millerd

[Wurzel]

Congrats on the "first", another great report again Dave
Have a goodun

Wurzel

[millerd]

Thank you, Wurzel - just luck really, being at the right place at the right time!

Today was a day with all my children up in Rugby, and as the weather was grey and chilly for much of the morning, we didn't get out anywhere until the afternoon. Their chosen venue, Coombe Abbey Country Park, was despite some sunshine utterly devoid of butterflies. Even the much-vaunted wildflower meadow had nothing at all (except a great number of buttercups).

However...

The route home takes in the A423 around the market town of Southam. Part of the cutting in which the road lies is carpeted at this time of year with kidney vetch and I wondered whether the Small Blue had succeeded in getting a toehold here (I saw one at this spot a few years ago). We parked in a convenient layby, and wandered along the verge, much to the bemusement of passing drivers no doubt who would have wondered what we were peering at. I spotted the first two Small Blues right next to the car, and over the small stretch we examined, we must have seen seven or eight. It was 1830, and the butterflies were basking and going to roost in the shrubs, so there may have been quite a few more. I'm not sure whether this colony has established naturally from the nearby population in Southam Quarry, of whether it has had an "assist" beyond the planting of the vetch. Whichever it is, it seems pretty healthy.

Dave

[Neil Freeman]

The route home takes in the A423 around the market town of Southam. Part of the cutting in which the road lies is carpeted at this time of year with kidney vetch and I wondered whether the Small Blue had succeeded in getting a toehold here (I saw one at this spot a few years ago). We parked in a convenient layby, and wandered along the verge, much to the bemusement of passing drivers no doubt who would have wondered what we were peering at. I spotted the first two Small Blues right next to the car, and over the small stretch we examined, we must have seen seven or eight. It was 1830, and the butterflies were basking and going to roost in the shrubs, so there may have been quite a few more. I'm not sure whether this colony has established naturally from the nearby population in Southam Quarry, of whether it has had an "assist" beyond the planting of the vetch. Whichever it is, it seems pretty healthy.

Dave

Hi Dave,

The Southam Bypass and various other spots in that area have been specifically sown with Kidney Vetch to encourage Small Blues to colonise. I understand that the colonies have spread there naturally from nearby sites, including Southam Quarry.
A bit more information on the link below,


http://www.warwickshire-butterflies.org ... l-blue.asp

Cheers,

Neil F.

[millerd]

Thanks for the info, Neil. That link has all kinds of interesting stuff about things going on in Warwickshire, including in the Rugby area very close to where my two bigger boys live.

Today was grey and dismal down here by Heathrow, but around lunchtime the Met Office satellite pictures showed that by venturing west beyond about Andover, the sun would be out. I set off with the smallest of the boys and headed for Bentley Wood, where we spent about 90 minutes watching the Pearls and Small Pearls. Elliot has some interest, but unfortunately gets a little bored if I take too many photos. He would have liked to have seen a lizard, or better still a snake, but we failed on both counts. He did however manage to spot this very small spider with colourful patterning, and also his younger eyes found a few more settled butterflies than I did.

There were a few like-minded folk in the wood, one of whom appears to have been CJB with his amazing mobile phone - quite an achievement! How we failed to bump into Philzoid and Wurzel, I know not - great shame to have missed you chaps.

Anyway, the butterflies: there were a goodly number of Small Pearls out, mostly towards the top of the Eastern Clearing, and still quite a few Pearls, mostly towards the bottom and looking a lot paler as you might expect. Other than that, we saw two or three Brimstones and a Speckled Wood.

Dave

[Wurzel]

Great shots Dave - the last one in particular is a classic Sorry to have missed you but I had orders to return by 1:15 at the latest in order to take my younger daughter to a Birthday party. I and my older daughter would have preferred staying Hopefully we'll meet up somewhere soon - Wrecclesham perhaps should the Glannies appear?

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[CJB]

Hi Dave,
Glad to see the shots of the PBF we were looking at came out.
Great shots of the SPBF's too. Like you I headed west out of central London and made the right decision!!
I am in Scotland in July and hoping to snap some of the locals, so fingers crossed the weather will be kind.
I hope to see you again soon.
All the best and flutter on!
CJB

[millerd]

Work and unkind weather have conspired to keep me from going out this week. A quick foray when I thought the sun would come out after five produced very little - I found a few Orange Tip larvae waving around too much on garlic mustard to be photographed, and whilst looking for Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell larvae on nettles, a different sort of feeding damage led me to a small Comma caterpillar underneath a leaf.

