The half-grown caterpillar hibernates in a grass tussock, where later in the year it also pupates.
The Woodland Brown has one brood a year.
Habitat:
Mixed woodland
Coniferous woodland
Deciduous forests
Similar species:
Coenonympha oedippus
Aphantopus hyperantus