Wurzel

[trevor]

HI Wurzel,
Congratulations, you now have open wing shots of every UK Hairstreak
Some of those AB's are amazing.

[Goldie M]

I must apologise Wurzel, seems I made a big Boob with my Small Heath ab I totally forgot I'd been fiddling around with stuff earlier in the year and this one escaped me, all I saw was the two spots until Mike pointed out the various differences I'd never noticed it, so much for looking back at things

Your shots of all those abs are great no wonder you were enthralled I noticed there was one like the Butterfly I saw at Gaits Barrow Small Pearl BF and honestly that was real, I'm not that clever to produce those photos and besides I've two witnesses. Goldie

[Paul Harfield]

This is possibly the most difficult post that I’ve ever written as it is about a collection of pinned specimens...

First of all I need to make my opinions on collecting clear. When I grew up the habit seemed to be dwindling and was starting to be frowned upon – so just like I missed getting into ‘egging’ before ‘birding’ I didn’t collect butterflies prior to getting into them either. And now apart for valid scientific purposes I can’t see the point as you can get almost as much information (if not more at times) from a digital image compared to from a pinned specimen. This is why I didn’t get embroiled in the recent furore on the forum as no matter how much reasonable argument was given the viewpoints would never be changed; I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire either.

So why am I posting about this collection? Well first of all the majority of the specimens were collected from schools and were due to be destroyed before the current owner saved the specimens and added them to his much smaller personal collection – which hadn’t been added to for some considerable time. Secondly having invested huge amounts of time and effort sorting, resetting and ordering the collection it is now being donated to the Natural History museum for their use. Wurzel

Hi Wurzel

I can understand your reservations about posting on this subject or admitting to find this sort of thing of interest. I am not ashamed to say that personally I find great interest in looking at cabinets of historical specimens that have already been caught in the past. Well done for posting details
I was also given the opportunity to view a collection held by an educational establishment most of which was 80-100 years old. When I talked about mentioning and posting photos of the collection in my diary they were very emphatically against it. Their feeling was that they did not want to risk damaging the reputation of the establishment or submit themselves to any unsavoury criticism.

That Camberwell Beauty ab is impressive, was it caught in the UK

[Wurzel]

Cheers David It was a very impressive sight - but no Hedge Browns
Cheers Trevor Probably the only way to get those type of shots
No worries Goldie Even hindsight isn't 20:20
Cheers Paul I was a bit concerned how it would be taken and as you mentioned the key word was 'historical' collection. The Camberwell ab was from France and was very old, but not as old as the first one I featured which was collected in 1903.

End of Year Tally 2015

Jan cold yet dry, Feb cold, just as things seemed to start cold fronts would rip in and we had snow and sleet mid month with heavy frosts almost into March. March was a fitful month – just as things would get going a Low would sweep in and in the last week of the month there were a few frosts and even gales and sleet. April started cold and windy with a few dire days of rain but mostly just grey and cold and it felt like Spring would never truly arrive. Luckily it did, just in time for the Easter Sunday! But it didn’t last as most of the early summer was cool and windy and getting out for decent butterfly days was difficult. Things finally seemed to be getting better but by then we were into June and we were hit by a heat wave. Once again it was all over so quickly and from mid July through we had lot’s of ‘nothing days’ – days when it’s a bit warm, a bit grey, there might be some rain but mainly just nothing. When the ‘summer’ started to tail off we didn’t get our much deserved Indian Summer either and the season seemed to be over quicker than last year. That being said there were still butterflies around in October and the period from November through to the end of the year was extremely mild. Whether this will portend for a poor year to follow (2016) I’m not sure – parasites and pathogens could well have a field day. As well as the almost incessant and very annoying wind the rain clouds did their usual trick of always hovering over Salisbury so whilst others had one of two species under their belt I went two months without a butterfly. What made all the more galling was my Sister in-law saw a Small Tort on 2nd Jan and my daughter saw a Red Admiral on 26th Feb! Grrrr!

