Pauline

[bugboy]

What a wonderful set of pictures. Sods law you missed the crucial 10 minutes but even so, beautiful

[Pauline]

Thank you for your kind comment Goldie. Good luck at Fermyn

Cheers Mike - it probably was him (he's very camera shy )

I appreciate the sympathy and empathy Vince and thank you for the compliments. I hope you like the next sequence/saga which is coming soon and I am not referring to this post

That's another really useful lesson Martin - wish I'd known it about a week ago Now tell me, is there anything else I should know I seem to be learning from my mistakes and from hindsight - but perhaps that is the best way?

Thank you Buggy - it was frustrating tho!

I have/had a Comma cat - my second, as the first was parasitised. The cat pupated 11 days ago and although I wasn't expecting an emergence for a few days yet, this morning I thought I would check it in the light of Martin's comment, and take some updated photos. I was surprised to see the cat had already coloured up, so despite the harsh sun and the strong wind I decided to take some shots. This cat had wandered away from its food plant and pupated on a small potted Sallow which created further difficulty for photos regarding shade and light and the leaves creating obstacles. As I took the first shot of the pupa I was astounded to see the pupa splitting open and the butterfly starting to emerge. No waiting around this time!!!! Quite the opposite - I was totally unprepared and as the wind swung the little insect around and the leaves got in the way,my attempts to capture the moment were very much thwarted. I should have been able to do it. It wasn't as fast as the DGF but circumstances were stacked against me ......... Lots of shots and no more words

[Goldie M]

Fantastic shots Pauline, this should have made up for missing your Admiral pupate and your shots look great to me as well Goldie

[bugboy]

Tell you what Pauline, if there was an annual award for best PD then my money would be on yours right now!

[MrSp0ck]

That's another really useful lesson Martin - wish I'd known it about a week ago Now tell me, is there anything else I should know I seem to be learning from my mistakes and from hindsight - but perhaps that is the best way?

I have spent many hours watching heliconid pupae emerge, as the butterflies often get stuck in the pupa when they hatch and need to be knocked free with a paintbrush so they can expand their wings, they only have about 5 minutes to expand their wings before they start to harden, so any delay in the pupa can mean bent wings.

the normal process is split pupa in the legs area, eg like your comma, you can see this part of the pupa moving for a minute or so before legs appear, then the head and the wings then plop the 2 forewings first, then the 2 hindwings, then its expanding them, can be in any order, or one side first, but usually the tips of the forewings are last. Then its coiling and un coiling the tongue as it joins it together. Then a rest while the wings harden, and after 30 mins or so it can fly.

I normally give the butterfly a minute or so, if it starts to take longer i then knock it free with the paintbrush. Always check the tongue is not hooked around a leg and has enough room to uncoil in front of the butterfly

[Pauline]

Thank you Goldie, it certainly goes some way to make up for it, but I am still kicking myself

As far as I can recall Buggy I have never won anything in my life, so wouldn't that be nice However, there's loads of cracking diaries out there - including yours!

That's really helpful detail Martin. I seem to have had a few problems with pupa recently but thankfully they seemed to resolve themselves. Certainly worth knowing tho. Thank you

In the beginning ......

If you have a short attention span, or you are easily bored, then look away now as this post is quite a long one. It all started way back in the Spring of 2014. A friend was keen to find and photograph a SWF larva so we spent the best part of several outings scouring dog violets and leaf litter in the Straits where SWF are reasonably plentiful. Not the same could be said of the dog violets as we struggled to find them in any great numbers in the ‘right’ location, ie, at the base of moss covered Oak Trees. I resolved to keep my eyes open for egg-laying females that Summer but it was quite by chance that I stumbled upon many oviposting females in a totally different part of the Alice Holt complex, including my first ever seen Valesina. Up to a dozen butterflies spent the whole of the afternoon egg-laying on the same 3 trees – it was just so surreal watching them all and it was something I never even imagined would ever happen. I resolved to return the following Spring and take some shots of the larva.

(There are 6 eggs in this shot but several trunks were covered in them)

(One of the eggs has already hatched)

I was surprised at the number of larva and the ease with which they could be found and visited several times to try to watch their development and compare it with the White Admiral cats which I had at home.

