Winding Down
This is the last entry of my retrospective diary - 2013.
After the glorious months of July and August things we're still going strong but there was a definite feeling that things were beginning to wind down. Fresh butterflies were becoming less numerous and I tried to make the most of September as much as I could.
As it turned out I could not manage as many Butterflying trips as I would have liked but I still had some memorable times.
Even though Commas are around for the whole season I still feel they are synonymous with the end of the "Butterfly year" going into Autumn. As the Brimstones start to nectar up for the winter they become much more approachable for photography. Many of them are in great condition and I just love taking pictures of them, they are one of my favourites. Adonis Blues did rather well with their second brood and we're so active in the heat of the day that I didn't manage any great photos this year. These were the best I could manage, they really gave me the run around and I missed out on the really fresh ones this time. Meadow Browns had a great year and there were still a lot of fresh looking examples around. I still saw a few Painted Ladies around in great condition but numbers were dropping. Speckled Woods had a very strong end to the year and seemed to be everywhere. To finish off I have reserved this spot for the Small Copper. I was so pleased to see Small Coppers doing well after a quite a few dismal years where they seemed to be on a very steep decline. They continued right into October and I saw one only a few days ago.
I hope that they will be able to sustain this recovery and do even better next year. This year has been one of the best I can remember, I didn't manage to achieve all of my personal goals and see everything I wanted to see but that doesn't really matter. Some spring Butterflies struggled this year and I can only hope that if they get a good spring they will be able join their summer counterparts from this year that (in some cases) made a great resurgence.
Lastly I would like to extend HUGE thanks and best wishes to Sussex Kipper, Badgerbob, Downland Boy, Philzoid and everyone else that I met out there this year. Hope to see you all again next year sometime.
And thank you to everyone on UK Butterflies, you've made a new member feel very welcome, your photos, reports and diary entries are inspirational.
Best
B,saurus Rex
P.S During my winter hibernation I might post a few photos from years gone by
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