Padfield

[Padfield]

The sun shone for our lunchtime walk today and we were able to spot a third purple emperor caterpillar high in a sallow tree, from its shadow and the tell-tale feeding signs on the leaves. This shot is taken looking almost vertically upwards:



I named him Rāhula - after Gautama's son.

Gautama himself is still immobile. I still think he might be preparing to shed his skin - it's difficult to judge his position because of the shape of the leaf he has taken to:





Guy

[Padfield]

Another shady character up a tree:



He is Kanthaka - the Buddha's faithful horse - though he doesn't know it. His sallow is a tall sapling and although he was near the top it was possible for me to bend it down and get a closer photo:



He is my fourth purple emperor caterpillar of 2016. The other three are all doing fine. Gautama is now obviously preparing for ecdysis into 4th instar and the others are still 3rd instar, I think.

It was a beautiful day in the woods, though surprisingly little was on the wing. It is a very subdued spring.



Guy

[Pete Eeles]

Another shady character up a tree.

I read about this technique of finding iris larvae on a Facebook page; so nice to see it put into practice

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

I read about this technique of finding iris larvae on a Facebook page; so nice to see it put into practice

I've read about Facebook but never gone there; so nice to see it has some use!

It was Matsukaze who put me onto this years ago. I had repeated the old line about how the cats raise their bodies off the leaf to reduce their shadow from below. Matsukaze responded with a picture rather like my shadow pictures, commenting that he didn't think this was very effective! I tend to agree with him. In spring they are most easily found from below, on backlit leaves, and the shadows are perfectly clear.

Guy

[Padfield]

Yet another sunny day. On my lunchtime walk pearl-bordered fritillaries were flying in the woods, sometimes chasing violet fritillaries, which looked small and very worn by comparison. Gautama was still in the prayer posture. I couldn't see Rāhula at all on his spray or the neighbouring ones but I felt sure he was still there as the leaves looked more eaten than yesterday. If he had been taken, it would have been this morning. Nevertheless, I went down this evening to check, and was just able to pick him out, from a distance and from just the right angle:



Not far away, I was surprised and delighted to find a freshly moulted fourth instar caterpillar. I named her Kisāgotamī - one of the Buddha's first disciples.



The gunge at her tail is her silk seat and discarded skin. Her old head will have come off separately. Very occasionally these can still be seen on the leaf but usually they fall off, being relatively heavy and not stuck to silk.

Kisāgotamī is still small, as the next picture shows, but she will grow rapidly over the next couple of weeks (if she lives) before moulting into the fifth and final instar.



A very successful evening walk!

Guy

[Padfield]

For once, a free weekend and sun! This morning, Minnie and I went to catch up on 2016 at a favourite site in Valais.



There were plenty of Pyrgus around, including malvoides (southern grizzled skipper), armoricanus (Oberthür's) and serratulae (olive):


(malvoides)


(armoricanus)


(serratulae)

Here's an underside of armoricanus (though not the same individual as above):



I saw all four Swiss Cupido species - argiades (short-tailed blue), alcetas (Provençal short-tailed), minimus (little blue) and osiris (Osiris blue).

This is a male Osiris blue:



This female short-tailed blue has an exceptional amount of blue on her usually dull wings. The orange lunules from the underside show up even on the upperside too.



I couldn't get a shot of any of the little blues because every time I was about to press the shutter an Adonis blue would appear from nowhere and bomb the little blue. It wasn't always the same little blue or Adonis blue! Here is one of the culprits:





The colours are true. It was an unusual Adonis blue, both for the shade of blue and the very thin chequering on the fringes.

Other blues included baton, green-underside, Chapman's and holly:


(baton)


(green-underside)


(Chapman's)


(holly)

Green hairstreaks were thin on the ground but easy to find.







I had expected to find Dukes aplenty but in the end saw just two. I got one quick picture of one before he zoomed off:



Clouded yellows and Berger's clouded yellows were flying. This is Berger's:



Other skippers included dingy and mallow. I didn't notice the Pyralid in the dingy shot until after I had taken it!





There was a lot of honeysuckle so I scanned it for white admiral caterpillars. They are an instar ahead of my poor altitude larvae!