(This pose is very reminiscent of that adopted by the WA which I was rearing, presumably for the same reason, ie. protection from predators)

However, personal circumstances at that time prevented me from visiting as often as I would like so I decided to rear one at home where comparisons would be easier to make. Given the number of larva present at this site (and also the number of spiders and snails) I did not think one would be missed – and after all, I was only ‘borrowing’ it. I have lots of dog violet at home, so I dug some up and put it in a pot within a mesh cage. When I checked it the following day there was no caterpillar but there were 2 slugs on the inside of the mesh!!!!!! I cursed myself! Would I never learn!!! I’d been here before and should have known there would have been slugs in the soil.

After some thought I decided to return for a second larva but this time I was determined to get it right. I made certain the plants were ‘clean’. I had read about sterilising the soil with boiling water but this just left a sloppy mess. I therefore decided to start with fresh compost and decided to put it on a tray in the oven and ‘bake’ it to kill anything which it contained that might be unwanted . About 15 mins later I smelled burning and rushed in from the garden to find I’d almost set the oven on fire – the compost was glowing red and the oven was full of smoke!!! I eventually got another pot set up with sterilised compost, clean plants and caterpillar installed. I started to dismantle the original pot and as I pulled up the plants, lo and behold, there was the original larva that I thought had been eaten by slugs!!!! So, I now had 2 WA larva and 2 SWF larva (an heir and a spare!!) .

The SWF cats grew well and I gained a lot of interest and pleasure from watching and recording their development. However, just before they were due to pupate, one of them went missing. I was convinced there were no predators in the cage. There was no way anything could get in – or out, so escape was ruled out. The next thought to cross my mind was cannibalism, but there was plenty of food available. I just had to know what was going on so I got an old large sheet and carefully started to take the soil out of the pot. About 4” down I found the cat, safe and well. What a relief, but what was he doing there? Panic over, but 3 days later the same thing happened again. I began to wonder if this cat wanted to pupate in the earth and resolved to leave it if the same thing happened again. Thankfully it didn’t but the cat chose to pupate on the mesh of the cage, despite a variety of different branches being provided. How do you even stop them doing that!!?? About a week later, the second also made several attempts to pupate on the mesh; each time I carefully returned him to a branch. He was determined and I was scared I was interfering too much so in the end he got his own way and pupated on the mesh!!

I resigned myself to that (though not good for later photos) but during some prolonged and severe winds he had been blown about badly and it looked as if the silken threads attaching him to the mesh were stretching, as he was hanging in a much lower position – which in turn caused him to be blown about more. Just as I thought I should move him to a more sheltered location, the threads gave way and the pupa landed on the soil!! What to do now?

I carefully, ever so carefully, glued the pupa to a twig. A little bit of glue found its way onto the pupal case, causing me some concern in case it was absorbed and resulted in the developing butterfly being glued to its pupa! Only time would tell... (to be continued).

[Pauline]

For me, each of the immature stages has their own totally unique set of characteristics that provide interest but if I am totally honest, the pupal phase is my favourite. In my very limited experience, the different sizes, shapes and colours of the pupa provide endless fascination, but within any one pupa I find the remarkable colour changes and transformation that is obviously occurring simply amazing. I shall start with a few early shots, soon after pupation:

The remainder of these shots are taken in the day and hours before emergence. At this point I was convinced that the pupa would emerge that day so the long wait began. As before the pupa seemed to change colour depending on the light and the background and those glass studs reflected a myriad of colours before becoming very metallic looking. For someone who is not known for patience I can become very absorbed in this. At this point I did not have the benefit of Martin's advice so I was relying simply on the darkening of the pupa.

At one point it seemed that the wings within the pupa were crumpled. I could not see how they could be otherwise because of the shape. Naturally, that was something else for me to worry about - perhaps I had been too rough when I glued him to the twig, held him too tightly. On top of my worries about the glue being absorbed through the pupal case I couldn't see how he could be 'normal'. I was imagining a wrinkled butterfly half glued to the pupa trying desperately to get out. Well, as the day went on it became clear that this butterfly was not going to emerge so I would have to live with my worries overnight. Trouble was, I had an electrician booked for 10.00am the next morning. There was nothing else for it - I had to postpone him! There was no way I was going to miss this emergence, having just missed seeing the WA emerge!

Next morning I was up at the crack of dawn and guess what? .............

