Hi David, You did really well. We were in Tenerife at the same time, but unfortunately in a very sanitised hotel in the south of the island, so not ideal for butterflies. Our flight delay was rather longer due to a medical emergency and a diversion to Manchester Airport. We arrived at 5am on the 5th...

Jack, My FZ330 arrived today. It seems that most adjustments (if not all) can be done with the buttons and the touch screen is just an additional way of doing the same operations. The touch screen can also be switched off, so you don't inadvertently change something with your nose when taking a pict...

Paul, Thank you for your review of the FZ330. I have had an FZ150 for the last 12 years and it is struggling to produce sharp pictures any longer. Although the specification of the FZ330 isn't much different from the 150, it sounds like a good replacement for me. I would have bought another FZ150 if...

Pete,
You have filled me with joy! We are going on holiday to Costa Rica next March. I believe it isn't the best time of year for butterflies, but if I see half of what you saw I will be a happy man!!

I find in late summer that they tend to crawl to the top of the cage and then sit there for about three days before pupating. Some of the time is spent spinning a silk pad to cling to, the rest appears to just be them preparing for the big change. Other species will hang for a couple of days after s...

Thank you for your replies David, Dave and Guy, I wonder if there have been any records of Long-tailed Blues in Scotland. I haven't heard of any, but it isn't beyond the realms of possibility. I have head of chrysalises arriving in supermarket bags of peas! Yes, Holly Blues have two very definite ge...

I would love to read about what you see over there.

A bit of a mystery! We have had two people reporting a blue butterfly in their garden early November in the same village. There are only two choices up here (south-east Scotland) - Common Blue, which has only recently started to produce a second generation in September and Holly Blue, which have onl...

I noticed that it said it was a hybrid, so I was thinking the seed may not be viable. Great that you have managed a cutting off it. The Wych Elms growing in my wood only reach a certain size before succumbing to DED. I have read that it is when they reach a certain height that the Elm Beetles get th...

Great to read about the Sheffield Elm. Long may it remain there. Do you know if it produces viable seed? A friend of mine has just ordered some Alder Buckthorn plants to distribute around East Lothian. I suppose if we all do our part we will eventually produce a decent network of foodplants for Brim...

Excellent initiative. I live in the Scottish Borders and planted ten Alder Buckthorn in a new hedge I was putting in five years ago. Unfortunately the neighbouring cattle ate some of them, but I still have five small plants. I am hoping to get some more this winter to plant elsewhere. We only get on...

I am afraid I don't know the answer, but I notice that Violets appear to do best here in lightly wooded areas and particularly in areas that have been recently cleared. I get the impression that it is a lack of competition rather than shade that they require, as some of them are growing on quite sun...

Looking forward to part 2 Pete. Costa Rica is No 1 on my list of places to visit. However, I will need to find a nice coastal resort to keep my wife happy, while I go off looking for butterflies!

That is an interesting theory. We haven't had Speckled Woods in East Lothian that long (with them first being recorded here in 2009). So since our first Speckled Wood recorded on a transect in 2012 the numbers have increased year on year. However, 2019 is a little lower than last year. Our graphs al...

Surely the one thing with raking up leaf litter is that you are also raking up the Fritillary caterpillars (not to mention countless other invertebrate life)? It is very difficult to find the best solution and it will always be a compromise. As I said above, making a habitat for one species will ru...

I am lucky to have some woodland where I have been playing about, trying to enhance it all primarily for butterflies. I have a few small scale projects on the go in an attempt to learn a bit more about better management. The biggest lesson I have learned is that there is no perfect solution. Wildlif...

Hello Janet, I have just been catching up with your diary and I see your post about the Scotch Argus. I also saw the later post saying that it is likely to be the result of an introduction. I spotted a Scotch Argus at our place in the Scottish Borders this summer. I knew of an old record for them in...

The hind wing pattern says Adonis to me. The forewing says aberration!

Thanks for your comments, Nick. Rather than things returning to what they once were, this link https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png shows where we currently are in relation to pre-Little Ice Age times. I always find these graphs terrifying! BWs, Neil Even mor...

Neil, Jumping back to your Long-tailed Blues and climate change. It is all very worrying, although I am also finding it currently very interesting. In East Lothian (South-east Scotland) we have also seen a dramatic decline in Small Tortoiseshell numbers. I am not convinced that this is to do with cl...