These climatic conditions made it a difficult year again. Being restricted by work as to when I could get out butterflying as well as more renovations (preparing for plastering and then painting) on the house meant that I was severely limited in how many trips that I could make out. Much of my butterflying was reliant on key trips and for some species I only saw them once in the whole year and others were photographed by the old tried and tested ‘smash and grab’ not made any easier by the wind blowing constantly. If it wasn’t for a weekly trip to Laverstock I doubt if I’d have seen any butterflies at all!
Any way enough moaning, to work...

The Skippers

1 Small Skipper, 22-06 Laverstock Down
My first Small Skipper appeared about a day earlier this year than last – probably still a hang-over from the delayed start to the season? My first was at Laverstock and then I encountered them at a whole host of sites, in fact almost at all that I visited. Because of their frenetic behaviour it was difficult to do accurate counts at each place I went to but my gut feeling suggests they either did as well this year as last or more possibly they did slightly better.

2 Essex Skipper, 29-06 Laverstock.
As for the Small the Essex were seen at most sites that I visited, even cropping up on my ‘school’ tally and also like the Small I think they did as well, if not even better, than last year. Of the two species in fact I think that the Essex did best in 2015. Also like the Small my first came from Laverstock but differently a day earlier than last yea. Perhaps things were already starting to catch up and by the time the Essex emerged they were back up to speed after the delayed start to the year?

3 Lulworth Skipper, 02-08 Durlston Country Park
I didn’t have a particularly good year for Lulworths. My first trip to the Cove itself was possibly too early in a ‘late’ year and none were seen. Then I missed out on my usual camping holiday so no chance of seeing them at the Cove, Corfe or Downshay itself.
Eventually I got down to Durlston and caught up with them for my first sighting but 6 weeks or so later this year. Other reports have suggested they were well down but not visiting my usual haunts and going to Durlston for the first time also threw out any chance of considering numbers as I don’t have a couple of years worth of memories/notes to compare to. All I can really say is that in early August there were good numbers at Durlston, both in the meadows and along the coastal path.

4 Silver Spotted Skipper, 26-07 Broughton Down
I saw this species for the first time only a day later than last year so by the mid-summer it seems that most species had caught up after a delayed start to the year. In terms of numbers it was again difficult to say for sure. Over the past few years I’ve always visited Stockbridge Down and picked up the odd sighting at Martin Down. However this year I visited Broughton Down for the first time and probably saw as many if not more here and over a smaller area compared to Stockbridge. So I’m unsure whether they had a better year or I visited a particularly good site?

5 Large Skipper, 07-06 The Devenish
I eventually caught up with my first Large Skipper at The Devenish about a fortnight later than my first last year so this was one of the species that was still a little behind. My gut feeling was that there were fewer this year; a trip to Bentley usually sees them all over the place but this year there were only a few. In fact my view of their smaller numbers may have been because I found that I didn’t try as much with this species. There was always something else around that I’d travelled for or was more unexpected which I found occupying my attention.

6 Dingy Skipper, 03-05 Duke Site
Dingy Skippers seemed to buck the trend for me this year as instead of seeing them later I actually saw them on the same exact date. They seemed to be around in good numbers at a good range of the sites that I visited and I think they had a reasonable year despite the slow start to spring but perhaps not quite as good as last year? Last year I remember saying that I hoped to find them at Larkhill in 2015 and it happened and not just a singleton but several over different parts of the site. Where they were hiding previously I don’t know!

7 Grizzled Skipper, 29-04 Larkhill
Due to the late coming of spring I didn’t see my first Grizzlie until a fortnight later this year. Once they did arrive they did so in reasonable numbers and it felt like they had a good year at certain sites. Whereas at others they were missing, for example I didn’t see one at Bentley at all this year so pretty patchy in terms of their distribution?

