Bugboys mission

[Wurzel]

Cracking Kingfisher shots Bugboy The final one is a real gem - worthy of 'Birdwatching' magazine that one At least the weather is grotty while you're sans camera

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[bugboy]

Thanks everyone, in the absence of butterflies he’s certainly helped to fill the gap this winter!

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March 2022

Thursday 3rd. Well, my replacement camera arrived significantly sooner than I was led to believe so in the interests of getting the hang of it whilst my other one is being fixed (the shutter needs replacing which could take 1 to 4 weeks+ depending on whether they need to order the part in from Europe or not) I went out in search of Mr Kingfisher again. Just a few fleeting glimpses today, nowhere near as accommodating as when I last saw him. It was decidedly overcast so no chance of my first butterfly of the year so here’s some more birds.

Shoveler, Fieldfare, Wren, Redwing.

The camera is a more basic model than what I’m used to, a 450D (I'm already forking out enough so I wasn't going to spend any more than what was 'essential'), and the LCD screen has a noticeably lower resolution and not very usful at telling me whether i've got the exposure right, so I was more reliant on instinct when taking the pics, a bit like being transported back in time to the days before digital photography. Next time hopefully I’ll find out how it copes in sunlight.

~~~~~

That day was Sunday the 6th when I took a work colleague to Barnes Wetland Centre for some twitching. The premium birds took a while to appear, but there were plenty of the usual suspects to look at. Cormorants, Gulls, ducks and Coots probably made up 98% of what was there.

Spot the Snipe

A male Reed Bunting, just moulting into his breeding plumage came very close and we watched him practice his scratchy song.

My friend spotted the Bittern lurking in the reeds, the first time she’d ever seen one, whilst on the other side of the same hide a Water Pipit was darting around at the edge of one of the flooded meadows.

Spot the Bittern

~~~~~

I did promise some butterflies in my last post and on Tuesday the 8th I visited Bookham. Wall to wall blue sky and a distinct springlike feel in the air, surely I could get my season off the ground! Whilst waiting for something to show itself I had a look at the White Admiral Larvae, I found two of the three whose hibernaculum are still intact, both still snoozing. The third I suspect was just tucked away out of sight.

I was also on the look out for a small flock of Brambling which had been seen here at the weekend but no sign of them.

My first butterfly to appear was a Brimstone around noon. I saw him settle a little way ahead of me and after a few snaps he seemed to decide he had woken too early and hid away in the Brambles.

It was a couple of hours later when I managed species two of the year with a Comma.

I disturbed what was probably a second Comma a little while later but it just flew off out of sight.

Later at home I saw a couple of posts on Facebook, the Bramblings had once again been photographed (from the angle of the pictures it looks like they are quite tame) and a Small Tortoiseshell was seen at one of the car parks. Good to get off the mark though and it looks like next week we may be in with some even warmer weather .

[Wurzel]

God to see you're back with a camera Bugboy - and even better to see that you're off the mark Fingers crossed that the warmer weather does arrive next week - the forecasters have a nasty habit of changing their tune radically at the last minute

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[trevor]

Great that your camera is fixed, and has been put to good use!.
I imagine we will see you here in Sussex before too long.

Have another for those Kingfisher shots.
Trevor.

[Goldie M]

Great start for you Bugboy , lovely shots as well Goldie

[millerd]

Just catching up with everything, Bugboy - it's been a long and sorry saga of tech failure, but at least you're back with a camera again. How is the hard drive? That one is a particular nightmare - I keep thinking about the merits of cloud storage, but an old fogey like me tends to cling to the idea of having something tangible...

The Kingfisher shots are terrific. I have only ever managed one, and zoomed and blurry it is too. I should try harder as I see them flying several times a year along the River Colne. It never ceases to amaze me that the spectacular iridescent turquoise colouring is an illusion, and there is no pigment involved at all.

Cheers,

Dave

[David M]

...Good to get off the mark though and it looks like next week we may be in with some even warmer weather

First ones of the year are always special, Paul. Let's hope the promised 'warmer weather' includes plenty of sunshine. Should that happen I feel there will be quite a few sightings.

[bugboy]

Thanks for all the comments, always good to see the first few butterflies of the year.

The good news is that I’ll be picking up my repaired camera tomorrow . The bad news is my hard drive is very damaged so no chance of getting all my pictures back, the only silver lining I can come up with is that I take an awful lot of pictures so even a small percentage will still mean quite a large number…. I just have to hope that a significant amount from the last two years are saveable .

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March 2022

Tuesday 15th. Things have been looking up recently with several pleasant, warm springlike days at work and a growing number of sightings cropping up on here and various other social media platforms. I was itching to get out again and this week’s day off seemed to be shaping up rather well. Wall to wall blue sky greeted me when I left, heading for Tottenham Marshes where, on a warm sunny March day, I could pretty much bet my mortgage on seeing good numbers of everything likely to be on the wing this early. I stopped off first to check a few reliable sun traps on Walthamstow Marshes but I was a bit early, they had yet to trap any sun. Just as I was leaving the marshes and about to cross a bridge over the canal which takes me up to Tottenham, I spied the first butterfly of the day and my seasons first Peacock, a bit on the tatty side but still a very welcome sight.