Here's a pearl-bordered fritillary - one of three species of fritillary on the wing, the others being Queen of Spain and Glanville:



When clouds came in the early afternoon, we moved on to a site near Sierre where ladies' slipper orchids grow. We were too early. I didn't check the dates before we went but did after we got there and saw we were there on 25th May the last time we went. Nevertheless, I found some plants and was able to discern the embryonic, future slipper in one of them:





Minnie is quite interested in orchids. This is a military orchid:



We got home, exhausted, at about 18h30, but there was one more job to be done - we had to check if Gautama had graduated into 4th instar. He had.





I really feel the season is in swing now, even though actual numbers - of butterflies rather than species - are generally low.

Guy

[Wurzel]

Wow what a day!!!
I would sign off with my usual phrase but it looks like you already have so instead...

You had a goodun

Wurzel

[Padfield]

Every day out in the countryside with my faithful dog is a good day, Wurzel!

With Roger casually mentioning in CFB's diary that the commonest butterfly in his friend's garden at the moment is iolas blue, I thought I'd check on the Rhône Valley iolas blues today. One of the spring cardinal nectaring sites coincides with my most reliable iolas site so that was where I headed.

The only plant of any real interest to iolas is bladder senna. In French, this is called le baguenaudier, a name presumably related to the verb baguenauder, meaning to amble or stroll around. So I guess it is the ambler's bush. I've certainly spent a lot of time ambling around bladder senna. There was no point today, however, as it wasn't in flower. One or two bushes had a few florets but most were completely bare, adorned only with last year's bladders. Iolas blues will nectar on other plants but only if flowering bladder senna is in the vicinity.

Nevertheless, by an amazing stroke of luck, I saw a male iolas bounding across the site, obviously in a hurry to be elsewhere. This is Europe's largest Lycaenid and when it flies, it moves in giant steps from one place to another. It forms populations rather than colonies, and males may cover many kilometres in a day, checking out all the bladder senna in the region for females. Anyway, I moved to intercept this one and was able to snatch a quick, distant shot before it leapfrogged into the next commune.



There were no cardinals, here or at another nearby nectaring site, so I think they are not on the wing yet.

A strong wind brewed up during the morning, bringing cloud by the afternoon, when I moved on further down the valley. That kept the butterflies at bay to a certain extent but I took a fair few photos during the day. Here are some of them:


(scarce swallowtail)


(Chapman's blue)


(a pair of Glanvilles getting intimate)


(their antennae seemed to be touching)


(turquoise blue)


(chequered blue - I wanted to do some 'Padfield shots' of him but what you can't see there is that it's blowing a gale!! That was the only picture that even came out)


(safflower skipper)


(wood white)


(Minnie guarding the beer, bike and backpacks)


(a strongly marked rosy grizzled skipper, Pyrgus onopordi)

I tried looking for southern white admiral caterpillars but this was very difficult because the honeysuckle was going frantic in the wind. My normal method is to scan for nibbled leaves, then home in on what might be causing that, but it is very difficult to scan a mass of madly flailing foliage! I did manage to find one, however, by another stroke of luck - it wasn't even near any nibbled leaves. And what a strange creature! Initially, I thought it was dead but on closer inspecting I think it was just being very creative. If all the others were concealed in the same way it is little wonder I didn't see any. Last time I found them they were sitting on leaves on a sunny morning ...

This was my first view of the reducta cat:



Not at all a typical caterpillar!!

Here are a couple more pictures from a different angle. It was difficult getting good pictures in the wind and dim light:




(Look! No hands!)

A very strange animal.

Guy

[kevling]

Guy,

Loving your last post. The Glanville photos are beautiful. It's like one is looking into a mirror.
What an amazing caterpillar the Southern White Admiral is. You certainly have a knack of finding these early stages.
Despite finding one last year, I can't find any sign of nibbles leaves in my local White Admiral Wood in Ipswich this year.

Regards Kev

[Padfield]

Thanks, Kev.

