September sightings

[millerd]

Dave,

That Peacock is exceptional..! Has the blue colour reproduced accurately? and the extent of the blue scaling is very impressive.

Also: did you happen to save any of the tachinids by any chance..?

Felix.

The colours are accurate - the butterfly was only a couple of hours old and yet to fly. Here's one of its siblings... slightly more purple in the blue scaling, but that might have been the angle to the light.

Here are a couple of pictures of the parasites. The larva and some pupae, and a fly. The larvae descended on little ropes of silk from the Peacock chrysalids. I collected the resultant pupae, and then, I'm ashamed to say, I put them in a container (not airtight) but forgot about them. A week or two later, I remembered and discovered I had a box full of dead flies. This is one of them.

I submitted a report via the Herts & Middlesex BC branch to a chap named Colin Plant, who was proposing to publish an article about second brood Peacocks. His opinion was that though they were tachinids, the parasites were not Sturmia bella, though the descriptions I have seen seemed to match.

Dave

[Piers]

Do you still have the dead tachinids David? if you were to post them to me I could ID them...

Felix.

[Michaeljf]

On Saturday I wandered to my local spot (between Newport and Cardiff), and was pleasantly surprised to see the local colony of Small Coppers still enjoying the last of the Common Fleabane flowers, plus a few Commas, Red Admirals, Speckled Woods and Common Blues.

Today (Sunday) - as mentioned briefly elsewhere - we took the long drive down to Cheyne Weares site at Portland Bill (near Weymouth) after the reports of the Long-Tailed Blue being seen there. We met Zonda at the car park (no other UKButterflies members turned up – chickens!). We knew trying to see the LTB was a long shot, and as suspected, we saw nothing except several blues and a few nice Chalkhill Blues. However the weather was lovely after the initial breeze faded and it was still a lovely spot – though a bit difficult walking some of the paths....

After a couple of hours, my wife and I moved on to Ballard Down (Swanage) – one of our favourite spots – and despite the Marjoram flowers being past their best, there were probably about 25-30 Adonis Blues, some Common Blues thrown in just to add to the confusion, a few whites, a Red Admiral and some Small Coppers. I happily moved up and down the slopes cursing as the lovely Blues wouldn’t sit still for a photo! The cloud came over Ballard Down soon after 2:30pm, so we wandered over to Coddington Hill, but there wasn’t much going on there under the cloud, though we did see a few Speckled Woods and more Adonis Blues wandering back to the car. Thanks to a few extra roadworks the journey back to Wales took longer than normal and we felt slightly knackered by the time we got back...

Michael

Small Copper on Common Fleabane

Chayne Weares site, Portland Bill nr Weymouth

Male Adonis Blue - Ballard Down

Male Adonis Blue on Marjoram Flowers

Female Adonis Blue

Mating Blues

Male Adonis Blue

Ballard Down

[Lee Hurrell]

Lovely photos Michael

Shame about the LTB though.

Cheers

Lee

[Michaeljf]

Lovely photos Michael Shame about the LTB though. Cheers Lee

Lee,
thanks - I was very glad there were still some nice Adonis Blues down there to shoot! I wasn't too disappointed about the LTB - what are the chances of going from South Wales to the Cornwall/Dorset Coast and seeing one particular individual (and very small) butterfly? ...the odds of success would be extraordinary!
Michael

[millerd]

Do you still have the dead tachinids David? if you were to post them to me I could ID them...

Felix.

Felix - regrettably no! Even handling them the small amount to get the photo resulted in bits dropping off (there is at least one leg missing on the side of the fly away from the camera...), so I'm afraid they went into the compost.

Dave

[Paul Wetton]

Hi Zonda and Michael.

Apologies for the no show at Portland but I ended up at Mill Hill to try and catch up with Clouded Yellow and finally after four visits there I managed to film Clouded Yellow. Only brief footage whilst a cloud brought him down to earth but that makes my number 58 for the year all filmed. Thanks for the info Neil and great to meet up with you at Mill Hill. I'll PM you later in the week regarding our conversation if thats OK.

Great photos by the way Michael glad to hear you enjoyed your trip to Dorset even if the LTB was a no show.

Cheers

Paul

[Michaeljf]

Apologies for the no show at Portland but I ended up at Mill Hill to try and catch up with Clouded Yellow and finally after four visits there I managed to film Clouded Yellow. Paul

Hi Paul,
no problem - glad you managed to film the Clouded Yellow. I knew how important that was in your plans - well done! No doubt we'll meet next season..I'm not sure there are many butterfly trips left for me this year. I think it'll be landscape & bird photography soon (plus a few other events). First I've got to get a new hard-drive as my last one is almost full after this years photography shenanigans
Michael

[Paul Wetton]

Hi Michael

I'm sure we'll probably bump into each other whilst out bird watching. I'll possibly have a couple more weekends down on the south coast for butterflies. You never know what might turn up. Neil was at Hope Gap yesterday and found three Clouded Yellows including a female helice form. That would be good to film.