I wonder if the late season will mean that the majority of Commas like this one will turn out not to be hutchinsoni? I think I read somewhere that the factor determining whether or not this form is produced is related to day length and whether it is increasing or decreasing when the larvae develop.

Dave

[Wurzel]

Interesting info Dave, might be worth a read up. Hopefully the weather won't be too bad and we'll all be able to get about over the weekend.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[millerd]

Sunshine really was at a premium again, it was windy, and mid-afternoon there was a prolonged downpour. However, I set off round my local patch regardless, knowing there'll aways be something.

I started off with the sheltered glade by the River today, where the wind at least couldn't reach. This was occupied by a couple of Speckled Woods and a Red Admiral: as I've commented before there is always one in residence here year in year out.

Moving on to the more open areas, when the sun shone, the Small Heaths appeared - an attempt at counting them reached 25, but they were so wind-blown it was difficult to be sure. I counted ten Common Blues as well, including two females, and two Large Skippers keeping to the more sheltered bits. Other than that, a couple of Green-veined, one Small and one Large White completed the picture. I had seen a group of three Holly Blues close to home yesterday, but none appeared today.

I kept an eye out for Orange Tip caterpillars too, and found them on most clumps of garlic mustard I examined. Oddly, I have yet to find a Green-veined White caterpillar on these plants, though it is certainly one they eat.

Later on, once the rain had stopped, a fit of mad optimism took me down to Denbies. The wind was very strong, and nothing was flying, but there were a handful of roosting butterflies: three Common Blues, two Small Heaths and one female Adonis were all I could see close to the path. No matter - I could look at the view from here for ever. The horseshoe vetch is in full flower over the whole hillside, which is I hope a good sign for the Chalkhills (due at any time in a normal year...) and the second round of Adonis Blues at the end of the summer.

Dave

[Wurzel]

Great report Dave I've only seen one Red Admiral so far - are they having a bad year? Lovely shots of the Specklies.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[essexbuzzard]

Great stuff,Dave!
I too,am concerned about Hutchinsonii Commas this year,as you said,if days are getting shorter before the adults emerge,they tend to develop into normal adults.
Having said that,last year was late,too-and Hutchinsonii emerged in reasonable numbers,so hopefully we are worrying about nothing...

[millerd]

Thanks for the kind comments, chaps! No, not many Red Admirals... I would expect all the overwinterers were killed off by the cold spring, so left no offspring. The same situation prevailed over the whole of Northern Europe, so any migrants would have had to come from further afield. I did see several at once down in Sussex a couple of weeks ago, but the flow is just a trickle - much as it is with Painted Ladies.

Today was another disappointingly cloudy day with no proper sun here until after five, which was too late for me take advantage of. I had a stroll around Harmondsworth Moor, and then around my local patch. At the former site, there were only a handful of Common Blues (three males and a female) and nothing else at all. Closer to home was better, with more than twice as many Blues, and a good number of Small Heaths again. However, the only other butterfly seen was a last lonely Orange Tip sitting on a thistle waiting for the sun to shine a bit more than the feeble attempts it had so far made.

Orange Tip caterpillars were seen in a few new places, including one very tiny one which will have to get a wiggle on if it is to grow before its food pods mature and dry out.

Apologies for all the Blue photos - a difficult choice when the bright overcast encouraged them into open wing positions (but not the Orange Tip).

Dave

[Wurzel]

Cracking close up of the Orange-tip Dave They're still hanging on aren't they - this is certainly a late year. I remember a couple of Father's days back seeing Ringlet, Purple Hairstreak, White Admiral, Silver Washed and Dark Green Fritillary at Bentley Wood This year I managed a quick trip out and saw not one butterfly

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[millerd]

I saw another Orange Tip today, Wurzel - certainly still soldiering on...

Today was another day in parts, with mixed results.

June 19th (Part One)

With the hot sunshine defying the weather forecast I had seen last night, I worked out a circular(ish) tour for the day. First up, I thought I would try a visit to Wrecclesham, where all others had failed to uncover a single Glanville Fritillary this year. For one moment, I thought I'd seen one - an orange butterfly flew up a few feet in front of me and over a large stand of brambles. On the other side, I saw it briefly again, but it set off vigorously into the distance. Was it or wasn't it? Reluctantly I decided that it was too large and too fast and high flying and that it was either a new summer Comma, or more likely a Painted Lady. Shortly afterwards, I saw a Red Admiral in the same general area flying purposefully northwards. I spent two hours walking around the site and saw no trace of Glanvilles. I also looked for plantains, the favoured foodplant, but found very few of these compared to the last two years, and what there were seemed overgrown by long grass. Reading about the requirements of this species, the successional growth of new plaintains on landslips appears the ideal situation (as on the I.o.W.), and there seems little habitat now at Wrecclesham that mirrors this. Add to this the long cold spring...

