October 2023

[David M]

...Your plant is Himalayan Honeysuckle .........

Many thanks, Allan. The Red Admirals here are loving it!

[David M]

Monday 30th - Just the one Red Admiral on the himalayan honeysuckle today, but I saw three more just by walking round my estate:

[Vince Massimo]

Down at my Lancing garden today, the last flowers on the Verbina clump attracted 3 Painted Lady which were fuelling-up in preparation for their onward journey south.

Painted Lady - Lancing, Sussex 31-Oct-2023

There was also a Large White on the beach plus a Small White and a Holly Blue towards the railway station. A sheltered south-facing nettlebed adjacent to the promenade produced 6 Red Admiral, 4 of which were egg-laying. Conditions at the time were sunny with a brisk south-westerly wind.

Happy with 5 species on the last day of October.

Vince

[millerd]

Well, October finished with a bit of a minor flourish today on my local patch. As on almost every day recently it was a question of grabbing the brief sunny spell by the throat and getting out there, hoping that any remaining butterflies had the same idea.

I managed to find six, with five species represented and four of them photographed. As one might expect, one was a Red Admiral...

...and another a Small White.

As I've found before, both this autumn and in previous years, Holly Blues will start their day nectaring on dandelions.

After these three, I wandered to the area where I'd been seeing Common Blues, and sure enough the same male was sitting waiting.

However, he was not alone today. Twice when I was lining up a shot, he was disturbed by another butterfly, the fast-moving silvery blur of a Brown Argus. I'd spotted one here a couple of times recently but failed to keep track of it long enough to record its presence - and frustratingly the same thing happened today. Compensation was at hand though, as a little way off I found another Common Blue waiting for an annoying cloud to pass over. As the sunshine returned, my suspicion was confirmed - this was a female.

Not a bad way to end the month...

Dave

[bugboy]

A few miles north of Vince I too had a pretty decent last day at Lancing Ring, a Small white, 7 Speckled Wood, 9 Red Admiral (1 egg laying), a Peacock and 4 Holly Blue who were fresh enough to be most certainly third broods.

an earlier pit stop at Southwick harbour gave me just two butterflies, a Red Admiral and a female Common Blue

[David M]

Tuesday 31st - the Red Admiral party on my estate continues - 5 seen this morning along with a Peacock which flew by as I was getting ready to drive to the coast:

[aeshna5]

My final day of October was with my tree group visiting Parsloes Park, Becontree in East London. 2 Small Whites, 3 Red Admirals, 5 Speckled Woods & a Large Yellow Underwing were noted.

[David M]

Tuesday 31st, Limeslade Bay, Gower:

Red Admiral 12
Clouded Yellow 1
Painted Lady 1

[millerd]

A good way to finish off the month, David - three migratory species making the most of a warm October.

On that subject (for those interested), the October weather stats for my part of the world do demonstrate this. The average daily maximum temperature was just over 18 degrees (the 1991-2020 figure is 15.8 degrees). One night dipped to 2 degrees, but there were no air frosts and this was the only grass frost of the month. October last year was actually slightly warmer, but following on from the exceptional September makes autumn 2023 so far a very warm one indeed. Sunshine was almost exactly average, but rainfall was about 180% of the average - very wet. All this reflects the pattern I observed of overnight rain clearing to reasonable spells of warm sunshine during the day. Sea temperatures have been higher than average this year, which no doubt contributed to the overall warmth experienced.

Anyway, these conditions certainly suited the butterflies - the worst of any weather was mostly when they were roosting for the night in any case, and almost daily sunny spells allowed plenty of opportunities for nectaring. The overall warmth in September and early in October no doubt caused many early stages of certain species to complete their life-cycles rather than go into hibernation mode, giving rise to third broods of Holly Blue, Common Blue, Brown Argus, Green-veined White and Small White, and probably additional numbers of species like Small Copper and Speckled Wood where the boundaries between broods are a bit more blurred. All this has led (local to me at any rate) to higher numbers of October butterflies than usual, and the welcome sight of fresh examples of several different species.

Dave

[David M]

...The average daily maximum temperature was just over 18 degrees (the 1991-2020 figure is 15.8 degrees)...

Amazing statistic.

No wonder it's led to some species fitting in an additional brood. This climate warming shows through most significantly at this time of year (when I was a kid Hallowe'en was always heavy coat weather). Daytime highs are routinely 15c in late October even round my way these days!