Back home again on
29th October, which somewhat bizarrely turned into the warmest day of the month round here, with temperatures nudging 22 degrees. There was a bit of sunshine as well, and on my first local walk for a few days I found eight butterflies of four species:
Red Admiral 3
Holly Blue 2
Small White 2
Peacock 1
I ended up with photos of both Holly Blues, but none of the others.
I also disturbed an unfamiliar moth, which has been identified for me as a Rush Veneer (not something I had ever heard of).
My next outing was on
31st October, when it wasn't as warm (though still 18 degrees), and this time I could only find one very frail Holly Blue...
...and one female Small White. This time the latter butterfly stayed still enough for a photo or two.
October 2022 was certainly noteworthy from a weather point of view on my local patch, looking at the provisional stats from The Met Office for the weather station at nearby Heathrow. Long-term averages mentioned are for the most recent 30-year period, 1991 - 2020, a period which is of course already warmer than previous sets of 30 years.
Mean maximum temperature: 18.3 (L/T ave: 15.8 )
Mean minimum temperature: 10.4 (L/T ave: 8.8 )
Sunshine: 132.8 hrs (L/T ave: 115.2 hrs)
Rainfall: 81.4 mm (L/T ave: 65.1 mm)
Overall, that made it much warmer (2.5 degrees), a fair bit sunnier, and somewhat wetter than average. I think it was the warmth of the days that I noticed most, and the consistency of the temperature day to day. The lowest maximum all month was 16 degrees (on the 10th) and the highest was 22 degrees (on the 29th). There were no frosts, and nothing overnight lower than around 5 degrees. All this after what was a very warm summer...
Recent Novembers have all been pretty good for butterflies - how would 2022 be?
Dave