Bugboys mission

[Wurzel]

Hellfire Bugboy - good job you didn't A great set of shots - love the underside of the Small Tort - something that is always overlooked because of the showy topside In my book it's too late for redecorating - one Essential Travel rules state that you can't get the materials (rejoice! ) and two there are butterflies outside so redecoration is left for the Autumn - it's time to start spending the Brownie Points

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

[bugboy]

Thanks Goldie, she was particularly photogenic sat there amongst the daisies wasn't she
Thanks Wurzel. So trips to your favourite blue and yellow Swedish home furnishings store are out as well then, that's sad ...

April 2020
Thursday 16th. I spent most of the day queuing outside shops but did manage a bit of movement late in the day after things had clouded over. It was still very warm, almost muggy and you could be forgiven for thinking it was July. Still on the wing was a Peacock and GVW, neither settling for me.

Being next to a water treatment works there’s often clouds of midges. I always find it amusing when a cloud of these harmless non-biters gathers above someone and suddenly there’s arms flailing all over the place. In the overcast weather the swarms were mostly settled.

After this it was all rather quiet with on and off light drizzle. I spent the majority of my walk looking for roosting Orange-tips, not finding any until near the end, back where I’d started, a lovely fresh male.

Spot the Orange-tip

[Wurzel]

Yep no trips to Swedish Hell for me - I'm loving some things about Lockdown!
That camo is brilliant Bugboy - for a moment I thought you might have been 'extracting the urine' and there wasn't actually an OT there at all Cracking shots I love the furry chevrons on the hind wings

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

[bugboy]

Thanks Wurzel, some more 'furry chevrons' for you below

April 2020
Saturday 18th. Another overcast day but looking out my window I did notice the cloud thin regularly enough to suggest there might be a bit of activity. Before I popped out, I was doing some cleaning and came across a tiny Jumping Spider lurking in my bath, barely 3mm long but very cute up close.

I’m not going to go out at the weekend if it’s warm and sunny, all those people who are working from home during the week like going out and it becomes impossible to stick to the regulations even in the quieter spots on my patch. However it’s amazing how fewer people need their exorcise on a cloudy day, I suppose you can’t have a vigorous picnicking session on a dull day !

More midges were loitering around today, I believe the slimmer black ones are the males to the fatter brown females here and on Thursdays walk.

It didn’t take long to find the main target, a roosting OT in the same spot as Thursday. A close examination of both individuals proved this to be a different one. A few times the cloud thinned enough for him to stir from his slumber. At one point it seemed warm enough for him to fly and he took to the air... but he quickly changed his mind when the cloud thickened again. Anyway as befits a subject as willing as this one, many, many pictures were taken!

You can never have too many can you

In my search I also found a couple of Green-veined White using the same principle of camouflage.

Stay safe

[Wurzel]

Those are a cracking set of chevrons again Bugboy - cheers mightily If that spider is on your bath it definitely looks like it needs a clean

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

[David M]

...In my search I also found a couple of Green-veined White using the same principle of camouflage.

Beautiful, Paul. What on earth is contained in the umbellifers round your way? Just about every butterfly you depict seems to be settled on one.

[Pauline]

First up Buggy, I don't believe there is such a thing as midges that don't bite I'd prove it to you if I were there
Second up, really like the second to last GVW - haven't seen one this year yet

[bugboy]

Thanks Wurzel and no that's not my bath , I placed him on a decorative piece of wood in the front room for his photoshoot
I've always found Cow Parsley THE plant of choice for roosting Orange-tips David. I strongly believe it is this plant their camouflage has evolved to mimic!
Thanks Pauline to be honest I'm only presuming they're non biting midges since I've never had a problem with them here (just the occasional mozzie that sneaks into my flat for a midnight feast!) The males are 100% non biting though, guaranteed!

April 2020
Monday 20th. I hoped my morning walk would be in time to find the Orange-tips just waking up. That hope was dashed when upon arriving at the entrance as male fluttered past, the last thing on his mind was stopping for a quick photoshoot. This was going to be the theme for the walk and by the end of it I’d had a fair few flybys but not one single Orange-tip settled, as one would expect for a clear blue sky and temperatures nudging high teens. A few Green-veined Whites stopped, one of them making friends with a Hoverfly

It's been a fair while since seeing a Brimstone so I was pleased to come across a male, even more pleased when he settled!

Talking of Brimstones I had a look at the Alder Buckthorn, finding a single egg and a single first instar caterpillar.