My first Peacock of 2022

Arriving at Tottenham Marshes I climbed down the gully next to one of the river Lea channels and very quickly came across a Comma, he was a flighty so-n-so but whilst trying to line up a shot a male Brimstone sailed by. Further along I found my first Small Tortoiseshell of the year (once again not willing to sit anywhere useful for me) and another Peacock.

My first Small Tortoiseshell of 2022

I thought the day might be deteriorating with the appearance of high cloud that turned the sun hazy and took the edge of the warmth and much of my sightings for the next hour were of butterflies flying off looking for somewhere to sit out the cloud. A single Small Tort who’d seen better days was all that sat for me.

Thankfully there were enough breaks in the cloud to keep the butterflies active and to stop them from giving up on the day altogether. I just had to make sure I was in the favoured spots when the sun was out. As the afternoon progressed I managed to rack up a respectable 36 confirmed sightings (not including unidentified flybys) of five species. I only found five Small Torts and they mostly proved to be very fidgety and difficult to pin down. Perhaps the hazy sun kept their preferred open fields just a bit too cold for them to be out in larger numbers. Three Brimstones showed up and I managed a couple of record shots when one settled for a short time. The biggest surprise were three Red Admirals, I usually have to wait until May to see these locally. The first was a female looking to lay but the patch of fresh nettle growth I was standing in clearly wasn’t up to her exacting standards. The only one I managed to get shots of was relaxing with a Comma.

It was Commas and Peacocks that made up the bulk of what I saw with fourteen and eleven respectively. The hotspots that attract both these species, which tend to be a bit more sheltered than where the Small Torts favour, and therefore hold on to the heat better, had many a tussle between them but there was enough down time to grab a good selection of images.

As well as being the most numerous species of the day, the Comma pretty much stole the show on account of me witnessing the result of some persistent courtship. The chase was very similar to that I’ve witnessed from Peacocks and Small Torts, the female fluttering along provocatively with the male close behind. I didn’t witness any landed behaviour and saw no ‘head butting’ but the female did regularly lead him into bramble thickets only for them to reappear a short distance away so there could perhaps have been some of that behaviour going on out of sight. Whatever was going on she was certainly putting him through his paces, it's clear the females wear the trousers in this species! The final descent into the brambles is where the act took place and thankfully she chose somewhere just within reach. I could just about see her settle and the male fluttering as they sealed the act and I managed a few record shots through gaps in the foliage.

I left them for a few minutes before trying to get some better shots. I was reasonably confident I wouldn’t disturb them based on my experience with mating Peacocks at Bookham a few years ago, and once I’d managed to pick my way through the outer edge of the brambles and rearrange some of the surrounding stems I had a clear view, they are rightly very confident in their camouflage. The male is the more variegated one on the right who also happens to be an ab. O-album

Once I’d had my fill of pictures, I was able to replace the stems and once again the pair were hidden from sight. Hopefully my season hasn’t already peaked!

[millerd]

That's a great piece of observation, Buggy. Your patience in watching the courtship to its culmination is admirable. They rightly have confidence in their camouflage and if you hadn't seen them interact in the first place spotting a couple of dead leaves in amongst the brambles would have been impossible. A terrific way to get the season underway!

Cheers,

Dave

[trevor]

No wonder mating Commas are rarely found, they really do resemble dead leaves.
A great piece of observation.

Take care,
Trevor.

[essexbuzzard]

Wow, what an amazing observation! No, I’m sure your season hasn’t peaked already, but it will be hard to top that!

[Wurzel]

I read this report and the number of just kept growing Bugboy First the full house of hibernators with shots then bucket loads of Commas (still to see one) and then the 'piece de resistance' a pair in cop and one of them was a 'o' Comma to boot

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

...Once I’d had my fill of pictures, I was able to replace the stems and once again the pair were hidden from sight. Hopefully my season hasn’t already peaked!

What a find, Paul. I've never seen any of this group 'in-cop' but I suspect early in the season is the best time so I'll be looking out for any pairings over the next few days.

That's an enviable number of butterflies too for a mid-March day. With several mild, sunny days to come numbers can surely only rise.

[Neil Freeman]

Just caught up with your Commas in cop, a cracking sighting

Some other nice sightings and photos recently too.

Cheers,

Neil.

[bugboy]

Thanks for all the comments, definitely not an everyday sighting . I hope you've seen a few now Wurzel, there's plenty more to come from my part of the world... as the yoof might say "sorry, not sorry"

This post marks the return of my repaired camera (the temporary replacement now stored away). It's good to have all the buttons back in the right place again, there was a lot of frustrating fumbling with the replacement one

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March 2022

Saturday 19th. This time a year ago I was still wrapped up in winter woollies whilst searching for the first butterflies of the season, this year I’m shedding layers as the days warm up and unlike last year, the butterflies aren’t too hard to find. In the interests of a change of scenery (and obviously the outside chance of adding to current five species) I visited Abbots Wood. A female Bullfinch distracted me before I got to the wood, unusually approachable as she breakfasted on Blackthorn Blossoms. She even took a break and sat whilst I was changing lenses, enjoying the morning sun, presumably wondering who this muppet was scrabbling to change a camera lens as fast as he could!

