May 2009 Sightings

[Neil Hulme]

Hi all,
Dropped in to see Willy (I've decided he's a boy) the Purple Emperor caterpillar today. He's fast becoming a Fat Willy!
Neil

[Susie]

A very happy Willy he looks too!

[thepostieles]

hi neil thats great, wish we had purple emperors on the wirral, but u never know with this global warming

[Matsukaze]

Dingy Skipper in the quarry at Bathampton Down today - the first of the year. Quite possibly freshly emerged as the wings were very bright. At first I thought it was a Burnet Companion.

By the covered reservoir on the down a large patch of garlic mustard has sprung up this year. This was very popular with the green-veined whites, which were fluttering in and out amongst the plants.

[xmilehigh]

Hi,

A walk around West Yatton Down this afternoon produced 10-11 species of Butterfly, some only seen briefly but others such as Brimstone & Dingy Skipper were around in good numbers, there were also a few Small Heath around as well.

Small Heath


Brimstone

[Dave McCormick]

Nice photos Jerry! love the small heath and Brimstone, cool . I gotta look for those soon. Neil, like the PE caterpillar.

I was back out at the river today when I saw the Orange-Tips the other day

Video I made of orange-tip videos I got today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcQUBJEAk_U the crackling noises you hear in video are just the wind as it was windy where I was.

The video, the start the river, is a little blurry as I was not sure about how to focus with camera properly. The river looks very green in the video, its full of plants, but it is wet, full of water though.

A male orange tip seemed to land on my finger when the clouds covered the sun, stayed for a while, opened its wings when sun came out, and a few mins later, it flew away. It seemed as soon as the sun went behind clouds, the butterflies went into sleep mode or something.

Here is the river (one side of river, its the green bit that curves in shot, its getting very grown with this one type of plant. Need a pic to tell what the plant is)



Here is one male on cuckooflower, it rested there when clouds came for a short while:


Here is the male that landed on my finger when it became cloudy:


I also did what Jack said, I found one egg of OT and brought it home to rear:

White Egg on cuckooflower when I found it:


Egg when I brought it home later:


Here is the box I used to put egg in. I am using an old Ben Sherman deodorant box I had. I put the cuckooflower in a lunch bag with soil and water in bag, I tied up the bag so nothing can fall into it and put it like this. I will keep caterpillar i here until its bigger and the cuckooflowers I have in pots, start growing better as they are a little wilting at moment, as I just planted them today.


Good day today anyway. One question if anyone knows or has seen this behaviour before, I am just wondering why this happened. The river here is in two halves. It is split by a grassy drier part that has a gate into next field beside it. In the next field is a field of kale. On one side of the river, the side closer to the kale field are nothing but GV Whites. Nearby on the other side of the grassy bit, where the kale field ends and there is a forest behind the river, nothing but Orange-Tips. It seems here the two species never are seen in the same areas with eachother, only have their own patches, rarely do I see one or two of one species go into another species area. There are loads of cuckooflowers on both sides of the river.

[eccles]

A good day at West Yatton with good buddy, Xmilehigh. We met Maurice Avent, the Butterfly Conservation chariman who owns the site and was doing a transect. Seems a nice guy, who still maintains his enthusiasm for butterflies despite evidently being bogged down with too much paperwork. People with clipboards are always good for a tap for local knowledge, especially those that actually own the place! We got a couple of potential tips for WLH. Surprisingly, we seem better off in the old Avon catchment area for grizzled skipper than in Maurice's stamping ground in west Wiltshire. We've caught GS in three locations in North Somerset this year.
I snapped this male DS there today:

[Shirley Roulston]

My first with this long awaited butterfly. Amongst a very flowery grassy verge in a little village called Edern, I have noticed the council of Gwynedd have started to cut some of the verges. So whilst the sun shines.

. These were taken 2nd May with My Sony A100 with the lens 55-200m on the 200mark.
Shirley

[alex mclennan]

Dukes on the wing today at Totternhoe Quarry. If you visit the site, look for the wrecked burned out motor cycle - the dukes are close to that spot. Disappointingly, no skippers or gn hairstreaks.
Alex

[Deano]

Hi all
I'm thrilled to say that I saw my first Painted Lady of the year today, just a mile or so out of our village. This is, I think, my earliest ever sighting of this species. It was posing for photographs I'm chuffed to say, and I will post some later on.
Regards
Deano.

[Trev Sawyer]

Hi Alex,
Must have just missed you at Totternhoe today... we got there at lunchtime. As you say, there were a few dobbies in the quarry. I think some may even have been out for a few days as most had little chips and scratches on their wings and were becoming dull. Did finally manage to find one good-looking one though (photo below).



