Saturday 5th May Part 1 – Goings on in the garden.
Saturday dawned with wall to wall blue sky and glorious sunshine but I wasn't building my hopes up as this often happens here and then clouds build quickly though the morning, in fact the forecast had us down for a mostly cloudy day albeit warmer than of late.
After doing the usual early morning shopping we were back in the house by 09.30am and with the sun still shining from a clear blue sky I went to sit in the garden with a mug of coffee and just chill for a few minutes. I then just pottered about for a bit whilst I had a think on what to do later, much depending on whether the clouds would build up or not.
Butterflies were already quite active and I watched a couple of Speckled Wood spiralling around each other down the bottom of the garden. When these finished their tussle one of them went next door but the other settled in one of the usual spots and showed itself to be a quite fresh individual that had already had a close escape, once again proving the effectiveness of those hind wing eyespots.
- Speckled Wood male - Coverdale 05.05.2018
- Speckled Wood male - Coverdale 05.05.2018
- Orange-tip female - Coverdale 05.05.2018
Back home later in the afternoon, I was once again pottering about in the garden and watching the various butterflies passing through, most of which were still very active but occasionally one of them would stop for a brief moment.
- Green-veined White female - Coverdale 05.05.2018
- Brimstone female - Coverdale 05.05.2018
- Brimstone female laying egg on Alder Buckthorn.
- Egg just visible on underside of leaf.
- Time for a rest before carrying on.
- Time to lay another egg.
- Female Brimstone and freshly laid egg - Coverdale 05.05.2018
- Brimstones in cop - a very tight crop of a shot a full zoom.
Also, a couple of observations; firstly I have read somewhere, not sure where now, that Brimstones are a morning butterfly and not often seen flying past early afternoon. The Brimstone activity in the garden described above all took place after 4.00pm and carried on until well past 5.00pm. Maybe this is down to air temperature which was certainly on the warm side at the time.
Secondly, I have often read that Brimstone females prefer young shoots on small plants in full sun to lay their eggs. Yesterday, and this is something have seen before, the female seemed to prefer laying on shrubs in partial shade. I have half a dozen alder buckthorn shrubs from whips I planted some years ago and they all receive full sun at some point in the day, some in the morning and some in the afternoon with a transitional period when each is in partial shade.
Anyway, now to sort out the photos from Snitterfield for part 2.
Bye for now,
Neil.
I have to say that this is the first year I have regularly seen them flying late in the day - I spotted a couple this evening at nearly seven o'clock. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they mated more than once: they emerge as early as March and you see both sexes continue flying into June. You see plenty of courtship activity throughout.
I like lazy butterflying too, one day I hope to have time to fully embrace it 