A bit further along this path the first butterfly of the day appeared, a Peacock that was to set the standard for the day.

There was a bit of a stiff nippy wind so I figured that would keep anything more interesting low to the ground with all the Peacocks and Comma (who set the heart racing from a distance!) that were setting up territories in any sunny patch that was sheltered from the wind. I paid particular attention to any of these I disturbed in the hope they’d put up something larger further along, alas non were forthcoming so I had to settle for them.

Spot the Comma.

Despite the warmth I was surprised by only two Brimstone sightings (I can’t confirm whether it was the same one) and of course neither one settled.

I had to wait until I was wandering back to Polegate for species number four of the day to appear. Just as I was passing some blossoming Blackthorn I was thinking I should keep an eye out for some Small Tortoiseshells when suddenly one materialised on said blossom. It’s a shame the same doesn’t happen with Large Tortoiseshells, I’d have seen hundreds by now if it were the case .

My return to Polegate station was further delayed by more of the same along the Cuckoo Trail. Although I’d long lost count of how many butterflies I’d seen (repeat wanderings along the most productive paths blurred what was and wasn’t new to me) but my best guesstimate would be 30+ butterflies two thirds of which would be Peacocks.

A very pleasant day even if the near mythical LT didn’t make an appearance.

[Benjamin]

Great field skills and reporting Paul! I’ve spent a few hours watching several comma courtship flights in recent days but failed each time to locate them in cop. You’ve made a great start to the new season!

[Wurzel]

Great stuff Bugboy Cracking Bullfinch I've managed to get my Commas so now I'm working on getting Brimstone shots

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[bugboy]

Thanks Ben, I was probably just lucky to catch the tail end of ‘the chase’ and then they settled somewhere I could reach
Thanks Wurzel, I’ve managed a few Brimstone but not brilliant, todays one had really let himself down!

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March 2022

Sunday 20th. I stayed closer to home today. Given the prediction of cooler conditions and increased cloud cover I hedged my bets and decided to save my pennies for a more productive day for my next long-distance trip. I spent the day over at Wanstead Park, where in a few weeks’ time I might be searching out some local Green Hairstreak. The area I was aiming for is a patch of what most people would term as ‘waste ground’, scrubby fields full of nettles with a plentiful supply of Blackthorn blossom.

The weather forecast seemed pretty accurate, I arrived at the site around the same time as cloud cover thickened and the temperature dropped noticeably. I disturbed several butterflies but most flew off without sticking around but I managed a Comma and a couple of Small Tortoiseshell.

There followed a couple of hours of killing time watching some local birds, waiting to see if the sun would reappear. Thankfully reappear it did and over the course of the afternoon it melted away until it was wall to wall blue and the butterflies came out to play again. Just a three species day today, surprisingly no Peacock or Brimstone were seen. There were however plenty of Comma and Small Tortoiseshell around, eight and seven respectively identified but almost certainly more were around, plus a female Red Admiral busy egg laying.

Walking back through Wanstead flats I made a detour to a large bank of Blackthorn in full bloom and although the sun was getting low there was still enough warmth for a couple of Comma and a Small Tort to be active.

A poor start but things came good in the end

[trevor]

Good to see Small Tortoiseshells doing well in your area and elsewhere.
I imagine your recent visit to Abbots Wood won't be your last. Seen you in about four weeks time ?.

Stay well,
Trevor.

[bugboy]

I imagine there’s a fair to middling chance of bumping into you soon Trevor . Lets hope the caterpillars have had a good winter!

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March 2022

Tuesday 22nd, Bookham. A glorious sunny day more akin to May than March and the butterflies wasted no time in making their presence felt, as I was sorting my camera out a Comma plonked itself down next to me. This theme continued along my chosen path which was littered with them, joined by the occasional Peacock and Brimstone flyby

In the woods, which looks very different with the large scale widening of many of the main paths, Brimstones dominated. I’ve no idea how many I saw with their tendency to wander, but surely there must have been double figures, including my first female of the year. It was too warm for them to settle for any longer than a few seconds though.

I was expecting to find the White Admiral larvae to be wide awake and munching Honeysuckle but the first two were still tucked up. The third looked to have just woken up.

There were plenty more Comma and Peacock to be found walking through the wood, the extra sun hitting the ground from the winter work already paying dividends.

Before heading off home I stopped off at Ashtead Common to try and locate the WA larvae I’d found there last year, but they’ve been doing some similar clearance work there and it all looks very different now. There were yet more Comma and Peacock though so there was plenty of distraction, all total I probably saw close to 50 Butterflies over both sites.