Today I saw eight Red Admirals feeding and sunning on a big patch of ivy. Thats the most Red Admirals Iv ever seen together in one place. I saw them at St Michaels station Aigburth Liverpool.
Keeping up with The Jones's...I too had a Red Admiral in warm afternoon sunlight, flitting around rooftop guttering. My friend had a Speckled Wood today at nearby Malden Rushett. This evening, sometime shortly after dusk, I had 2 (possibly 3) Woodcocks flying from the cover of Epsom Common onto adjacent Rushett Farm for their nocturnal feed-up. One landed a mere 25ft away, couple that with a fox that emerged from a hedge just 7ft behind me and you could say I had a very pleasant afternoon!
Cheers,
Gibster.
Raising £10,000 for Butterfly Conservation by WALKING 1200 miles from Land's End to John O'Groats!!!
See http://www.justgiving.com/epicbutterflywalk or look up Epic Butterfly Walk on Facebook.
I walked up to the local Premier shop at about 5pm and as I crossed the road, I spotted something on the pavement in the semi-darkness that looked familiar - it was a Red Admiral, looking as if it had been stunned by the backdraft of a car. Thankfully, it was still alive and totally intact so I held it in my left hand and went to the shop as I had intended, bringing the butterfly back with me.
I placed it in our greenhouse and hopefully it will warm up tomorrow and become active again. If it does, there are 6 windows in the roof that are open for it to fly out from, but then again, it may prefer to have its winter snooze in there.
Another red admiral to add to this month's sightings, this time in my garden where it was basking and feeding on wallflower bowles mauve and vebena bonariensis.
A trip today to my local patch to see if any dragonflies are still around.Just two Common Darters to be seen at the pond and a lone Red Admiral fluttering around in the sunshine.
Just had a Red Admiral in the garden (southeast Scotland).
Hardly a mark on it.
Very late considering I know of two Small Tortoiseshells which have been in hibernation indoors for a couple of weeks now!
Wandering around the garden this afternoon ( I'm in Kent ) I saw a Red Admiral sunning itself. I nipped inside, found my camera and got back out just in time to take some photos before it flew away.
I took a walk at lunchtime around my patch just west of Heathrow. It was beautifuly sunny, barely a breeze, and probably around 13 degrees or so. I fully expected to see a Red Admiral, and was not disappointed. By the River Colne, I found three altogether, two of them behaving territorially and basking in the sun, and the third flying vigorously towards the sun at low tree-top height. The first two obliged with photos, and both were well worn. Their tattered wings and thin nearly furless bodies mean (I guess) that come the end of this prolonged warm spell, they are unlikely to survive. There is still nectar around, but they seemed uninterested in the remaining ivy and bramble flowers.
Moving on to the more open area next to the M25 and Junction 14, a flash of white caught my eye. A female Brimstone, perhaps. However, it passed close enogh to see that it was too small, too white and possessed black markings. It promptly disappeared. Then, by complete chance, ten minutes later and a few hundred metres away on the edge of a bit of woodland, I spotted something identical - and it chose to settle. The butterfly revealed itself to be a female Green-veined White. It looked quite new - one hindwing showed a little damage, probably from brambles, but otherwise a lovely dusky late season example.
I have to say I have never before seen a Green-veined White in November; I can only imagine that its chrysalis was tucked away in a particularly warm spot, and whatever normally triggers dormancy until spring failed to kick in (or the spring trigger activated prematurely). Anyway, to mutilate the well-worn cliche still further, the fat lady is still warbling, but it's a very unusual tune...
Oh, and I snapped this distant shot of a heron, posing nicely by a stream.
Jack Harrison wrote:that GV White appears to have the colour tone of a spring brood butterfly, ie less yellow than those of the summer emergence.
If so, then it is a premature emergence rather than and individual from a late summer brood. Thoughts?
Jack
The upperside is a lot darker than the shots I have of GVW from April (some males are almost completely white), and the undersides of others I photographed in May are very yellow. It will have experienced the conditions more approximating to late summer than those expected through a winter, so is more likely to resemble a late summer individual than an early spring one. We have had no frost here yet. But I am no expert.
I was helping out at work today at an event for the Cranleigh Christmas Fair and saw a red admiral at lunchtime. It seemed very odd but it was so warm in the sunshine, more like early September, and not a cloud in the sky!
Re Jack's comment on the green-veined white: I would say it's a classic summer brood individual. The incomplete underside venation and well marked uppersides are characteristic of the summer, while strongly veined undersides and weakly marked uppersides are typical of spring.
Late broods are often very pale white underneath. This is from September (sorry to put a non-November butterfly in this thread!):