You get your eye in. When I first moved to Huémoz I knew there were purple emperors in the woods and I looked for caterpillars whenever I could. For two years, I found none. Then in 2010 I found my first, soon followed by two more, and now I feel confident I can find them if they're there. As for white admirals, I was shown my first (having looked for them in vain previously) by a German student who contacted me through the internet about butterfly sites in Switzerland. We met up and I was amazed how easily he could just look at a honeysuckle bush and see every caterpillar. I'm not as good as him but I'm getting there. Keep searching - the cats are there!!

Guy

[Padfield]

Today was the big day - for Mercury. Unfortunately, it was wall-to-wall cloud most of the day. Solid cloud on my lunchtime walk. Some sunshine while I was invigilating IB exams in the afternoon. Lovely sun while I walked home after school. Cloud when I got home. NEVERTHELESS, I am confident I did eventually catch sight of Mercury. I set up my kit on the balcony and waited, nipping out every time it looked as if there was going to be a break in the cloud, and on one short series, shortly before 19h00 CET, I could consistently see a large sunspot and another small, better defined, dark spot:



Every picture showed these two spots, regardless how the clouds drifted past. The smaller, clearer black spots are on the paper, not the sun!

The rotation is not exact - I took the pictures from an angle - so 'to horizon' is only a broad guide to which way up the picture is. According to Stellarium, mercury should have been where the black spot in this picture is:



The sunspots there are creative, not calculated.

So yippee! I think I saw Mercury crossing the sun!!



I also spotted a possible new iris cat transit at lunchtime. Because of the clouds - and the rain, which was just beginning then - I couldn't see for sure, but clearly there was an iris cat there very recently:





In that second picture, taken on different light settings, you can see the possible shadow of the caterpillar, his lower end firm on the leaf, his front end raised. It might be something quite different, though - something that has just fallen onto the leaf. I'll find out tomorrow, I hope.

I was able to locate all the other cats except Śuddhodana, who is in a different part of the forest that I can't get to in a normal lunchtime. Rāhula is laid up for transition to 4th instar. Kanthaka is third instar, possibly laying up for the change. Gautama and Kisāgotamī are both 4th instar.

Guy

EDIT: There was indeed an iris cat there. He is the one I later called Svapna, once I had got actual photos of him.

[essexbuzzard]

Loved your pictures of the PE caterpillars through the leaves against the blue sky a couple of posts back. They are remarkably easy to see I'f you know where to look. And you put the hours in,as you do. Hopefully they are not as visible to small birds!

[Goldie M]

Just catching up on your posts, Lovely Butterflies Guy, I really like the Swallow Tail shot. Goldie

[Padfield]

Thanks Buzzard and Goldie.

The bigger they get, Buzzard, the more worthwhile it becomes for birds to spend time looking for them. And they do disappear in 4th and 5th instar.

For the time being, though, all the purple emperor cats I have found this year are still alive. Most photogenically sited is Kisāgotamī:





Gautama is much harder to get at:



In all, I photographed six purple emperors on my lunchtime walk today. Having followed only one through the winter, and having found no eggs at all last year in all the usual places, it is a great relief to know they are obviously still there, if mostly inaccessible.

I also found this white admiral cat at about 800m:



I think they were badly hit by the mild winter and very harsh end to April.

Guy

[Padfield]

For myself, rather than for anyone reading this diary (who must be quite bored with purple emperor caterpillars by now), I did an inventory today of all my caterpillars. All these pictures are from my lunchtime dog walk on 11th May:



I should explain the exotic names. For my first few years of watching purple emperor caterpillars, I named them after Roman emperors. Eventually, I ran out of emperors, so last season named them after gods, men, beasts and demons from Hindu mythology. This season's cats (with the exception of Svapna) are all named after characters from the life of the Buddha. They are:

Kanthaka - the Buddha's faithful horse
Śuddhodana - the Buddha's father
Gautama - the Buddha
Rāhula - the Buddha's son
Kisāgotamī - the Buddha's first female disciple (famous for the parable of the mustard seeds)
Svapna - not a character from the stories of the Buddha. The word means 'sleep' or 'dream', and I named him that because I had a very vivid dream of finding a new iris cat the night before I found him.

I'm thinking of using South Park characters for the next generation - from the sublime to the ridiculous!

I notice Matthew Oates has called one of his caterpillars Sir Cloudsley Shovell. Naming an emperor after an admiral???

