Padfield

[David M]

Not good news for the emerging Holly Blue larva I suspect, Guy? With any luck a bird may snap up that spider before the egg has hatched.

Nice to see your local Green Hairstreaks are out and about. I always think it's a particularly nice contrast in colour when they settle on gorse flowers.

[kevling]

Guy,

Just catching up with your diary and enjoying your wonderful photos, especially the WLH larva and Holly Blue ovum.
We had a Holly Blue lay on our Pyracantha at the weekend which was pleasing.
My local Green Hairstreak site in Ipswich has delivered once more, which I will add to my diary when I get a moment.

Kind Regards
Kev

[Padfield]

Hi David. Yesterday and the day before I didn't see the spider anywhere near that flowerhead, so yesterday, with exquisite delicacy, I moved the worst of the snare, to give the caterpillar a chance of getting to food:



The egg still hadn't hatched today.

Hi Kev. Thanks for the comments. I will probably be taking Minnie for her exercise walk at a certain site in Ipswich ( ) before too long, to catch a sighting of a little blue ... I won't be seeing any Swiss little blues this year, I think. Minnie only has tiny legs, so to get exercise for us both I have to cycle her some reasonable distance then walk her.

Willy Wonka, the w-album cat, has upped sticks and headed for pastures new. I know this, as I happened to catch him in the process of sneaking off three nights ago:



Since then I haven't relocated him but I've only had time for very quick searches.

My other new night-time activity is bat recording. I used some of my 'holiday money' (I had booked a flight with EasyJet to Málaga and a hostel there earlier in the year, both of which were automatically refunded when the lockdown was announced - so it felt as if I had some spare cash!) to buy an ultrasound bat detector. So far I've had three confirmed (probably) species in my garden, namely pipistrelle, soprano pipistrelle and serotine. I wouldn't yet even call myself a beginner, let alone an expert, at this, so I'm relying mainly on the automatic ID provided by the software. Pipistrelle has a 'clap' at about 45 kHz and soprano pipistrelle at about 55 kHz:



Serotines, in contrast, produce much lower echolocation bleeps:



(The captions are the auto-ID: 'pippip' for Pipistrellus pipistrellus, 'pippyg' for Pipistrellus pygmaeus and 'eptser' for Eptesicus serotinus).

Something I've wanted to get into for years and years but never felt I could afford the outlay.

Mostly cloudy today, but sun in the afternoon brought out plenty of orange tips:



And here is a greenshank, photographed on our afternoon exercise walk (when we saw a few green-veined whites too):



Guy

[Wurzel]

Fascinating Bat call imagery Guy - wasn't their different call frequency which led to them being 'split'? That Orange-tip is brilliant - the orange is so vibrant on it

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

[David M]

Good for you, Guy, both with the removal of the spider's web adjacent to the Holly Blue ovum and the bat detection endeavour.

I guess general wildlife is having a field day during these current human restrictions. If these continue for most of the year, it'll be interesting to see what kind of effect it has on populations in 2021.

[Padfield]

Thanks Wurzel and David. Yes - I think the difference in calls was one of the early signs there were two species there, Wurzel. I have to say, I find it very exciting - opening up a whole new world of sound I'd (obviously) never heard before. Pipistrelles were very active tonight and I saw lots of different patterns in their calls. I've ordered a book on the subject, which should be arriving soon, but for the time being I'm just guessing what they mean. Some are echolocation, some are social and some have other meanings. Here are two snippets from the same recording, showing - I'm guessing - the frequency of the clicks massively increasing as the bat actually homes in on its prey ...

Same old ...



... then suddenly:



Anyway, to bring us back to leps, here are a couple of shots of a nocturnal white-letter hairstreak caterpillar (who may or may not be Willy Wonka):





He seems pretty much fully grown now.

Butterflies on the wing today included orange tips, small whites and speckled woods. It was cooler but often bright, after the rain.

Guy

[Vince Massimo]

Fascinating stuff, Guy.
Does it just cover UK species or are there extra ones on the database?

