September 2016

[Allan.W.]

Had a short late afternoon trip up onto the North Downs,near Wye (Kent) hoping for some late Adonis Blues, and luckily enough ,managed to find around
20-25,one or two still in fine fettle,all just going to roost,amongst the roosting individuals I found these two Abberant individuals,the one with no spotting on the hindwings I believe is AB;Krodeli, Regards Allan.W.

[bugboy]

Those are some mighty fine abs Allan!

[dave brown]

Hi Allan,
Slightly deviating, and may be of no interest to you, but last Saturday I found a colony of Crickets at Wye NNR, some of which I photographed. On Thursday I showed them to David Walker (Dungeness Obs Warden) who immediately identified them all as Sickle-bearing Bush Crickets. The only other known British colony is at Dungeness. The first British colony was near Hastings but died out. I saw 14 last Saturday, DW visited today and found 19. The good news is that they are on a public area and easy to see during the day, well they are quite large. They are on a steep slope, but there is Adonis Blue to make it more enjoyable. I will be putting a few photos on my diary when time allows.

Nice Abberants.

Dave

[Allan.W.]

Hi Bugboy and Dave,
Thanks for comments bugboy,i was very pleased to find them ! I found 3 more ,about 3 weeks ago on the same site. interestingly the two I,ve posted were about 2 feet apart
in the same clump of grass ! another week and I think that will be that for the Adonis,for this season. I forgot to mention on my post ,the Blues were seen on the first Sept;
Hello Dave ,
Yes I,d heard through the grapevine about the crickets that was a great find !! Nice one ,makes you wonder how many other populations have gone unnoticed,i bet you were chuffed to find them,i might nip up there in the week if I get a chance,probably visit Dungeness in the morning ,weather permitting, I,ll also have to check the shot of a cricket that I took in the garden last week,although I expect its something common , A few nice Coppers on the wing at Dungie this afternoon ,but no unusual ones , the the weather wasn,t up to much,did see a Hummingbird Hawk though,which was nice.
Regards Allan.W.

[aeshna5]

Wonderful find. I went looking for these crickets at Hasting CP, but unfortunately it was the first year they didn't appear + of course as we know now the population died out. Sounds like your colony is bigger than the Dungeness one, which may be better for a longer term sustainable population. Hope the Dungeness population persists but does seem very small so may have problems with genetic inbreeding. The Tree Cricket colony there though seems pretty large- wonder if these are hiding somewhere else too?

[Allan.W.]

Hello Aeshcna 5,
Just to add a footnote to the last couple of entries on "September sightings ", I visited the Sickle bearer ,sight that Dave brown discovered a couple of days ago ,arriving at about
5.30 pm ,and after a short search I disturbed a largish green cricket,which was actually pretty mobile! when it finally settled ,Bingo ! a sickle Bearer ,really pleased,after a few minutes I found another,and then 3 together,posing quite well for a few shots,in all ,in just over the hour I saw a minimum of 6 ,but probably saw 8-9 , also of interest were 3 Small Coppers ,several Adonis Blues and 3 Wasp Spiders .I won,t post any pictures I,ll leave that for Dave ,when he gets a minute. regards Allan .W.

[aeshna5]

Well done Allan, Interesting batch of species.

[Allan.W.]

Hello all,
Had my usual early start at Dungeness this morning,but too early it seems, and appart from a couple of Coppers roosting didn,t see any on the wing till around 8am ,and in all
I saw 20-25 most were third brood survivors with one or two fresh beautys, the Coppers now seem to be found around the last of the nectar sources ,the very few remaining Ragwort and red valerian clumps , I found one dew covered Copper roosting on a Ragwort that was laying flat on the ground,never seen this before . Still one or two Common Blues about several Small Heath, and single Red Ad,Small tort and Peacock, my best find was two Wasp Spiders ,one on a cocoon ,and another cocoon about a metre away ,Low down in broom. Also managed to find a Roesals Bush cricket,well pleased with this,a new one for me,but apparently quite common at Dungeness , later in the day we visited a site at Brookland,and was pleased to find 5 SmallCoppers,the same of Small Heath,2 Clouded Yellows (min) ,and amazingly a single Small Copper, on the only tiny yellow flower in the pub garden ! Dropped Lynne home and visited two areas of Orlestone forest, in one I found 6 Small Coppers (half an hour), and in the second ,I found 8 ,in an hour ,but the butterfly of the day was an incredibly late White Admiral,and whats more it appeared to be in great nick. ! Regards Allan.W.

