Hoggers

[Hoggers]

A very Happy New Year's Butterflying to One and All!

They're back!

Having emerged from my Winter chrysalis today I immediately flew down to Dungeness. The first thing I noticed was just how well the flowering plants have done this year compared to last (when the lack of rain caused them to struggle).

This year the plants are healthy and lusty

Particularly (and for Coppers, importantly) the Sorrel

A very good sign indeed.

And it was whilst I stood admiring the flowers that I saw out of the corner of my eye, an unmistakable coppery flash

A fine male Copper and my first of the year

I spent nearly an hour with him

He patrolled his little empire, intercepted a bee and performed the mysterious "stalk dance".

After an absence of five months it was wonderful once again to be in the company of this marvellous butterfly

I saw two more during the course of my walk

My first sighting for 2017 was 6th April, so a late start this year but if the weather stays fair the Coppers will soon catch up

I also saw a Painted Lady

But today was about Small Coppers

Welcome back!

[ernie f]

Hi

I'm a new member to this website but I have been dipping into your diary for about a year now and that is because I found a fairly large summer brood near me in 2016. I counted 118 across four connected lowland heaths in Hampshire in the summer of that year. The heaths are called Kingsley, Broxhead, Sleaford and Shortheath. They more or less surround the village of Kingsley near Alton in north-east Hampshire. I have witnessed the behaviours you have described (The Stalk Dance or Walk and the Turkey Trot). They are fascinating. Do you have any ideas yet as to why they do the Stalk Dance?

[Goldie M]

Hi! Hogger's, great to see your Copper's again, Goldie

[Allan.W.]

Welcome back Hoggers !
Like yourself I found my first Small Copper (s ?) today at Dungeness , one on a Dandelion ,and another probable fly-bye ,both in the moat ,needless to say ! Good to see a good show of plants as well ,I dare say we,ll bump into each other in the near future !
Regards Allan.W.

[Hoggers]

Hello Goldie and Allan , good to hear from you both and best wishes for the 2018 butterfly season.

Hi Ernie and a belated welcome from me to UKB.

As to your question : ideas,yes ; but a conclusive answer? Alas, no!

I've watched female Coppers tapping plants and it's easy to guess why : they're probably checking for Sorrel and whether it's suitable to lay their eggs on.

But why male Coppers do it isn't obvious.

I've made general pleas for help from the experts and Atropos magazine was kind enough to publish a letter in which I asked for views and opinions on the point but I've yet to receive a definite answer.

Are they marking their territory as private? Or marking to lure in the ladies? Or exploring their surroundings, trying to establish whether there's Sorrel near-by?

Perhaps none of the above!

I wish I knew!

Any answers gratefully received,

Hoggers

[Andrew555]

Very nice shots Hoggers. Great to see that Copper colour again.

[David M]

Glory be!!! Hoggers is back....which means Small Coppers are back too!

Some things go just like clockwork!

Nice to see the return of phlaeas in your part of the UK, and I look forward to seeing it in mine very soon.

[ernie f]

Hi Hoggars

I, too have tried to puzzle it out. I have seen these behaviours too as I think I mentioned. There is a place near me that contains a late summer heathland brood. It can grow big but not as big as at Dungeness!!! I have therefore been able to study them like you to a certain extent but have no definitive answers. I have not seen a Small Copper yet this year but when I see my first one I shall be writing a long diary entry about them and maybe we can compare notes.

Regards to you and yours

Ern

[bugboy]

Hi Hoggers, hope you had a good Christmas.

I was randomly mulling over the whole male ‘stem dance’ thing at work today and the more I thought about it the more I concluded it must be some kind of display. I’ll try and go through my train of thought as logically as possible.

Firstly we have to assume nothing in nature is done by accident, there’s always a reason. Secondly we can assume that ultimately, the sole purpose for a butterflies existence is to procreate.

In order to procreate butterflies have to have energy which they get from A) the surrounding temperature and B) food. The stem dance doesn’t seem to facilitate either of these. They also need to evade predation and on the odd occasion I have seen it (just not often enough to realise it’s a ‘thing’ that is done regularly) the stem dance seems to draw attention to them rather than conceal them so it must have some other advantage.

From your observations it’s only the males which do this and since they are a territorial species as opposed to a wanderer (such as a Brimstone) then they need to get the females to come to them. One way would obviously be to have a territory that females would naturally frequent, be it having a good nectar supply, or well sheltered from inclement weather. Another way would be to advertise your presence, which this stem dance could potentially do. It would be interesting to know what they look like with the ability to see UV light, perhaps they are showing off something in the patterning which we are blind to? It's just a theory but I think it fits all the available evidence.