NB: We did see ONE Green hairstreak there too (unfortunately, it was camera shy)

Also saw a glowworm galloping across the track between the carpark and the quarry. No small blues yet - kidney vetch not yet in flower, but it won't be too long.

Trev

[Jack Harrison]

Excellent Saturday in Tugley/Oaken Wood near Chiddingfold, Surrey in company of Mike Rubin. His notes:

31x Brimstone (both males and females, some settled and feeding on bluebells even in the sunshine. At one point 2 males and a female were all flying in formation as they courted.)
23x Speckled Wood. (They were everywhere. Especially towards the NE corner of Oaken Wood. There was one ride that had 8 of them all in one spot, as well as all the Speckled Yellows and the dragonfly.)
12x Assorted Whites (2 spotted on the wing while mating, one flying, one just hanging on wings closed. Lost them in an oak tree. Suspected Small White but wasn't sure. The one hanging on wings closed looked slightly yellowish but definitely not Brimstone.)
9x Peacock
8x Wood White (6x in Tugley around and near the main triangle, 2x Oaken on the main path between the Eastern entrance and Tugley Wood) - my firsts since 2006.
6x Grizzled Skipper (well spread - I've never seen Grizzled Skippers in a bracken / heath type environment before. Only ever on chalk grasslands before. Failed to photograph one on a bracken shoot though.)
4x Male Orange Tip (one was tiny - smaller than a wood white!)
4x Green Veined White
4x Large White
2x Small Copper (Tugley Wood clearing)
1x Dingy Skipper (Tugley Wood) - my first of the year.
1x Comma (Oaken Wood near entrance, looked elderly)

I didn't keep a log but would have been similar.

My photo highlights:

Jack

[Deano]

As I mentioned earlier, here are some shots of my Painted Lady sighting from today.........
Regards
Deano

[Gruditch]

Met up with Rogerdodge, and his good lady Rose, down at Durlston Country Park today. We were there primarily for Orchids, but there were plenty of butterflies about too.
2 Speckled Wood, 2 Large White, 2 Grizzled Skipper, 1 Dingy, 1 Brimstone, 1 Orange-tip, 2 Peacock, 3 Small Heath, 3 Common Blue, a first for me this year, 7 Adonis Blue, even found a mating pair ( pic below ), and 20+ Wall Brown.

Gruditch

[geniculata]

On barton common today,
1 female brimstone, 1 gv white male, 1 large white male, 8 speckled wood, 9 small copper, 5 peacock and 2 green hairstreak.

gary.

[alex mclennan]

Gary
Are there many early spider orchids on show at Durlston? Which others are in flower?
Alex

[Gruditch]

Hi Alex, there are Early Spider, Green-winged, and Early-purple out now. The Early Spiders are starting to go over, but there are still quite a few good specimens, if you are willing to walk 2 miles west to Dancing ledge.

Gruditch

[Perseus]

Hello,

3 May 2009
Two species of butterfly were seen for the first time on the lower slopes of Mill Hill, Old Shoreham, Sussex. Just before midday the first male Adonis Blue was spotted settled with its wings folded and 25 minutes later my first definite Small Heath Butterfly was identified as it settled with its wings closed. At least five Brimstone Butterflies were very active over the lower slopes with frequent Dingy Skippers, probably in excess of thirty over the one acre transect but only a handful of Grizzled Skippers were seen on a day when the sun only shined through the haze for a few minutes.


Mill Hill Reports 2009
http://www.glaucus.org.uk/MillHill2009.html


First Adur Butterfly Dates 2003 to 2009
http://www.glaucus.org.uk/ButterfliesFFT.htm

Adur Butterfly & Large Moth List
http://www.glaucus.org.uk/Butterfly-list2009.html

Cheers

Andy Horton
glaucus@hotmail.com
Adur Valley Nature Notes
http://www.glaucus.org.uk/Adur2009.html
http://www.glaucus.org.uk/Adur2008.html
Adur Valley Nature Notes: May 2009
http://www.glaucus.org.uk/May2009.html

[Rogerdodge]

As Gary said the day (Saturday) at Durlston was great.
Wall Brown everywhere and Adonis making more Adonis.
The Orchids were very good and the walk to Dancing ledge well worth it (told you so.....)
Today I went to Brownsea for the Sandwich Terns (see Not Lepidoptera - Birds).
Roger

[nick patel]

Pendle hill (lancs) today was bleak, cold, wet and deserted from any life until on the way down, we came across a nice colony (at least 30-40 strong) of Green streaks.

All showed really well right next to the path on nothin but Bilberry on the barran hill slopes - brightend up the day.

also love the variation between different ones, with some having big white line, some just white dots and some with nothing. and some with very green outer wings, some very bluey-green wings and some quite pale.

cheers.