Vince

[Padfield]

Hi Vince. Currently, the software for this device (Echo Meter Touch 2) covers the UK, Europe, North and South America, and South Africa. The auto IDs are obviously not perfect - every time Minnie does a full-body shake with her harness on it sees a Leisler's bat in the sound profile and when I walk it sometimes mistakes the swish of my anorak for a barbastelle! But most background noises are at the wrong frequency to generate an ID at all and when I walk I now have the auto trigger off so it doesn't record my every move.

With the lockdown, I don't think I can cycle out to local woods or the river at night, so I think the range of species I record will be rather limited, but that's probably all the better for a beginner.

Guy

[Wurzel]

Fascinating images Guy I remember reading up on bats when I was at Uni and they have four residences for different times of the year so make the most of them while they're nearby They do increase the rate of clicks as they get nearer and nearer so this could be what you've captured here. In the past I've tried to imagine how they perceive the world and the best I could come up with is trying walking down the street towards a street lamp but you're only allowed to open your eyes for a fraction of a second at a time. You'd start off with a quick look and then take several steps, look again and slightly fewer steps etc and by the time you were feet away from the lamp you'd be blinking consistently - if that makes sense

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

[David M]

Looks like you'll get plenty of use out of your new device, Guy. As you say, probably best to avoid being too 'bold' under current conditions, but they won't last forever, and by the time they're properly loosened, I daresay you'll be a lot more savvy.

[Padfield]

Thanks Wurzel and David. Wurzel: I used to cycle down mountains like that, seeing how long I could keep my eyes closed for before snatching a millisecond's look.

To date, I've had 'confirmed' recordings (the book still hasn't arrived ...) of 6 bat species: pipistrelle, soprano pipistrelle, noctule, lesser noctule (Leisler's bat), serotine and brown long-eared.

Recent events in the garden have mostly concerned egg hatchings. The first orange tip, Nachiketas, hatched on 6th May. This is him today, taking a break from eating:



He was followed by Yama and then Śvetaketu. This is Śvetaketu guzzling his egg:



The holly blue egg laid on 21st April looked as if it would never hatch. The buds around it all shrivelled up - perhaps something to do with the spider's web they had borne for so long - and yesterday it was still there. Then today, I couldn't see it. I could see what looked, to the naked eye, like a tiny grub, but when I looked at the photos on the camera LCD I decided I had been mistaken, so didn't trouble for better pictures. Mistake: on processing the pitctures and comparing them with Pete's shots in the Bible, I see this was indeed a holly bluecaterpillar, taking its first steps after a 19-day incubation:





I hope he found enough nutrition in those manky buds to fatten him up enough to move off to a better flowerhead. I blame the spider.

I've been seeing plenty of green hairstreaks, in four different sites now, though usually quite inaccessibly. This one, a female, was living up to her name (rubi) and flitting around bramble:



Others have been on gorse and broom, or skulking around in hawthorn trees:


(gorse)


(broom)


(hawthorn)

Proof shots at one bramble site were particularly difficult to get:



Guy

[kevling]

Guy, lovely photos off the egg guzzling Orange Tip and glad your Holly Blue larva has made it into the world. I have ovum from both species in my garden which should hatch anytime soon.

Kind Regards
Kev

[David M]

Great early stage images, Guy. I presume from the fact that you have named some of these cats that you hope to follow them as far as you can as their lives progress?

Glad you got close to your local Green Hairstreaks. I find they become more docile and easy to approach as their flight season progresses. Sadly, that coincides with them becoming far less photogenic, although there are always certain individuals that appear untainted by the day to day demands of their lives.

[Padfield]

Thanks Kev and David. I look forward to seeing your newborns, Kev!

This morning, Śvetaketu and Yama were still doing fine, posing on fruit-bodies. Nachiketas had disappeared. This doesn't worry me unduly. In the Upanishad (the Kaṭha) he goes off to visit death (Yama) while still a child, but he comes back to his father ... So he'll come back! I found a fourth caterpillar, Janaka. I haven't processed his photo yet but to be fair he looks very like the others!