I've now got the task of sorting through hours and hours of clips to start editing them up so I'll be watching butterflies all winter albeit on my PC screen.

All the best.

Paul

[Gibster]

Hi all,

Sami found a freshly dead White Admiral today. Apparently it was lying on the pavement alongside a busy road in Epsom. It's currently residing in a pot in our room! They breed on nearby Epsom Common, but I thought this was rather a late date???

Off to Cornwall and IOS now, back in a week. Hoping for our first Clouded Yellows of our BlitzList which would bring the total up to 57 this year. Maybe an early Monarch could bring us neck and neck with Paul's tally... 'Course if we'd have found Mountain Ringlets....

All the best,

Seth and Sami.

PS - Seth's Crazy Challenge for 2011 - how many species can you get a pic of sitting on your nose? Scotch Argus best one so far this year

[Piers]

Was the White Admiral in good (fresh) condition Seth? second broods are not unknown...

Felix.

[Neil Hulme]

Hi Gibster,
That's a second brood White Admiral. Last year was pants for them, but in the preceding couple of years a few turned up here and there. Worth searching the area for a live one - I don't believe the only local specimen threw itself in front of a car because it was destined to be a 'sad single'.
Neil

[Neil Hulme]

I really must improve my 'words per minute' - Felix is too fast
Neil

[Piers]

It's very reassuring for me when I see you have written the same thing as me Kipper...!

[Jack Harrison]

I really am impressed with some of these totals. I achieved 52 this year (and that included Camberwell Beauty) my best since 1976 when I got 58.

Jack

[millerd]

PS - Seth's Crazy Challenge for 2011 - how many species can you get a pic of sitting on your nose? Scotch Argus best one so far this year

Here is my son Elliot from two years ago, aged three. He apologises for the chocolate round his mouth...

Dave

[David M]

Just spent a few days visiting my mother again in the Isle of Man. Weather was surprisingly excellent and the nicest day of all was Sunday, so I decided to spend the morning at Curragh's Wildlife Park between Sulby & Kirk Michael.

Now, I was only posting on here last week about people sending in erroneous records via the M & S Great Butterfly Count that took place recently; Speckled Woods being listed as resident in the Isle of Man being one of the major gripes.

Well, blow me down but whilst visiting the said wildlife park I saw THREE (a species I have NEVER seen before in the Isle of Man - I used to spend all my childhood summer holidays here - and one that I have never heard of being present on this island).

Since I got back I have been doing a bit more research on the matter and it looks like the Manx recorders have only recently accepted that the Speckled Wood has indeed become a resident species here (following on from Commas in the late 1990s).

This is surely excellent news, and maybe even something of scientific interest (i.e. how certain species will cross bodies of water under favourable conditions whereas others won't).

Here is the evidence:

First ever Manx Speckled Wood

A second individual shortly afterwards suggested a colony

FAO Birders: saw this odd looking goose on the wetlands - any ideas as to the species?

[Michaeljf]

Hi David,
the bird is the Red-Breasted Goose (Branta Ruficollis) - I've seen them in Wetlands centres but not wild - they are described in my book as a 'scarce and declining species' in Europe. As to the Speckled Wood being resident in the Isle of Man, after you suspected the recent sightings in the Butterfly Survey of being 'slightly suspect', it just shows species are continually on the move....and we all learn something new now and again!
Michael

[David M]

Hi David,
the bird is the Red-Breasted Goose (Branta Ruficollis) - I've seen them in Wetlands centres but not wild - they are described in my book as a 'scarce and declining species' in Europe. As to the Speckled Wood being resident in the Isle of Man, after you suspected the recent sightings in the Butterfly Survey of being 'slightly suspect', it just shows species are continually on the move....and we all learn something new now and again!
Michael

Thanks for the ID, Michael. They obviously have some species wing-clipped as there are Pelicans and a few exotic Storks, but I hadn't seen any mounted signs relating to this particular goose which made me wonder whether it had simply migrated there of its own accord (the northern plain of the IOM is renowned for being a stopover for many types of long-haul avian species).

It's a bizarre type of wildlife park as there are many animals simply wandering about right next to you unrestrained, e.g. guanacos, capybara, wallabies, emus and lemurs (the latter will jump on your shoulder if they think you have food). Perhaps with it being self-governed they aren't so over the top regarding Health & safety.

Bit strange seeing Capybara emerge from amidst a group of mallards

This Guanaco was pretty tame

Cute, but you could only get within about 5 feet before they were off

I reckon this one is wing-clipped as it's too exotic to be a natural migrant

Having lemurs jump all over you probably wouldn't be allowed in oh-so-politically-correct UK

[millerd]

Cool, cloudy and windy - I didn't expect much on a quick foray along my local bit of the River Colne near Heathrow. I was right: one Small White (fairly new) and one Small Heath (rather elderly). And that was all...

Dave