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Goldie M]

Lovely Skippers Wurzel, especially the Grizzled, I've booked a holiday for the middle of June in Sussex, I'm hoping to see a Grizzle SK, hope it's not too late then. Considering what little time you had last year you did really well with all the skipper photos you took Goldie

[David M]

Nice images, Wurzel, and a commentary that I largely agree with vis-à-vis the weather.

Let's hope 2016 is a bit better...well, a LOT better!

[trevor]

Lovely Grizzled Skipper images . I only saw two last year, and neither were very co-operative.
My main weather memory of 2015 was the constant wind. While on the subject of weather it
looks as though a cold snap is on it's way, not too late I hope.

All the best,
Trevor.

[bugboy]

Yes I think I may have mentioned the wind one or two times in my PD. Some llovely imagies there Wurzel

[Neil Freeman]

Hi Wurzel, just catching up.

I love your post with the historical specimens. I don't want to say too much about the 'right and wrongs' of such things in your PD but for me the key word here is 'historical' and the specimens are the product of an age when opinions and sensitivities were very different to what they are now.
I for one found it a fascinating read, thanks for posting

And great round up of the skippers...looking forward to the next post.

Cheers,

Neil

[Wurzel]

Cheers Goldie Good luck with the Grizzlies
Cheers David Indeed lets hope for a much better 2016!
Cheers Trevor I hope the cold snap works it's magic so we have a great season next year
Cheers Bugboy It was a very windy year!
Cheers Neil There is another post on the collection, when I can get it sorted out and I concentrated just some of the aberrants and the variation was astonishing

The Whites

No Clouded Yellow this year – and with my usual propensity for spotting patterns where they aren’t any - I think that I see a pattern here. In years when I travel to see Wood Whites no Cloudy, and when I see a Cloudy no Wood Whites – ho hum perhaps next year I can break the pattern?

8 Wood White

No comparison can be made in terms of mergence timing for two reasons. First it’s been two years since I first and last saw a Wood White and second the first time I saw the first brood and this time it was the second, late into July. In fact if it had been sunnier and warmer I might have been keeping my open for His Nibbs as I strolled along the pathways towards the ‘triangle’.

I was always under the impression that the second brood were fewer in number? If indeed this is the case then it looks like the Wood Whites might have had a good year as they seemed to be similar in numbers along the pathway and in the triangle as when I saw them for the first time a few years previously.
They are a cracking little butterfly and another one of those species that on the surface could appear boring after all it’s just a white butterfly. But when you get up close they’re a joy to behold with their totally different profile, marked scales presenting a mosaic pattern on the wings and the delicacy of the patterning is matched by the almost fragile appearance of the butterfly itself. I’m glad that 2015 gave me the opportunity to reacquaint myself with this delightful little butterfly.

9 Brimstone, 18-03-2015 -Chippenham

Brimstones seemed to buck the trend of the whites in general and seemed to have a good year. As with most of the early emerging species they were later in 2015 then 2014, by about 10 days in this particular case. However once they emerged I saw them pretty much everywhere and with multiples at Larkhill it seemed that they were heading for a successful year. In fact on the drive back from Wales between my Marshie site and Salisbury in April I counted over 14. They also hung around and I saw them in each month right through to my final butterfly sighting of 2015 in late October.

10 Large White, 13-05-2016 Marshie site

Possibly the easiest species to consider and the also biggest concern? All the whites had a great time a couple of years back but this year Large White were a month later and in far lower numbers then I can recall over my five years of butterflying. So low in fact that I can count the number of individuals that I photographed on one hand! Allowing for three times the number seen and not photographed and twice the number seen and positively identified my count for the entire year comes out at less than 50...

Hopefully this is just an artefact of me spending more time on other species, visiting the wrong places at the wrong time or not paying too much attention to the whites, but if not it is a worrying figure.

11 Small White, 20-03-2015 Work

Unusually my first Small White was actually earlier this year by a little under a fortnight. However they were also lower in numbers. Nowhere near as poor a showing as their larger relatives but still far fewer than I can recall. Again this could be because perhaps I didn’t try as hard to see them or it could have been that the later start to spring meant that they never really got going from the first brood in?

