Hi jack - congratulations on just about the only sighting in March! Bentley wood is very reliable for PB and SPB and there is a chance of a Duke there during the PB season although they are few and far between. The sites in the new forest were fantastic for PBF in 2011 and I saw literally hundreds -...

Took a walk to one of my favourite Duke sites at Butser Hill today. The wind was bitter but the sun did come out briefly and on the sheltered south facing slopes it was actually quite warm - but the sun was all too brief. I thought there might be a chance of a brimstone but no such luck - Looking at...

Probably not the right place to post this but I know it's quite close to both of you. Try Magdalen hill down at Winchester for Green Hairstreak it's a fantastic site for lots of species and at the UKB photographic workshop in 2011 I saw 20+ greenstreaks but if it's any consolation last year numbers ...

Interesting item in the current BBC Wildlife magazine about Jeremy Thomas work with Large Blues. It would seem that there might be more than fives species in Europe as he and his team have discovered that M.Rebeli parasitise two distantly related ant species and whilst the butterflies may look super...

I would agree I have bought both camera bodies and lenses from this company -good prices and very prompt service. Highly recommended Mark T.

The large blue is probably one of the fussiest butterflies we have. I have had the good fortune to visit green down in Somerset where there is a closed site - and chat to some of the experts in charge of its reintroduction to various new sites. The species of ant is crucial and the ant itself -Myrmi...

Is it my imagination or does the October specimen have small silvery grey spots on the hindwings roughly where the 'comma' is underneath? - beautifully marked specimen

Merry christmas to you all - hope to bump into even more of you next year and reacquaint myself with those that I have already met - if the rain gods ever let up Mark

Very thought provoking and a little heartening. I must say my interest in the natural world was always an 'undercurrent' but was spurred on, in the late sixties, by a junior school teacher who took a small group of us birdwatching at the weekends in her own time. I question whether that would even b...

Just to echo the previous comments - thoroughly enjoyable afternoon - many thanks for organising Susie-especially for bringing the list of what everyone had ordered
It was great to catch up with one or two familiar faces and meet some less familiar ones.

I have just returned from a trip to see relatives in North Carolina and with the weather being pleasantly warm it gave me a very brief opportunity to seek out a few butterflies. It is late on the season for this part of the world which boasts some 170 different species but I did encounter Variegated...

Hi all - have just visited the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington DC and by complete chance they were showing a film called Flight of the Butterflies in their IMAX cinema. Obviously this caught my attention and I quickly booked a ticket. What a stunning 3d experience! It charts the sto...

Whilst waiting in a queue of some two hundred people to meet Sir David Attenborough at a book signing I was joined by a Red Admiral who was obviously also keen to meet the President of BC! I can thoroughly recommend the book 'Drawn from Paradise' a fantastic coffee table book detailing how the birds...

Hi Neil - 24 July at fermyn would be my best day of a pretty dismal year. Probably one of the most pleasant weather wise but also a great introduction to the best emperor site I have visited and of course meeting up with your good self - well worth spending seven hours in the car for! Regards Mark

Interesting I was at Noar Hill at the weekend looking for the last Brown Hairstreaks - I found one female my latest ever at this site :D - but my first encounter was with an embankment that was just alive with bees - several thousand over an area of 40 sq meters or so and they were audible from 20m ...

View from the South Coast   Losers Green and purple hairstreaks – last year didn’t give a green hairstreak a second glance – this year just a handful. Small tortoiseshell – whilst they seemed to be being spotted all around very few locally for me. Gatekeepers – a flush at the start but generally ver...

OK by me - keep me posted - Mark

Well just to test the theory I walked in to work this morning passing under some urban maple trees in Portsmouth City centre. They were absolutely dripping with honeydew - or at least a very sticky substance of some sort. Most of the leaves upper surfaces are shiny with some sort of coating and it i...

Hi CC - are you talking about Rough Bank? If so it has been bought by Butterfly Conservation see http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/a ... icleId=283.
Lovely site which I visited last year whilst visiting relatives in Watedge last year. Good result for all

Jeremy Thomas in Butterflies of Britain and Ireland states that both Brown, Purple and White Letter have been seen taking honeydew - by himself or others. In particular he say he has observed White Letter " ......walking over the leaves trailing their probosces between their legs. From time to ...