Knepp 2024 In Pictures (Part 2) These recent images from Knepp bring me back up-to-date. The Purple Emperor season is still in full swing, although the number of groundings will now tail away for another year. As in previous seasons, we have watched in awe as a Hobby catches the battling male butte...

Thanks, Trevor. More female Purple Hairstreaks coming up - all different individuals!
BWs, Neil

Thanks, Guy. I feel very lucky if I get one chance like that every couple of years. This year, two of these beauties fell to earth in front of me within 5 minutes - I couldn't believe it was happening! I saw a third drop onto bracken two days previously; my best-ever run with pristine female Purple ...

Knepp 2024 In Pictures (Part 1) With so little free time at this time of year (although I take an annual break from fieldwork so that I can enjoy the early part of the Purple Emperor season), there's not much time for the narrative. Suffice to say, Knepp has delivered top notch wildlife experiences...

Thanks, David. Let's hope so. I'd personally like to see them released into the wider Vert Wood complex, to create a more robust metapopulation structure, but the last time I asked about developing this reintroduction, the response was less than lukewarm.
BWs, Neil

22 June 2024 As my older brother has been living in either the Netherlands or Belgium for many years, he had never visited the BC Sussex reserves until yesterday (22 June). The main reasons for heading there were to show him how we have converted the once dark, conifer-dominated Rowland Wood into a...

Thanks, Trevor. I'm sure the damp spring and early summer weather will help, as it may also do for Small Tortoiseshell ... until the next drought! The Purple Emperor season is underway. Matthew saw two at Knepp today. There was a time when we wouldn't see PE until White Admiral and SWF were both 'we...

11 June 2024 With the continuation of poor weather and a forecast predicting only short sunny spells, I abandoned the idea of a day monitoring butterflies on the South Downs. However, the conditions were sufficiently favourable for what will be my only Black Hairstreak hunt of the year at Ditchling...

Day-flying Moths When I'm out assessing habitat health, primarily using butterflies as indicators, I of course record other wildlife, including day-flying moths. During the spring period, I put quite an emphasis on the Chalk Grassland Species Indicator (CGSI rating) I've developed over the years, w...

3 June 2024 Despite very marginal weather conditions, and with low expectations after hearing a string of rather negative reports from the Sussex reserves, I was pleased to find plenty of good butterflies during my visit on 3 June. Grizzled Skipper ab. taras was still flying on Rushy Meadow, along ...

Thanks, David. Perversely, I think that this very wet spring and early summer will be to the liking of SPBF; perhaps a thin silver lining to this miserable dark cloud!
BWs, Neil

Hi Bert
The first is a Scorpion Fly - probably Panorpa germanica. The second is the nationally scarce Bumblebee Robberfly Laphria flava - a very impressive beast!
BWs, Neil

Cistus Forester One of the many great things about surveying and monitoring butterflies and other wildlife for a living, is that every season I find myself on sites that I would otherwise never visit, some of which don't appear to be particularly appetising, at least at first sight. On 2 June I vis...

BC Volunteers Walk, 27 May 2024 The following is a report lifted directly from the BC Sussex website. "This is a deliberately late report, as social media can be so effective at generating very high visitor numbers (including those who are less careful in avoiding damage to habitats while in t...

Thanks, David. The second event for the volunteers went equally well.
BWs, Neil

BC Volunteers Walk, 12 May 2024 The following is a report lifted directly from the BC Sussex website. "Having read some rather gloomy reports of late, I was slightly concerned that Sunday's event for the volunteers who give their time so generously to manage our reserves, might under-deliver. ...

Pearl-bordered Fritillary 2024 The longer I study this species, the more convinced I become that a late start to the Pearl-bordered Fritillary flight season means that numbers will be low. Big peaks in abundance almost always coincide with 'early' springs, following warm and sunny conditions throug...

Thanks, David. Yes, it's been a weird start to the 2024 butterfly season, but I suspect that things will find a more typical rhythm by the time that the appearance of Meadow Brown heralds the start of summer.
BWs, Neil

Pink Hairstreakers?

Duke of Burgundy 2024 This is a brief update on the flight season in Sussex, which still has a long way to go bearing in mind that some sites are much 'later' than others. Unusually, the Duke of Burgundy season is running ahead of the Pearl-bordered Fritillary this year. A miserable, wet and sunles...