I hope you can follow my train of thought there.

Anyway happy new year and hope to see lots more Coppers next year!

Took a bit of searching (eventually found it on page 50 of your pd) but I knew I'd postulated something a while back on that stem dance thing they do

[Hoggers]

Cheers Buggy : If you know an entomologist looking for something to do a Ph.D on let me know!

The Coppers of Dungeness were in fine form today

It was so hot they looked like melting

After a late start the first brood has caught up rapidly

My Copper-O-Meter reached 107

This chap has pollen on his "nose"!

A very satisfying total indeed

The vegetation is lush and healthy (my only regret is that I've missed the Blackthorns in flower as they've now almost all gone over)

So all the signs are there for a bumper second brood this year

I saw several females giving lusty males the brush off with some nice "Turkey Strut" dances

All in all, another delightful visit to CopperNess!

[Allan.W.]

Great stuff Hoggers ,Sorry I missed you ! I saw 45 between 7.30 - 9 am ,some absolute beauties on the wing ,I reckon if I could have stayed longer ,I may have racked up the 100 as well ,we also saw 58 late Friday afternoon.
Regards Allan.W.

[millerd]

Amazing! I'm not sure there are any other Small Coppers anywhere in the UK at the moment - they are all in Kent! It really is an extraordinary spot.

Dave

[David M]

Lovely sequence again, Hoggers. I dread to think what your Copper count may reach over the next couple of days with these perfect conditions. What is your record?

[Maximus]

Hi Hoggers

It's amazing the difference three days and some good weather makes. We struggled to make a double figure count of Small Coppers at Dungeness and you recorded over one hundred! Lovely images by the way

Mike

[Hoggers]

Thanks for the comments, much appreciated.

107 is a very good count for the first brood (in my experience) so it's looking promising for the rest of the season.

I saw your Copper photos, Maximus - gorgeous as ever! What you note about the population is something I've definitely experienced before : modest numbers then after just a few sunny days there's an explosion in their numbers!

To answer your question David, on 16th July 2016 I counted 291 Small Copper ; I returned the next day but to a different area of the Reserve and counted 244 : so my total for that weekend was 515 Small Copper!

I'd still covered only a small portion of Dungeness, so the total population was undoubtedly far greater.

All the best

Hoggers

[David M]

To answer your question David, on 16th July 2016 I counted 291 Small Copper ; I returned the next day but to a different area of the Reserve and counted 244 : so my total for that weekend was 515 Small Copper!

I’m wondering if anywhere else in Europe can compete with such statistics! It’s not even a colony species (such as Small Blue, Marsh Fritillary, etc). That figure is quite astounding and probably exceeds what I see in an entire decade!

[Hoggers]

I visited Dungeness this afternoon. It was very still and warm (about 20c) and the air was heavy with a delicious cocktail mix of scents from all of the many flowers now in bloom.

As for Small Coppers, I counted 43 on my walk. The first brood has been running for exactly a month now and overall condition is in decline

although there are some natty ones still on the wing

I watched males perform their "stalk dances" from top

to bottom

And females "turkey strut"

This behaviour of the female is usually enough to throw a bucket of cold water over the most ardent of suitors and must be a huge energy saving device for them, particularly those living in such a large community of Coppers as we have at Dungeness.

But not all males get the message for some reason. Today I watched these two:

The male simply did not give up pestering the female despite her clear (to me anyhow!) visual signals. He pursued her when she attempted to fly away from him, twice, and ignored her "turkey strut". Eventually she crawled down into the darkness of a bush where he gave up trying to follow her.

Although the first brood is on the wane now, it was particularly strong (surely because the Reserve was well watered this year!) and so the signs are there for a record breaking second brood!

[ernie f]

Hi, Hoggars - I'm glad of your pics and text re Small Coppers. I have a brood near me (much smaller of course) and have been studying them. I don't get to see the Stalk Walk/Stalk Dance/Stem Dance very often (which do you prefer? - and I shall call it that from now on). On the only occasion I have seen one do it on Sheep's Sorrel it stopped when if got past the blooms and flew onto something else. You now have a pic of it getting right to the bottom of the stem. Fantastic. This means something. I'm not quite sure what it means - but it definitely means something!

Regards

[Goldie M]

Really enjoying your Copper shots Hogger's , still to see them here so it's great to see your photo's. Goldie

[David M]

Always interesting to see the mix of ragged and pristine specimens, Hoggers. I wonder how the next brood will respond as a result of this first brood having largely fine weather conditions. Could we be in for even bigger numbers later in the summer?