12 Green-veined White, 15-04-2016 Enford

This was one of those species that slipped under the radar this year. There was always something else around when I could have been photographing a Green-veined White. A later start, lower numbers in the early brood and then picked up to possibly just less than last year in subsequent later broods.

One thing in particular that I did notice with Green-veined Whites this year is that they seemed to be much harder work. They were generally in full blooded patrol mode when I encountered them – possibly trying to catch-up after a later start? It meant photography of them was really tricky. One in particular did stand out this year, one from Laverstock Down in which the whole underside was almost entirely lemon yellow similar in tone to a Pale Clouded Yellow.

13 Orange-tip, 07-04-2016 Bradford on Avon

Another of those hard work species! I’ve found a couple of reasonable spots for them now where eventually they will land briefly because of cloud cover or to nectar. However I still haven’t found the crème de la crème of sites where they roost up for the night. I really need one of those types of sites so that I can get some of the lush shots that I’ve seen from Philzoid and Dave Miller. That being said I didn’t do too badly for Orange-tips with some great close ups of a male.
Their emergence was slightly earlier than last year but that is more down to me getting out and looking earlier than anything else. Numbers wise I felt like they were up on last year but perhaps not to the heights of a couple of years ago.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Paul Harfield]

Hi Wurzel

Nice piece on the whites
Interesting what you say about the Large White, I also saw worryingly few this year and in very few locations .

[Goldie M]

Great shots and info Wurzel, I agree the large White, also the Green veined were few and far between this year up our way, but whilst I was in Kent in August I was amazed to see loads of the LW's at St Margarets on the cliffs there, they were everywhere, as for the Orange Tip, I saw only one Female and that was at Gait Barrow, I'm hoping that's not a bad omen for this Spring Goldie

[David M]

Love the Wood White in flight shot, Wurzel. Such delicate little creatures.

[Philzoid]

Excellent report on the Whites Wurzel .

I have to say that for me too that 2015 wasn't such a good year for the Green-veined White and even worse for was the Orange-tip with only a solitary female photographed . I think your OT pictures are very good and you have them on Cuckooflower too . My hotspot is the Basingstoke canal and the tow-path is lined with a lot of Garlic Mustard, the Orange-tip's other plant of choice. Getting to photograph them is difficult but if they're in good numbers (by that I mean 2's and 3's every 50 yards or so) you have a chance to track and catch one nectaring … or better still, settling down to roost in the late afternoon.

I was in Kent in August I was amazed to see loads of the LW's at St Margarets on the cliffs there

The large numbers on the coastal areas may be migrants Goldie. I remember seeing massive numbers in August 2013 at Southwold on the grassy banks behind the beach-huts and I think this was attributed to an influx of migrants.

Love the Wood White in flight shot, Wurzel

Indeed , and a reminder that I must try out the camera's sport mode a bit more often.

Phil

[Wurzel]

Cheers Paul Let's hope that they can make a comeback this year
Cheers David I've always been told that Fairies don't exist but hen you watch Wood Whites flying a little part of me always thinks that actually they do.
Cheers Philzoid I need one of those OT roosting sites

The “Aristocrats”

14 White Admiral, 05-07-2016 Grovely Wood

Quite a good year for me in terms of White Admirals this year. They were never really around in huge numbers but I still saw more this year than last and also quite importantly I saw them at a couple of times at one site and at an additional site where I’d not encountered them before. They were a fortnight later than last year but this could have been due to a slower start but more likely because I didn’t get out looking for them until they’d been widely reported on UKB. Bentley seemed to hold similar numbers as last year if not slightly up but I only really did the one trip here during their flight time this year so it was difficult to really judge. At Grovely where I saw my first for the year I encountered a least 4 if not 7 individuals as I walked through the Wood which was up on last year and an encouraging sign.