[Maximus]

That certainly is a fair old read Pauline however it is illustrated with exquisite images, absolutely breathtaking

[MrSp0ck]

Another Tip of the day.

If you need to remove a nymphalid pupa from where it hangs [at least 3 days after its formed], spray water from a misting spray on the silk pad, wait about a minute and pull the pupa gently, and the whole pad comes away [ usually very easily]. This makes it easy to glue up [using the silk pad] onto a stick or wooden clothes peg, [ glue pupa to the end you push to open the peg] and then you can change the position of the pupa by using the peg.

this again picked up while harvesting 100s of heliconid pupae from the stems of passion flowers.

[Pauline]

I'm glad you like the photos Mike but I hope you will like the ones that follow even more. I would have liked to make an animated sequence of them as Mike has done but I'm not sure how to do that yet, In the meantime you will have to put up with lots of photos as this has been a once in a life time event for me

Thank you for that tip Martin. I am doing this on a tiny scale to what you have obviously been involved in which sounds very interesting. I am hoping I won't have to rely on that technique too many times as I would only move them if absolutely necessary (and not just for my photos). It is useful to know tho so thank you again

OK, let us get on with this. I do not have the words to describe the miracle of nature that I witnessed next. I only know my hands started shaking and I could feel my heart thumping as I watched this unfold. All the tedious waiting around was forgotten along with my concerns for the health of the butterfly which turned out to be totally unfounded. This emergence was almost leisurely and I was able to take many, many more shots than I am posting here. A once in a life time event for me:

It is perhaps not obvious from this sequence exactly how the butterfly emerged. After the pupal case split it was gradually stretched open before being allowed to close again; then pushed open a bit further, before falling back to close again. When it was stretched wide enough it was possible to see the little legs pushing it. Absolutely amazing!!!

[Goldie M]

Hi! Pauline, one can tell just how enthralled you are with the whole process of the emergence, gosh, your dedicated Your patience
is remarkable and your photos say it all, I was amazed at your dedication even cancelling the electrician thank you for showing us some really great interesting shots Goldie

[Neil Freeman]

Some really spectacular series of images recently Pauline with the unfolding events described so well in the accompanying reports, well done.

All the best,

Neil

[Willrow]

Pauline, your allowing us all the pleasure of seeing the very next best thing to the real thing...just stunning sequence images

Many thanks

Bill

"When in doubt - venture out"

[MikeOxon]

I can only echo what others have said - superb series of photos - thank you for enabling us to share a little of your experience

Mike

[Padfield]

What they all said! An amazing series of pictures.

Guy

[Maximus]

As everyone else has said Pauline fantastic series of photos

[Pauline]

Thank you so much to all of you for your really kind comments which are just the icing on the cake after that great experience. Goldie used the perfect word - I was enthralled and perhaps a little enthusiastic in my posts. It only remains now to finish off this episode and post a few shots just prior to release and at the release site. Both SWF emerged safely about 3 days apart and each were taken independently back to the place they originated. This applied also to the Comma but I would just like to record that when I took him back, the huge stretch of nettles where I found him had been mowed down and removed. If he had pupated there it is questionable whether he would have survived. He posed perfectly on his release and I looked forward to getting an open-winged shot but I had mistakenly put one of those old batteries in my camera and it failed!!! (they have now been binned).

[Pauline]

Back in the real world - but only briefly - couldn't find any female WLH at Cosham, just these:

It doesn't show well in the photos but one of them had a very purple tinge which I assume is because it is very fresh. I seem to have gone brain dead and will need to check which is male and which is female

[trevor]

"HI Pauline,
Just been looking at your SWF ' being born ' i bet you shouted out " it's a girl ".
Lovely sequence of images. ( Any sign of the Purple one yet ? ).

Best wishes ,
TREVOR.

[Pauline]

Just the opposite Trevor 'It's a boy!' Thank you for your kind comment.

I resolved that last night would be my final evening trip to Noar Hill. All the Duke larva I am seeing now are really big - one last night was massive - so I assume they are now nearing pupation. Thinking about the possibility of a partial second brood in August (as has been the case in several years recently) made me wonder what causes a second partial brood. If the pupa are all subjected to the same conditions, then why do some emerge and others over-winter?. Probably a stupid question with an obvious answer but I have not considered it before.

I also came across this evil looking fly and a cat of some sort which I am assuming is a Sawfly of some sort?