Hello, 12 October 2009 Life for the declining number of butterflies was beginning to becoming more difficult. The Ivy was still an attractant but everywhere the bushes were dominated by swarms of wasps, bees and flies with the occasional bumblebee and the butterflies if they were able to find a perc...

Hello, Meadow Brown Speckled Wood Red Admiral Common Blue Clouded Yellow Comma Wall Brown Small Heath Painted Lady Large White Small White Peacock Small Copper Thirteen species of butterfly seen in the first two days of October 2009 in the Shoreham area First Adur Butterfly Dates 2003 to 2009 http:/...

Hello, 20 September 2009 On an energy sapping humid morning, both hoverflies and butterflies were active around one large clump of Ivy on the Pixie Path (near the NW corner of Frampton's Field, Old Shoreham) and it was a flash of orange I saw first which I thought was a Comma, but it turned out to b...

Hi Andy, Meadow Brown? What was it doing to make its behaviour unusual? It just did not look right. It was aligning itself at an angle in a peculiar way. I think it must have been the breeze at Force Three. It was also very quick, but then it may have been wind blown. Meadow Browns do not usually f...

Hello, 2 September 2009 Butterflies After the deluge and on a cool cloudy breezy day, I visited Mill Hill to check out whether any Gatekeepers were still around. I must have looked at over fifty Meadow Browns but even the brown and orange butterflies in the hedgerows were Meadow Browns. They were di...

Hello, I think this butterfly is the obvious*, but I am not sure because its behaviour was unusual. First impressions please? Blurry pic: http://www.glaucus.org.uk/DBScabious5761e.jpg * The brown markings (which appears as a broad stripe) seems indicative of a Meadow Brown. I think it must have been...

Hello, 25 August 2009 On a breezy day, the one acre transect on the lower slopes of Mill Hill (Old Shoreham) hosted 38 Adonis Blue Butterflies with the 17 females the highest recorded count for this gender. There were at least a handful of couples courting and mating. Mill Hill Reports 2009 http://w...

Hi Perseus, There are two aspects to your wasp predation theory that don't necessarily hold water; namely that coridon larvae are nocturnal and tend to hide during daylight (wasp hunting) hours. Also, by the time that a wasp nest is maturing and wasp predation reaches significant levels the coridon...

Here's another link to a study that was undertaken in New Zealand on the prey items of the Common Wasp, Vespula vulgaris. It seems from the table on page 7 that butterfly larvae is a major part of it's diet :shock: . So some pure speculation on my part would be that a nest with many hundreds or tho...

Nice one Gruditch, lovely underside shot. If they're down low it's sometimes worth shading them (very slowly so as not to spook them), as often they will open up flat - after getting some good stuff first of course! I saw two different females at Steyning (W. Sussex) today, but they are just starti...

Hello, 17 August 2009 I was shocked by the unmistakable sighting of a Brown Hairstreak Butterfly on Mill Hill south of the upper car park. It flew of rapidly and was lost to my sight in about 20 seconds, so this was my first ever glimpse of hedgerow butterfly that lays its eggs on Blackthorn (Sloe)....

Hello, 5 August 2009 Two Clouded Yellow Butterflies flew strongly over the short grass immediately to the east of the main clump of trees on Lancing Ring. http://www.glaucus.org.uk/LancingRing2009.htm 6 August 2009 On a humid sunny morning the Chalkhill Blue Butterfly count in a 15 minute transect o...

Hello, 9 August 2009 The lower slopes of Mill Hill were more crowded with butterflies than the previous week but the one acre transect still only recorded a meagre total of 35 Chalkhill Blues (including two females) with 30 Adonis Blues (including one female) and slightly less in number of Common Bl...

Thursday 6 August 2009 Hello, On a humid sunny morning the Chalkhill Blue count in a 15 minute transect on the lower slopes of Mill Hill was a paltry 37 with just one female seen. There were frequent Common Blues including males courting with very small females. The first male second brood Adonis Bl...

Not good news Perseus :( . Just to show that it's not all bad news for the Chalkhill's. At Danebury Hill, Hampshire, until a handful turned up in 2006, we had no Chalkhill Blues. The peak count was 33, in 2007, for 2008 it was 78, and this year we had, 117 just last week. :D Gruditch Other parts of...

http://www.glaucus.org.uk/ChalkhillBlues2003-8.jpg cf. The maximum transect day count for 2008 was 81 on 30 July 2008, which was even lower than 2007 when the maximum 1.2 acre day count was 96 on 5 August 2007. In 2003, the Chalkhill Blues were too many to count and the estimate for the 1.2 acre tr...

Hello, 3 August 2009 The sun was out, but alas not the Chalkhill Blues in their expected numbers on Mill Hill with just 47 noted which means that the number of the Chalkhill Blues in flight on Mill Hill were probably around 150 which is a disastrously low total. http://www.glaucus.org.uk/FingerBlue4...

Adur Council have done this in the local park. Wholesale clearance withoiut any obvious reason. However, on a nerby roadside verge called Buclkingham Cutting south where I have been monitoring butterflies, the County Council sent in an ecologist team to have a look and the result is they have mown j...

Mark Senior wrote:Between 8 and 11 Clouded Yellows today at Ouse Estuary Nature Reserve . I am sure these are all UK born .

In 2007, I saw a Clouded Yellow emerge in the Adur valley at Upper Beeding. However, I think the one I saw was most likely an immigrant.

Hello, 16 July 2009 My first Clouded Yellow Butterfly since 2007 flew over Frampton's Field, Old Shoreham, and disappeared from sight amongst the Creeping Thistles. On Mill Hill in the early afternoon the count of male Chalkhill Blue Butterflies was 30. As expected at this time of the year, Large Wh...