For me the highlight of the White Admirals this year was a totally unexpected sighting down at Studland during the start of August while I was watching a number of butterflies all taking nectar from a Buddleia bush next to the ‘Discovery Centre’. This Buddleia, like most, seemed to act as an oasis bringing butterflies from all around, and I set up camp here and waited a technique similar to that used on safari when they wait by the water hole. Included in amongst the gentle feeding frenzy here were Grayling, Red Admirals and Painted Ladies when a greyish butterfly flew in and started nectaring. I couldn’t work out what it was at first as I didn’t expect to see this species this close to the coast, in a heath land habitat or feeding on Buddleia but when I focused in a White Admiral it indeed turned out to be.

15 Purple Emperor, 11-07-2016 Bentley Wood

This species was only 5 days later for me this year and by now the delayed start to the season was pretty much caught up, plus we were entering into a period (all too brief) of reasonably warm and sunny weather. I get the general impression that His Nibbs didn’t do as well this year as last? I could be mistaken but there didn’t seem to be as many reports from Fermyn and the huge numbers (100) recorded at the Knepp Estate (I think that’s what it was called?) were all aerial and I’m not aware of how the count this year compared to that of2014?

Still Bentley came up trumps for me and repaid my faith and obstinacy over the last couple of years with four PEs; 2 at the Switchback, 1 at Donkey Copse and another the Ralph McKintock memorial whilst I was watching White Letters flitting around the top of the Elm. The best Emperor was number one which came down and wandered about for a bit taking salts here and there in the middle of the path, showing off a little of the purple. Unfortunately number two which I managed to get really close to was in the shade and so the refracted rays only appeared black and the purple only came once the butterfly was further away and starting to show signs that He wanted to make a move.

Hopefully this will be the year when the ‘three year cycle’ is broken and there will be more grounded Emperors for me in 2016.

16 Red Admiral, 05-04-2015, Llanachaeron

This species had a massive difference between the emergence times in 2014 and those in 2015, in fact two and half months later! I finally saw my first in April at Llanachaeron on a visit to the outlaws and it was actually a relief to eventually see one. Up until this point I had only seen 4 other species of butterfly so late was the season running.

After this slow start things seemed to go well for the Red Admiral this year. It wasn’t exactly a fantastic year and I can certainly recall seeing many more in some years but there were reasonable numbers across the coming months. In fact on my first ever trip to East Blean a single Red Admiral was part of a species count for the day of three. They also seemed to pick up number wise in the later half of the season and visits to Bentley Wood, Studland and Shipton Bellinger threw up multiples. However the late November flourish that I witnessed a couple of years back never really materialised and this year there weren’t any November or December Admirals for me.

Two things I did notice this year was that of all the Red Admirals that I saw almost half were of the form ‘bialbata’ and some also had blue spotting in the second spot of the hind wing marginal band, something to look into a bit more this coming season.

17 Painted Lady, 03-05-2015 Bentley Wood

It wasn’t exactly a typical ‘Painted Lady Year’ never reaching the heady heights of a few years back when even Springwatch covered the mass invasion of the species. However that being said for me it was the best Painted Lady year since that time for several reasons.

First up they were a month earlier than my first of 2014 bucking the trend of a slow emergence due to the cool spring – although as they are a migrant species their ‘emergence’ probably wouldn’t follow the overall pattern of indigenous species. Secondly I saw them at a greater number of sites including Bentley Wood, Lulworth, Durlston, Studland, my Duke site, a couple of places on the west Wales coast, Laverstock and Larkhill. Finally it was the numbers in over half the sites that I saw them in there were pairs at least and at Durlston I saw over half way towards double figures. This reasonable year for Painted Ladies wasn’t echoed by that other migrant the Clouded Yellow and normally their invasion years coincide and yet despite seeing plenty of Painted Ladies I didn’t see a single Cloudy – perhaps next year will really be the ‘big one’?