Speckled Woods were in all the usual spots, one in particular was fast running out of eye spots to keep him safe!

I also managed another single Small Tortoiseshell

As with the Orange-tips, other Whites were very much on patrol duties but I managed a few shots of the less active females who take much better care of themselves than the males do. One Small White had a broken spot much like Goldies the other day but I only got a shoddy record shot before the wind took her to the other side of the field. Another Small White was laying eggs on Hoary Cress like it was going out of fashion!

With my days off at the moment I’m tending to go out in the morning when there’s less joggers and other people out for their daily exorcise. The downside of this is I’m not coming across many Nymphalids until I’m close to leaving the site, at this time of year they’re very much butterflies of the afternoon, the exception being the Small Tortoiseshell who seem to be active earlier than Peacocks and Commas. Anyway as I was about to leave today a Peacock briefly settled for a side on portrait.

The final shots of the day belonged to this Great Black-backed Gull, a true beast of a Gull !

[Wurzel]

Great stuff Bugbouy - Peacocks with their wings closed in the right lighting look just as spectacular to me as when they're showing off their topsides. Interesting that you also have seen a Small White like Goldie's - I found one the other day as well GBB are great gulls - proper monsters!

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

[David M]

Nice find with three Brimstone stages simultaneously, Paul. I've seen a few females buzzing round the shrubs lately but I've not managed to find one actually ovipositing.

That great black-backed gull looks pretty imposing. I'm sure the herring gulls will mind their manners.

[bugboy]

Thanks Wurzel, we might all be seeing abs. in the more 'mundane' species this year for obvious reasons
Thanks David, No i've not seen any egg laying females as yet, just the aftermath of their visitations

April 2020
Tuesday 21st. Another early start but once again I missed finding any early morning Orange-tip, just a female Green-veined White who had seen better days but for most of the morning the only butterfly that was willing to settle were Speckled Woods.

Whites either flitted or were getting blown around and a single Red Admiral whooshed past me heading north. The local Whitethroat population seemed to have exploded overnight, nearly every bramble thicket had a noisy owner. I always think of these as the Jazz artist of the hedgerow Warbler fraternity, not nearly as tuneful as the other hedgerow Warblers and often interspersed with the scolding noises as you pass by (to continue the analogy, Chiffchaff’s are the little schoolboy at the edge of the School band armed with a tambourine).

Of in the distance I noticed a Crow spiraling in the sky. Looking through my big lens I could see the Kestrel easily out maneuvering it. I’m not particularly good at judging distances but it was probably all going on a mile or so away, these pics are severely cropped!

The walk back was a little more successful, amongst the whites and Orange-tips patrolling, a Peacock and a Small Tort were both enjoying the sun and I came across another Red Admiral in a Cherry tree and got my first pics of one this year.

The slightly bent tail of this long-tailed Tit shows it’s been sitting on eggs in its domed feathery nest.

A Green-veined White was the penultimate encounter of the day,

the last butterfly which captured my attention deserves a post of its own …tbc

[millerd]

Just catching up with your diary, Buggy. The shots of the roosting Orange Tips and GVW are clear favourites - they are so well camouflaged that I frequently walk right past them and only discover their existence when my heavy footfall disturbs them.

Cheers,

Dave

[Wurzel]

Crikey Bugboy that Green-veined White had definitely been in the wars Great butterfly shots but the stars of the sequence have to be the Whitethroats I saw and heard a few of their Lesser cousins over the weekend If these are the Jazz musicians does that make the Cetti's a drummer/percussionist?

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

[bugboy]

Thanks Dave, yup those Orange-tips are amongst my fav pics of the year so far
Thanks Wurzel. I tried getting a picture of a Lesser the other day but he stayed well hidden before flying off, little bugger . Cetti's are Animal, the drummer from The Muppet Show

April 2020
Tuesday 21st cont. So just before leaving I had one last look at the sunny glade where the Comma’s normally hang out and noticed a Peacock fluttering low over the nettle bed, obviously a female searching for that special leaf to lay on. I wanted to get some shots of her using her vestigial front legs so I watched her until she settled within range where she decided to use her tongue.

A couple of minutes later she had chosen her leaf, right at the edge of the nettle bed and well within range of my camera and being in a quiet corner with no other people around I was able to observe and photograph the action. As she moved into position she continued to test the leaf with her front legs.