I can't relocate Holly (the holly blue caterpillar) but am inspired by Pete's post in the May 2020 thread to hope I might find her again when she's bigger.

No butterflies today, with the cold. I thought I'd find no bats either in the evening but was wrong. At one point I had three different species together, showing why it's not safe to rely on the auto-ID. The detector had picked up a soprano pipistrelle (sometimes very close, flying right over my head):



While that recording was still in progress, another species passed. Here are the two together. Note (I think) the harmonics on the lower one (which I think is a serotine, though it's slightly deeper than the usual serotines here), so each blip is matched by another exactly twice the frequency:



Then right at the end of the same recording, a pipistrelle added its voice. The pipistrelle clicks at about 45 kHz while the soprano pipistrelle is nearer to 55 kHz:



Interesting that the species seem to take it in turns - one breaks off when another interrupts.

I could have stood there for hours, listening, watching the screen and seeing the shadowy figures zooming in and out of the trees above me, but Minnie was not up for that so we came in.

Guy

[David M]

You're really getting into this now aren't you, Guy?

Must say it's fascinating to see the spectogram readings and how they differ for the various species.

[Padfield]

You're really getting into this now aren't you, Guy?

Must say it's fascinating to see the spectogram readings and how they differ for the various species.

It's quite addictive, David. And recently the bat action has been amazing. The trees are abounding in insects and every night bats of various species are out harvesting them! They particularly love the elms where my white-letter hairstreaks are, and some bats will pick roosting insects off the leaves ...

I've had very little time recently to write anything up, so I guess I'll just post the newcomers (butterflies) since my last post. Common blues appeared round here on 20th May:



The next new species was little blue. There is, to the best of my knowledge, a single, small colony in Suffolk - certainly introduced. It seems to be doing well and it was, of course, a pleasure to see something so familiar to me in my past life in CH:





Unsurprisingly, there were a few other observers there, including our own Kev Ling (who recognised me by Minnie! We've met once before, but not in sunglasses and hats!). I didn't have long to stay but did confirm at least one female little blue before I left:



I also saw my first brown argus of the year there:



Guy

[kevling]

Guy,

It was a pleasure looking at Little Blues with you yesterday, as well as meeting the legendary Minnie of course.
Although introduced, they are a welcome addition to the sightings list at the moment, given that travel further afield is not so justifiable. Some excellent photos too.

Kind Regards
Kev

[David M]

..It's quite addictive, David. And recently the bat action has been amazing. The trees are abounding in insects and every night bats of various species are out harvesting them! They particularly love the elms where my white-letter hairstreaks are, and some bats will pick roosting insects off the leaves ...

Not surprised you're finding it addictive with so much activity going on, Guy. Whilst these bats, like everything, need food, I do hope they won't decimate your White Letter Hairstreaks too much whilst they are roosting at night!

[Padfield]

Thanks Kev. I will be back for more of the local exotica!

I'm not worried about the hairstreaks, David. The general rule is that prey numbers control predator numbers, not the other way round. It's a healthy sign that insects are doing well if the bats are doing well!

Of about a dozen orange tip caterpillars I've been following, just one has made it to full size. Several others were lost early in their final instar and I think a few later hatchers got cannibalised. BUT Śvetaketu is still alive, and to make sure he pupates safely I have given him a new home. I potted his garlic mustard and put it in a breeding cage (got cheap on e-bay and arrived today, just in the nick of time, I think) with another couple of garlic mustards:



That's the same place it was originally growing, and he seems to be happy still.

This was him, newly hatched, on 8th May:



And today:



I hope I'll be showing pictures of a pupa soon ...

Guy

[Pauline]

Good luck with your OT Guy - I look forward to seeing the pupa. I had 9 eggs laid in my garden and for once I was determined not to interfere or 'save' anything. The ones on the cuckoo plant disappeared first and only 2 were left on the garlic mustard until 2 days ago when they too disappeared. I have to conclude that none of the 9 survived