18 Small Tortoiseshell, 07-03-2015, Five Rivers

Artificially the latest emerging species compared to last year; a whole three months and one week later than in 2014. However the key word here is ‘Artificially’ as this was only because my first last year was Bob on New Year’s Day. However in 2014 I made trips to Five Rivers and started seeing good numbers of Small Torts from the end of February whereas this year had to wait until well into March to start seeing them in similar numbers at my favourite early site. So they were definitely later coming out of hibernation. Once they made an appearance they had another good year and over the coming months they were easily the most commonly seen Aristocrat. In fact they were only outnumbered by Peacocks on one occasion at one Buddleia bush. However unlike previous years they didn’t hand around at the tail end of the season and seemed to finish up a lot more quickly than before although this was a trend that I noticed with most other species. So to sum up – later, good numbers (common) plenty of different sites and over quicker.

19 Peacock, 05-04-2015, Llanachaeron

My first of 2015 was same day as my first Red Admiral and was just over a month later as with most early spring species. In fact it felt like a case of everything happening at once. I’d waited and waited and worked and worked Five Rivers, my ‘work route’ and various stop-offs on the way home to come up a paltry 4 species by April and then in one visit to Llanachaeron I picked 2-3 new species i the space of 30 minutes. Like the Small torts once the Peacocks had gotten started there seemed to be no holding them back and they were everywhere, yet always in slightly lower numbers than their cousins the Small Tort. In fact this trend seemed to continue throughout the year apart from a single trip to Studland where the Buddleia by the Discovery Centre had only 1 Small Tort and 3 Peacocks. It was heartening to see another ‘showy’ Aristocrat have a good year and I could sum up their year in a similar fashion to the Small Torts – later starting, good showing, quicker passing.

20 Comma, 22-03-2015, Five Rivers

Tepid is how I could sum up the Comma year – neither one thing nor the other; not particularly good yet neither particularly bad. I think that at most sites they held similar numbers as last year but nothing really stood out Comma wise for me this year apart from the fact that whilst they emerged only 2 weeks later other hibernating Aristocrats seemed to be a month late and then the Commas also lasted if not as long perhaps longer as well.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

Good stuff, Wurzel. Glad your persistence paid off at Bentley with His Majesty....and what a surprise not only to see a White Admiral on buddleia, but also for it to be a coastal sighting!

[trevor]

HI Wurzel,
Interesting report. Your 2nd shot of His Majesty is so typical of that first tentative approach
with the camera !. Get something to take home in case he flies off if I try and get closer.
That magic moment of seeing one land is then tempered by trepidation and fear that he will
make for the nearest tree before that open wing shot is obtained.( been there, done that,
got the badge!). .

Trevor.

[Goldie M]

Hi! Wurzel, you've got some great shots there, it seems we got a great influx of Butterflies up here in the North in September and October with the weather being so nice, has my photos in the garden showed, but like you said the Peacock was down in numbers . March and April, we usually see lots up here but they were fewer last year. I'm really enjoying your posts. Although I got three new lifers this year, I still missed out on a lot of BF, SPB, PB, in particular, lets hope this year is not as wet and windy. Goldie

[NickMorgan]

Hi Wurzel,
just catching up with the forum a bit and I read your post about the collection. I share your views entirely and this year a friend showed me a very small collection that she had inherited from her great uncle. It probably consisted of about 30 specimens from the south of England. It was amazing to see so many species that I haven't previously seen and it was very interesting being able to compare the size and colour of different species. I still wouldn't start a collection myself, but I know exactly what you mean about how enthralling a collection can be.
On the other hand, you do wonder what impact collecting so many aberations may have had on a population. It is good to think that this practice is much reduced these days.

[Neil Freeman]

Hi Wurzel, great posts again with some smashing photos

I had to smile at your comments about not seeing a Red Admiral until April...I have never seen an early Red Admiral around my patch in the midlands and my first sightings are usually not until late May or June. I don't believe they manage to overwinter successfully around here yet, or at least not often.

Cheers,

Neil