12.05

After a few snaps I walked off for a few minutes to allow her to settle, returning to find a small handful of eggs in place. I did this a couple of times. The laying process is a relatively long drawn out act, only one or two eggs are laid at once, interspersed with breaks as presumably the next egg moves down ready to be laid.

12.15

12.17

12.27

The final pictures was taken 30 minutes after the first eggs were laid. Its impossible to be accurate but it looks like around twenty eggs were laid over this period of time which would mean she would have to spend in excess of 2 hours to lay the full clutch if this rate of laying were maintained.

12.33

12.33

I was actually most interested to discover the long hairs/cilia at the end of her ovipositor. Clearly they have some function, I’m concluding they for feeling around to make sure the eggs are laid in the right place since she has no way of seeing with her eyes.

Its not the first time I've watched this but it is the first time I've been able to capture it in detail

[trevor]

Fascinating sequence, Paul. I saw two female Brimstones egg laying yesterday,
they hardy paused at all, but every Alder Blackthorn leaf visited contained
a single egg. What was amazing was how they instinctively sorted out the
right type of shrub among the dense foliage. Nature is amazing!.

Stay well,
Trevor.

[Wurzel]

"Cetti's are Animal" - that's what I was thinking

Fascinating observations Bugboy - I did a bit of reading and it seems that butterflies have 2 pairs of extraocular genital photoreceptors and it's these that they use to make sure that they've made enough contact to deposit the eggs safely though I reckon that the hairs must have an assisting role in this as you described? It made for fascinating reading...I would include the link but it ran on for several pages - it was in a paper from the Oxford Academic Journals - Hindsight of butterflies - by Kentaro Arikawa.

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

[millerd]

A terrific sequence of the Peacock laying, Buggy. I've been watching several Peacock females size up a large nettle patch over the last week (along with a single Small Tortoiseshell) but had no opportunities like this one. Brilliant.

Cheers,

Dave

[David M]

Great observations, Paul. Given the numbers of Peacocks this spring, there shouldn't be any shortage of early stages of this species.

Given the lockdown, I may even rear a few if I manage to find any.

[Neil Freeman]

Great sequence with the egg laying Peacock Buggy

I wonder what she looks for in that one leaf that makes it suitable, given that a batch of eggs that size will result in larvae numbers that will soon need to move onto other leaves anyway. Maybe some mineral content that is important in the first few days of the larvae's life.

Cheers,

Neil.

[bugboy]

Thanks Trevor, It is amazing how butterflies can sniff out their LHP in amongst the sea of greenery isn't it
That's a fascinating article Wurzel, I reckon the hairs must fine tune what their butt-eye's can see
Thanks Dave, I was very pleased she didn't choose a leaf in the middle of the nettle bed although it was far from pain free getting down to her level
Thanks David, I was thinking about rearing something this year too. Something I've not done that for about 20 years!
Thanks Neil, that's something I've often wondered. They do seem a lot more fussy than most other butterflies but then they are quite literally putting all their eggs in one basket so it has to be just right!

April 2020
Wednesday 22nd. My first day back to work after a week off. A few of the usual suspects were flitting around during my lunch break but I only managed a female Small White who was briefly resting after a prolonged bout of egg laying.

I also found a loose herd of 7-spot Ladybird larvae munching aphids on some nettle and a quick browse of Garlic Mustard found a couple of Orange-tip eggs.

My new work finishing time of 5pm means the sun is that little bit lower in the sky during my walk home through the marshes. The usual spots are getting shaded out at this late time but with the current mini heatwave it’s still warm enough to find activity if you know where to look. Now the Blackthorn and Cherry blossoms have all but gone over, Hawthorn has come into its own and it was here that I found three of the four Peacocks seen.

A Green-veined White also stopped by whilst a Comma was sat nearby soaking up the rays, totally ignoring the current government regulations!

Around the corner I had a look to see if the Peacock from yesterday had successfully finished laying her egg mass. The nettles were now in shade so I had to use flash but it was a healthy batch of eggs. However look closely and you can see a couple of tiny dark wasps who I’m sure weren’t there for the scenery. There’s plenty of eggs to go round though and the vast majority should successfully hatch .

Closeup of the upside down mountaineering wasp.

Commas and Peacocks were still in the usual clearing but had followed the shadows up and were now mostly out of reach. The long shadows had also trapped a male Orange-tip in another clearing. He would flit lazily round, hit a shadow, turn around and come to rest in the same spot time and time again.