Long Tailed Blue

[RichardStephens]

19th August 2019 Long Tailed Blue female egg laying on everlasting Sweet Pea in Godstone Surrey
Following Neil Hulme's find of LTB eggs in his garden I have been checking Everlasting Sweet Pea in my garden. I had a nice surprise this morning
when looking out of the kitchen window to find a female laying eggs. She was around for over 1/2 hour so hopefully there are lots of eggs.

There was a sighting and photo of another LTB in Caterham which is about 8 miles North about 2 weeks ago.

Keep an eye on your Everlasting Sweet Peas for the next few weeks.

[Neil Hulme]

Nice one, Richard, delighted for you!
BWs, Neil

[bugboy]

There must be hundreds of the little blighters out there now. In 6 weeks times and with favourable weather there might well be thousands !

[MrSp0ck]

Surrey People missed out on the last two LTB years, so its good to have them this far inland again, ive dug out two pictures taken at Denbies Hillside in 2003 of various sized larvae, so people know what the early and late stage larvae are like.

Denbies 12.9.2003

Denbies 13.9.2003

hopefully will be seeing the butterfly this summer/autumn, its one of the few i still need to see in the UK, [as an adult].

[essexbuzzard]

Let’s hope so! We must all keep an eye open for eggs, later adults, everywhere we go!

[RichardStephens]

Nice one, Richard, delighted for you!
BWs, Neil

Thanks Neil! You never know what is just outside your window.

[RichardStephens]

Either the same female Long Tailed Blue or another one with very worn wings, no tails and damaged eye spots was egg laying on my BLSP again today at 10:12 and 13:50.
She laid about 8 eggs again on the small flower buds.
I also found 2 emerging larvae when I enlarged some photo's of eggs laid last Monday.

With the multiple sightings from Sussex it looks like a bumper end to the butterfly season at the end of September/ early October.

Keep ypour eyes pealed and keep checking the everlasting sweet peas!

[David M]

Great observations, Richard. This is turning into a potentially exciting event come early October!

[Catteraxe]

I believe a LTB has recently been recorded at Kenfig NNR near Port Talbot, South Wales.

Kevin.

[David M]

I believe a LTB has recently been recorded at Kenfig NNR near Port Talbot, South Wales.

That's very interesting. There's a mass of everlasting pea growing on the dunes near the car park at Port Eynon. Might be worth checking that out.

[Ian Pratt]

On page 3 of today's ipaper.

[David M]

On page 3 of today's ipaper.

Seems word has got round...

[False Apollo]

A Long-tailed Blue was watched in a garden at Stanpit, near Christchurch Dorset on 27.8.19. It was seen on climbing beans, staying around and showing well to a very experienced observer. He has just let me know. He identified it as a male and from the locality could probably be a migrant passing through as it eventually moved on.

Regards
Mike Gibbons

[MrSp0ck]

All the Surrey Sightings seem to be in Private Gardens, and Denbies drew a blank despite searches, so Surrey photographers have had a harder time than in Sussex to get pictures of the Offspring of the August migrants, as the Gardens are all off limits to visitors, these pictures of the offspring of Richards female taken elswhere in Surrey, joining Paulines male picture, are going to be the few "Surrey" LTB October pictures, other than by luck.

Our local Broad Leaved everlasting pea has been totally cut, so any livestock will have been cleared, but it was checked by lots of people and no LTB eggs were found, so hopefully none perished this time.