Good Shot, it shows how males of Bergers and Pale CYs are similar colour to helice females, but the Black Border always gives helice away. I found my Male Pale Clouded Yellow in 1996 thinking it was an helice at a distance at first, when it was male it had to be one of the others.

Great shot to finish with, ive done some lovely ones too recently. Everything other than CYs and LTBs now seems to be ending, a few Red Admirals still around though. Will anything be left after 4 days of rain.

Now i have a signed copy thanks to Pete at AES today im enjoying reading it great photos of the early stages, it was great to see a few of the less known facts about Glanvilles have been mentioned in the text too. The mixture of instar larvae occurs before hibernation as well, and ive seen an earlie...

Small Tortoiseshells in Surrey are just as bad, in 1997 we had over 100 on the Hutchisons Bank transect this year just 8. We had a web of larvae, but nothing came of these. with 1420 Small Blues and 8 Small Tortoiseshells, most other species had higher counts, we even had 4 purple emperors. At the m...

All the Surrey Sightings seem to be in Private Gardens, and Denbies drew a blank despite searches, so Surrey photographers have had a harder time than in Sussex to get pictures of the Offspring of the August migrants, as the Gardens are all off limits to visitors, these pictures of the offspring of ...

I'm assuming that's some form of buddleia, Katrina, although it's not one I've seen before. Likewise, I'm unfamiliar with the blue flower the hoverfly is perched on, but it makes for a particularly attractive image. :) Its a hybrid between the Orange Ball Buddleia and the white Buddleia, similar to...

Looks like a female and on Plantain.

Small Blue reported at Howell Hill Surrey. Is this a late 2nd Brood or a 3rd Brood adult. Any thoughts Neil. The last fresh Small Blue at Hutchinsons Bank was 8 weeks ago, with the numbers we have, any fresh ones now would be third Brood, this asks the question that in this year of extra broods is t...

Of course I'll sign it! And thanks in advance :) Look forward to seeing you at the Sussex AGM, Martin :) Cheers, - Pete Yes im looking forward to Both your talk and the book. We can have conflicting views and both be correct, this has been the case many times in history. One for Guy, I have noticed...

A 5th Instar larvae would be fully grown in most cases except the blues, hairstreaks and a few others. as i said late "4th Instar" would describe a 4th instar that has reached its skin change, Ive seen such in many books and pictures. Its a matter of wording that is the problem with Fully ...

In the context of how it's written and what it's illustrating calling mid instar larvae 'fully grown' is correct since it's showing how they change appearance during an instar, i.e. a freshly moulted 5th instar looks different to a fully grown 5th instar. This terminology is used throughout the boo...

In the context of how it's written and what it's illustrating calling mid instar larvae 'fully grown' is correct since it's showing how they change appearance during an instar, i.e. a freshly moulted 5th instar looks different to a fully grown 5th instar. This terminology is used throughout the boo...

Monday 23rd September At Hutchinsons Bank a pairing of Clouded Yellows and a Brown Hairstreak. DSC06578s.JPG DSC06586s.jpg Tuesday 24th at the Brilliant Butterfly Banks project Launch, we managed to see about 6 Clouded Yellows at 4pm, after the heavy rain all the morning and later in the evening we ...

Only had a quick 10 minute look at the Launch of the Brilliant Butterfly Banks project, did find a few errors in that time unfortunatly, on the Glanville Fritillary pages, a 5th Instar larvae is called "Fully Grown" on the photograph, only to have following 6th and 7th Instars afterwards, ...

We also noted Red Admirals flying south, along the cutting at Hutchinsons Bank, where Red Admirals are not usually seen in numbers.

I have searched the route from New Addington to the Jackass Lane/Nash site, Brown Hairstreaks are in colonies all the way where suitable habitat is found, today i added another 2 1km squares in Kent.

The Only open wing settled Small Heath i have seen was being eaten by a spider from the hidden side.

I haven't seen many reports of Clouded Yellows so far this summer, and all my trips to the south coast and their other usual haunts (like Denbies) have drawn a blank. I was therefore very pleasantly surprised to come across a male Cloudie in the old chalk workings at Kiplingcotes in East Yorkshire ...

People on the Sussex BC site think the bad weather in early August has delayed hatching until the middle of last week, so the numbers should build up when the temp drops down to the lower to mid 20s. I checked 2 Possible Kent sites this morning, there is a lot of young growth on the hedge that eggs ...

They seem to like odd years at the moment, 2013,2015, &2019 dont know why they missed out on 2017, there were a few in 2014 and other years, but only in ones and twos.