Please can somebody ID this? I was sure it was large skipper in the field (small skipper haven't been seen in the parish for many years), but on inspection it appears to be a small?

Purple Hairstreak I revisited the white-letter hairstreak colony I found this week and counted more than 20 butterflies. Remarkable! It must be the best colony for 20 miles in every direction and it's right on my doorstep. Today I stopped off on my way home to search for purple hairstreak and found...

White-Letter Hairstreaks I found a new colony of white letter hairstreaks today just a few hundred yards from home (Thrintoft, North Yorkshire, VC65). I've been searching for them locally for years with no luck, so it just goes to show how elusive they can be and how possible it is that they are mas...

I was at Fermyn on Monday 12th and there were a few purple emperor about, most of which looked quite worn already. That said, there was at least one fresh individual about (photos here http://thrintoftpatch.blogspot.co.uk/) I also saw silver-washed frit, white admiral and white-letter hairstreak. Re...

Pah! Curse my virility!! The wife is due to drop in May and gave me a firm "no" when I asked (tea and biscuit sweetener already exchanged but wasted)! That sounds like a good week and it's a part of the world I've never explored :o( Do you know any medical tricks that will guarantee her no...

Hi Paul, long time no see! Just down the road here in Thrintoft we're having a good year for bramblings too... we have them in numbers now having never seen them before. The cold weather has also brought the yellowhammers into the garden, which is a treat! I'm lucky that aside from the house sparrow...

I think it might be Iris Sawfly

Chris wrote:Pete's right, this is an interesting thread, but please can we stop it descending into an argument about whether climate change is or isn't being accelerated by man!

Such a shame that this is what's happened, especially as we're all arguing on the same side - please can we stick to the butterflies?

Adaptation to enable exploitation of favourable climatic conditions over the last decade, presenting an opportunity for the butterlfy to move in a northerly direction. That's what has made this study so fascinating. There was no reason to suppose that the Brown Argus would adapt to a new larval foo...

Good post Neil. For the record, I'm no denialist - quite the reverse, but I get tired of ill-presented evidence and the enraged debate that usually follows. Your examples of climate change denialists being misinformed and largely mad are interesting... I'm sure though, with a little research I could...

Pete's right, this is an interesting thread, but please can we stop it descending into an argument about whether climate change is or isn't being accelerated by man! None of us will live long enough to read enough evidence to confirm whether our exit from this ice age is being facilitated by us! Fur...

What if there are already somewhat different populations in different parts of distribution and the genes that are better capable of hibernating are moving when the environment changes? I'm not sure I know what you mean. Do you mean that (bringing it back to the example) there are populations of Re...

I agree it takes long, but doesn't the recorded changes in melanism show that the time scale can be considerably faster than thousands of years? Ah yes, but actually that's a good example to illustrate my point that the population wouldn't suffer if there was a sudden environmental change... the no...

Dave It is important to remember that no UK butterfly survives for more than one winter. Thus no individual experienced last winter AND this winter. However, their offspring will carry the genetic material and thus the physical and behavioural attributes that enabled survival in previous tough wint...

tut tut, Pete! I thought you were one of the tripodista. To sum it up for me, a camera mounted on a tripod at the lowest possible ISO is perfect... everything else is introducing some degree of compromise. Fact. Sure you'll get more shots in the field but I'd rather fly fish for trout than dynamite ...

I'm not really a spider expert, but I do recall a little about the more widespread species... there are a few types of Common House Spider, all in the genus tegenaria, the two commonest are t.domestica and t.gigantea, though the gigantea isn't nearly as big as it sounds! Males look quite different t...

Zonda wrote:Are they really common?

Mouths like dockers...

A GARDEN SPIDER This cannot be that boring Ha... sorry! It does have other names... the cross spider, the papal cross spider and the diadem spider... if you say "diadem spider" fast enough, it sounds dangerous! We're not very good at naming spiders in Britain in my opinion... one of the l...

I use a 322RC2 on top of an 055B and have not experienced any deterioration in grip in the 5 or so years I've had it... you CAN alter the friction too, contrary to the post above. This combination is so versatile it makes using a tripod a joy - I'd guess that the anti-tripod fraternity that you'll m...

Nice pic Zonda.... I'd say it was the Common Garden Spider (araneus diademetus), which is extremely variable. While on the heath, look out for the larger and distinctly more spherical close relative, araneus quadratus. There should be plenty about at this time of year.