Other butterflies were in evidence, notably Common Blues, and I saw Small Heaths, Large Skippers, and the afore-mentioned Orange Tip patrolling the path at the bottom of the pit. There were plenty of day-flying moths of which I could identify Silver Y, Mother Shipton, Burnet Companion and Cinnabar - there were many others.

Dave

[millerd]

June 19th (Part Two)

Next stop was Box Hill, a good alternative to Denbies because of the refreshments available - very welcome bearing in mind it was now up around the 25 degree mark.

First of all, I walked down to the long open slope called The Whites or Burford Spur. This is where Dark Green Fritillaries "hill-top" , and where Marbled Whites abound once the knapweed is flowering. It was still too early for these this year: all I saw were Small Heaths and a couple of Common Blues. (Both species were seen looking very fresh on 30th June in 2012 and 11th June in 2011.)

There were several Brimstones of both sexes still flying near to the café and the viewpoint, but I headed east from here, along the North Downs Way and then onto some of the steep south-facing slopes of the next mile or so of hillside. Common Blues were exactly that - common. I saw both sexes, with more than one female egg-laying towards the top of the slopes. I was on the lookout for Adonis Blues, and at the limit of the walk I had planned, found at least four, including a female. The sunshine made them very mobile, and their constant interaction with the Common Blues made them very difficult targets for the camera. The Adonis Blue males patrolled back and forth across the lower part of the slopes where the Horseshoe vetch was flowering, pausing briefly to nectar on it. In contrast, the Common Blues flew much more randomly, covering a lot more ground. Fascinating.

Here too were more Brimstones, mostly females still looking to lay eggs on the young buckthorn plants. I watched one on an avid nectaring bout, flying from one yellow flower to another (but ignoring buttercups!) so intently that I was able to touch her without any kind of reaction.

On the way back up to the top of the slope, I passed two new Meadow Browns which were far to flighty to be photographed, a selection of Small Heaths and another Red Admiral heading north. Finally, amongst another healthy crop of day-flying moths, I found a very worn Dingy Skipper, the existence of which was clearly too tenuous for the camera to acknowledge. A brown blur was the result.

Dave

[millerd]

June 19th (Part Three)

On the way home from Box Hill, it is relatively easy to visit Fairmile Common, just north of Cobham and a few metres from the A3 rushing below. This is a good site for Silver-studded Blues, and I saw the first ones here last year on 20th June (earlier in 2011). It was very hot, but the sun was a bit hazy now. I noticed that the heather was barely flowering and as you might expect this year, the whole area looked "behind". I had pretty well given up looking for that gleam of blue amongst the purple flowers, when a grey-brown flicker caught my eye. Not the flight of a moth, not blue certainly - but small, definitely. Brown Argus did cross my mind, but it turned out to be a female Silver-studded Blue, appearing uncharacteristically in advance of the males.

I imagine the males will not be too far behind, and as long as the weather doesn't become too awful, she will become very popular before very long.

This was a nice surprise to finish off the day out, and as ever, expect the unexpected!

Dave

[Wurzel]

Lovely shots Dave And excellent news everything seems to be happening at once - Glannies, Heaths, Large Blues, Dark Greens and now Silver Studs - what to try for first

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[millerd]

Thanks, Wurzel. Your enthusiasm is much appreciated! When the weather goes back to cloud and chilly winds as it has this weekend, we could all do with a boost.

I did venture out locally a couple of times locally, late on Saturday and lunchtime today. Between the two days, all I saw were Small Heaths, Common Blues, Speckled Woods, Large Skippers and a female Brimstone. The other notable encounter was with this splendid 6cm beetle, which I think could be a female Stag Beetle. I have seen the species round here before, though usually a odd male whirring along on a sultry evening like a miniature helicopter.

Dave

[millerd]

Another cloudy day - after work I dropped into Harmondsworth Moor and in an hour saw one Speckled Wood and this single fresh male Meadow Brown. No Marbled Whites in evidence yet, but hardly the weather for anything, really.

Dave

[Wurzel]

Won't be long now Dave - I saw my first Ringlet on Sunday and the Marbled Whites are normally pretty close behind

Have a goodun

Wurzel