[Paul Harfield]

Hi Allan
6 Small Coppers in one frame . That is impressive

[NickC]

Over the past couple of years I've been planting pollinator-friendly plants, and today it really paid dividends because I had a hummingbird hawk-moth in my garden here in north-east London. I'm so pleased!


Hummingbird Hawk-Moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) by Nick Challoner, on Flickr


Hummingbird Hawk-Moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) by Nick Challoner, on Flickr


Hummingbird Hawk-Moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) by Nick Challoner, on Flickr


Hummingbird Hawk-Moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) by Nick Challoner, on Flickr


Hummingbird Hawk-Moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) by Nick Challoner, on Flickr

Also seen were a painted lady, red admiral and numerous small whites.

[Allan.W.]

Hello all,
Hello Jack,i was quite lucky to capture 6 Coppers on ragwort as you say, but this shot pales into insignificance next to a shot taken by Dave Walker (Dungeness bird obs warden ),in the obs; garden a couple of years back ,on a plant called Senetti, about the size of a football ,he posted a picture with 40 !! Coppers on it , when I tried I managed 14.
Hi Nick, lovely shots of Hummingbird Hawk !! good job.
Since the beginning of September I,ve been making a point of trying to find Small Coppers flying in other areas ,away from Dungeness, and of the six I,ve visited so far ,I,ve found coppers in every one,most visits are short and sweet,fitting in an hour here and a half hour there,mainly straight from work,late this afternoon,i visited another wood in the Orlestone forest complex,this is the fourth wood in this complex I,ve done,to get to the "best" area still in the sun I passed along a dull ride,but one small area with a couple of metres of sunlight produced a Copper,walking about another 50 metres to what I thought may be a hotspot, saw a Copper immediately,not just a Copper but a Radiata ,and my first male,so that little cracker made 2,
a few clouds blotted the sun but I still managed another 3 butterflies, so 5in all,i now need to try and visit some of these sites mid -morning.
Regards Allan.W.

[Mikhail]

Yesterday afternoon (12th) I saw a female Long-tailed Blue showing interest in a Gorse bush with some flowers out on the Bournemouth cliff-top. She soon decided that it was not what she wanted and flew off without having her picture taken.

M.

[Mark Tutton]

I visited a colony of small coppers at Gunner Point [Hayling Island] yesterday and found that they has fared well over the summer. In all I spotted at least twenty four and maybe a dozen more, most were worn but two or three were pretty fresh and I guess could be fourth brood? I watched a couple of females egg laying on tiny, 5-10mm high, seedlings of what I presume to be Sorrell. The eggs tended to be laid at the base of the plant which meant the butterfly had to crawl through the parched grass to get into position. From the various reports on UKB it seems coppers are doing quite well at seaside locations, Cornwall, Kent etc. yet decidedly scare elsewhere - I wonder if there is a connection?
Kind Regards
Mark

[Hoggers]

The Coppers are coming! They must be enjoying this hot weather ( my car dashboard said 33C in Maidstone this afternoon! )

The individual populations of Coppers that you are finding Allan would make for a fascinating study (particularly as they're producing such spectacular aberrations! ) I'm sure I'm not alone in waiting to hear regular updates on them from you

Best wishes

A Very Hot Hoggers..!

[aeshna5]

Small Coppers are doing well at some inland sites. Two weeks ago I went to Richmond Park, London/Surrey to do a wildfowl survey + counted 30 Small Coppers in one part of the park. most were on Ragwort flowers with a total of 7 on one head.

[Butterflysaurus rex]

Another Long Tailed Blue has been spotted at Warnham Local Nature Reserve in Sussex. See here. http://www.sussex-butterflies.org.uk/sightings/

ATB

James

[Rivoldini]

Coppers are doing well in the north east, 11 on one small site at Gateshead, lots of blue spot forms and two albinos. Four each seen flitting about at two other sites. More than ever seen before but there were none of the first brood seen.

[Butterflysaurus rex]

As seen in Katrina's Personal Diary, Katrina, Trevor and I were very lucky to see a very active male Long Tailed Blue at Tide Mills today. So active in fact that we all struggled to get a photo. It looked like it might have been fresh in off the sea. We searched around for a few hours 'after our all to brief sighting' but we couldn't locate another one. A nice day in great company.

So here they come - you know the drill it's 24 hour pea watching from now on.

Best Wishes

James

[Hoggers]

A pal of mine currently working on the Isle of Orkney saw this Painted Lady there today

[Pete Eeles]

Over the past couple of years I've been planting pollinator-friendly plants, and today it really paid dividends because I had a hummingbird hawk-moth in my garden here in north-east London. I'm so pleased!

And fantastic images too ... well done!

Cheers,

- Pete