Well that’s all very well Scott but a week last Tuesday I saw the Sun! And with it - a butterfly! I’m not entirely sure what species, because it appeared to be using this rare opportunity to warm up and F-off outta here ASAP - where to I’m not sure, but I suspect like many of us it was at the point ...

Hi Old Wolf - It’s a shame butterflies were not as numerous as you’d hoped - spring and early summer is the best time to target these southern regions but I’m guessing you weren’t only there for the butterflies. Later in the year is still good for graylings though, as it seems you found out…. Exhibi...

Nothing new from the woods but just to report the data from February. 3 Nabokovians were lost from a group of four close together on three neighbouring sallows. IMG_3394.jpeg Overall survival (wider sample) is currently at 57% which compares favourably with previous years, although final survival da...

Hi Old Wolf. Exhibit A is a Sage Skipper. I’m not really up to date with the science but this species has been split recently. I think some sources suggest everything in Turkey should be considered Eastern Sage Skipper ( Muschampia proteides ) whereas the leading Turkish website suggests an area of ...

Indeed it is David! I’m not surprised to hear Martin was enthusing - he was great company throughout the trip.

I know I said I wouldn’t speculate further until I’d run my own test to confirm protogyny but I’m expecting Neil to come back with a convincing defence of his data so I might as well…. Trying to come up with plausible theories as to why delayed male development could be selected for is quite a fun g...

A gene that triggered rapid development and early emergence in males might sign its own death warrant, if those males then inseminated their sisters. I don’t really know whether inbreeding is likely to be a problem for LTB or not. It doesn’t really seem like it would be as one tends to think of iso...

IMG_6438.jpeg Some lovely choices so far. More of a favourite butterfly highlight than a great photo but I’m going to add Hewitson’s ringlet from a summer trip to the Kackar in NE Turkey. I’ve seen this species in previous years but this fresh female was so beautiful and under fairly gloomy conditi...

Hmmm, I wonder if the low predation rate has anything to do with all the rain we've had recently? Less hunting opportunities for the Tits to find them and also less practice to 'get their eye's in' in the first place. You could well be right Paul - it must have something to do with the tits and the...

Protogeny (females emerging ahead of males, which is unique among British butterfly species) was proven yet again. In one well-observed case (Newhaven garden, 15-19 September), where a batch of eggs was laid contemporaneously by a single female, the resultant adults emerged females-first in the pat...

IMG_4270.jpeg The LTB data suggesting protogyny is intriguing, especially as Neil is increasingly sure that it’s kosher. I still want to catch a newly arrived female and run the experiment in tight conditions just to be sure, but perhaps this has been done already? Is this what happened with any of...

Quick update from the woods: The Nabokovians suffered no further losses throughout January, and were all still present when I checked in on them yesterday. This represents very low predation compared with previous years. The wider sample also reflects relatively low predation but not as dramatically...

Very well put Roger. Whatever conclusion we each come to, I’m sure we can all agree that working through these puzzles is an incredibly useful and enjoyable way of sharpening ID skills! I do still think it’s dia - just because it looks like one and I can’t find any images of selene that do enough to...

Some great round up posts with lovely collages Paul. It’s also really nice to see some updates from your local patch - I have many happy memories of cycling around the area with kids in tow.

To be unequivocal I guess they must be saying that either this is a very familiar look for selene , or that there is no chance that dia could be found there, or perhaps both. I wonder what they’d have said without location info - presumably the same thing judging by the level of certainty. If this i...

It would be great for this to turn out to be selene, because really it doesn’t look much like one! As everyone has concluded on looks alone, this is dia every day of the week. Unfortunately until Roger heads back there I can’t see where any further clues could come from…..

Mouth-watering stuff as always Neil - the diary that has been reliably delivering the very best that Sussex has to offer since 2010….. Nice to see the odd iPhone (I guess) context shot creeping in too - a useful tool and if you’ve managed to stop it shouting at you with pointless updates from groups...

What a superb start to the year Bob! Good luck topping that over the next 12 months…..

You’ve both convinced me, so I’ll go back to my initial view that it’s a mix of malvoides and serratulae . Looking again at discal s1 (just visible) I can now (just about) see that as serratulae over armoricanus - I thought it was more obviously leaning internally on first glance but in the last pic...

Ah - the best kind of winter fun….. Initially I thought this just looks like a mix of malvoides and serratulae , but as is often the case the more I look the more tricky they become! Starting with the easier ones I’d say 3 in the last pic are malvoides - bottom right and top left as Guy suggests, an...