First altitude Duke today, on the same walk:



The day was overcast but it was warm all the same and quite a few butterflies were on the wing.

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

Excellent posts, Guy - I can't keep up with your diary; you seem to have so much going on!

Anyway - great pics, and excellent observations. I've never seen a Southern White Admiral larva myself, but it does look rather different to a camilla cat. And I really like the cinxia observations ("their antennae seemed to be touching") - one for all Glanville spotters to look out for this season!

BTW - I'll be meeting up with the warden of Pamber Forest soon; we're planning a significant level of monitoring of White Admiral larvae this coming year that avoids areas that will be felled

Cheers,

- Pete

[NickMorgan]

Just been catching up with your diary. What an amazing array of butterflies you have seen over the past week. It is always so interesting to read about all you see - butterflies and other observations.

[Padfield]

Thanks, Pete. I'm not sure any of my most local (1000m) white admiral cats survived the end of April, with its snow and plummeting temperatures. The one I thought was still alive hasn't moved for days and is still brown. A couple of hundred metres lower in altitude they are green and growing - but these are not close enough to monitor every day.

Thank you Nick, too. Yes, a lot happens at this time of year. Every day there is something new to see, even when it pours with rain.

Today it has been pouring. We took our walk during one of the better times but we still got wet. Svapna looks how we felt:



Again, I photographed all six of my current purple emperor caterpillars. Some had managed to escape the rain better than others. This is Kanthaka, who seems perfectly dry:



I also came across a white-letter hairstreak caterpillar. I don't name these as they are much more difficult to track. It seems to be final instar, at about half an inch long:





This next picture shows the whole leaf spray:



Normally, white-letter hairstreaks pupate at the end of May or beginning of June. These prepupae, photographed in the same woods, were taken on 28th May (2014) and 8th June (2010) respectively:





Guy

[Padfield]

Not a brilliant forecast, but a brilliant day. I had two missions: firstly, to show simplonia to a friend from Germany, Markus, who had never seen this species before; secondly to see my first pandora of the year in the Rhône Valley. Both missions were achieved.

My safe, early simplonia site is a rather busy, winding, mountain road. The butterflies never fly in cloud, so I wasn't overly optimistic, given the forecast. But as it happened, the cloud was everywhere except where the sun was and before long we were watching spanking fresh mountain dappled whites. I let Markus get in close, as I see this species every year:





We continued up to higher meadows, where many species were flying, including mazarine blue and abundant Glanville fritillaries:





The weather was menacing, but it was all idle threats - the clouds never covered the sun:



I then left Markus to zoom down to the valley, catching a few simplonia on the way:





In the valley, it was windy and no pandora were nectaring in their usual early spring site. I didn't have time to try the next site, as I had to be back early to play the piano for church, so I decided to look for freshly emerged individuals in the vineyards. By an incredible chance, I found one - a male. He was obviously fresh out of the chrysalils, drying his wings, occasionally flexing them. He never attempted to fly, even when pestered by a persistent Queen of Spain, and was nowhere near any nectar sources. I took photos from a distance, not wishing to disturb him at this important time:







(this butterfly has yet to take his first flight ...)



This is the context:



Somewhere in all those twigs and vegetation is his chrysalis. I didn't venture any closer, not just for his sake but also for any other chrysalids that I might inadvertently have trodden under my clumsy feet. It was wonderful just to see him there, pristine, scale perfect.

The significance of this sighting is that since I discovered this colony - historically, the first known colony of cardinals in Switzerland - we haven't been able to find any eggs, caterpillars or chrysalids, so it has been a matter of speculation where they are actually breeding. I have seen females checking out these vineyards late in the season, obviously looking to lay eggs, but have had no proof of egg-laying. Now I know at least one place where they definitely breed - and I might be able to find early stages here next spring (the larvae don't hatch until the following spring).

Zoom back to train, choose some hymns, zoom up to Villars, play hymns, spend evening in pub, et voilà - the perfect day.

Guy

[David M]

Good for you, Guy (and your friend, Markus). I think if I saw Cardinal and Mountain Dappled White in a single day I'd be nearing meltdown!

Lovely, fresh example of a species that isn't known for hanging around!