Wow what a beauty Paul! Always glad when you get rewarded for all those long trips.

Time to return to the WLH All my captive WLH have now emerged. They’re a few days ahead of the wild population but I did see my first wild one on the last day of May. I thought I might as well photograph them and record some data as they emerged. Clearly lighting conditions varied and I’m not fussy ...

That’s a lovely photo on the dropwort Trevor

Great stuff Dave! I think this is very useful as memories are indeed very short - often only extending as far back as the previous week if the conversations I have with people are anything to go by! This does seem especially true when this amnesia gives us Brits an opportunity to grumble - we do lov...

Thanks both. I certainly don’t need high numbers for breeding - females can quite easily manage 500 eggs or more. It is important to rear good numbers though, in order to experiment with different conditions. Most of them live out their lives in a couple of large flight cages that take over the gard...

Black-veined white in southern Britain. IMG_9568.jpeg With BVW popping up at sites around the UK, and headlines appearing that suggest climate change together with habitat restoration/improvements are rendering much of southern Britain suitable for the re-establishment of this species, I’ve been mo...

Hi Trevor. Yes - purple hairstreaks will do much the same thing - although I have never observed this out in the field. I suspect that they descend at night so a UV search of the trunks of some well used oaks may well be fruitful. I suspect it is the case with big old gnarly oaks that a significant ...

It’s been a busy time for hairstreaks. The majority of black hairstreak have now pupated and the white letters are not far behind - in fact I would say that the w-album frontrunners were ahead of the pruni this year. As mentioned before in my diary it’s very easy to monitor large numbers of w-album ...

A key factor in wing-rolling behaviour appears to be the reluctance to do it when close to others of the same species. Even in lek situations my observations suggest the butterfly appears to do it when it is not relating to a neighbour in any way (probably because it is unaware of its neighbour’s p...

Great read Pete - what a trip! If it were me then I’m sure that when the bizarre evening hotel activities kicked off, and having had a quite incredible and dream-like day in the field, I would have been seriously questioning my reality! Or if I managed to convince myself it wasn’t a dream then I’m s...

Excellent! They seem to be a very interesting group! Thanks for posting.

Hi Paul

Nomada goodeniana?

Not something I know much about but it looks to be there or thereabouts.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/63075200@ ... 574350736/

Those male holly blues are a gorgeous colour Trevor - I must spend some more time trying to get photos like that.

Quick update from the woods…. It was April 24th yesterday and I couldn’t resist. What does it tell us? Not much - it’s spring. IMG_0825.jpeg IMG_5446.jpeg The ongoing woodland management around my woods is more dramatic however. This has been one of my most productive iris rides over the 5 year peri...

Hi Trevor - unfortunately that’s probably fairly representative of the wider Sussex countryside right now. Most of these areas just don’t have lush summer nettle beds to support a big second or third brood. Faced with poor quality nettles I guess any summer brood STs emerging in these areas leave in...

I should just update my diary regarding small tortoiseshell and Sturmia bella . Having looked into their relationship closely a couple of summers ago I was amazed and excited to discover recently that the crucial missing piece of the puzzle (the overwintering habits of S.bella ) was not missing at a...

Bloody hell Neil - they keep getting better! The sea of blue shot is staggering but I particularly love the penultimate one. Beautiful series.

IMG_3394.jpeg With all the survivors now feeding this is the survival data for this year: 11/20 Nabokovians survived - very good compared to previous years. The wider sample is also pretty positive so a good winter for iris at my site. 19/20: 14/47 - 29.8% 20/21: 13/35 - 37.1% 21/22: 12/44 - 27.3% ...

Wow - what a beauty. Peacocks are undoubtedly dazzling when freshly emerged but I prefer them in spring, when they’ve been toned-down to perfection by the passage of time. Yours is a great example.

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 ...