We had the same violent storms this week as you did in the UK, closing roads and bringing trees down, so today I took a walk to the local woods to see how Aurelian had fared.
There had been some casualties - this is a sycamore:
But I'm happy to report Aurelian's sallow had survived intact and his young, flexible home-branch was undamaged:
Dating him from the time his egg was laid he is now five months old. At time of laying his statistical chances of surviving to adulthood would have been about 1%. Now, with just 6 months left to go, and about half of that time in winter, when not a lot happens in the woods, I think his odds have dramatically improved!
On the way home I checked some low oak branches and found this purple hairstreak egg:
There is a miniature purple hairstreak caterpillar curled up in there!
There is one, tiny patch of blackthorn in my village, which so far as I can discover is the only blackthorn in the region for at least a 5km radius and probably much more. It is the sprawling patch by the fence here:
For the third consecutive season I found that a wandering brown hairstreak female had laid on it. Here are two different eggs:
If they hatch, they are much better placed for me to get good larva shots than in any previous years.
Guy