Common blue and early dates

Simon C · Post by **Simon C** » Fri May 04, 2007 8:34 am

First sighting for me of a common blue in the Bath Golf course quarry yesterday - very early again. Picture below.

In fact, I now have:

Dingy skipper: 25 days earlier than last year
Small Heath: 25
Small Copper: 16
Common Blue: 22

I did a quick analysis of the first sightings data on the butterfly conservation web site and came up with the following for the cumulative number of species sighted:

Things overall seem to be three weeks early, as at my local site. We've also past the halfway mark in terms of species sighted. Are you all keeping up?

Simon C

Dave McCormick · Post by **Dave McCormick** » Fri May 04, 2007 8:41 am

Thats someting. proves global warming does'nt it? The weather latley feels like summer weather. I mean 15-21 degrees C in spring? Thats something. Nice pic btw. Next thing to look out for would be the Large Tortoiseshell being early.

Post by **Pete Eeles** » Fri May 04, 2007 6:45 pm

Excellent analysis Simon! Yeah - my "calendar" for seeing the various species this year has been well and truly obliterated

Cheers,

- Pete

eccles · Post by **eccles** » Mon May 07, 2007 9:50 am

The common blue isn't a one off for the region. I found a male on my local patch at Longwell Green near Bristol yesterday.

Simon C · Post by **Simon C** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 8:07 am

I've updated my plot of the earliest sightings data from the Butterfly Conservation list. It clearly shows how things ground to a halt around the start of May, but that they have picked up again since and we're still a couple of weeks ahead of last year.

On that basis it must be worth a trip to Warleigh soon for SWF.

Simon