Neil - good to see you too (it's been a while...). I've been following your further adventures at Fermyn with great envy from behind a desk!
David - yes, I like the Essex Skipper, and having such a compact and reliable colony (albeit in a precarious position) is a real bonus.
Wurzel - you'll have some more good weekends soon, I'm sure. Some of your outings have been amazing.
Mike - I had no idea you used to tramp the lanes around here! It is surprisingly good, with 25 species seen within two miles of my house over the last two years.
Bill - I am so pleased you enjoyed the variety and the commentary too!
...and thanks to all of you for the kind comments about the photos. You all produce much better stuff than I do, you know.
I've been out locally twice this week, my horizons limited on a really warm and sunny week by that perennial bugbear known as working for a living.
Wednesday 2nd July: I ventured forth in the morning, and discovered that my local Ringlets were more widespread and numerous than I realised. Over the last five years, I had only seen two altogether, but today I came perhaps a dozen which is most encouraging.
I also saw plenty of Meadow Browns, increasing numbers of Gatekeepers, Large and Essex Skippers, Small Heaths, Large and GV Whites (no identified Small Whites at all), six or seven Small Tortoiseshells, three Red Admirals and a solitary Comma. Commas have definitely not been as abundant as usual in the summer emergence (yet).
On the way back, I was on a piece of concrete road usually occupied by minicabs on breaks between their Heathrow clients, so not looking out for anything at all. Consequently I nearly stepped on a second brood male Holly Blue, which was frantically fluttering at ground level, pausing every so often on various unsavoury patches on the road, including a piece of poo in classic Imperial fashion. I have seen the males of this brood do this before - no doubt it is for the usual reasons of reproductive advantage.
Before getting home I saw another Holly Blue, but in the more conventional setting of a riverside hedgerow.
Friday 4th July: Out after work today at around half four. The main difference from two days ago was the sudden arrival of the Comma contingent. I counted around ten in a variety of places on the circuit, mostly territorial and chasing everything, but a couple were skulking in the shadows and behaving quite differently. I assume these were females.
The combative males were a different story, and I witnessed several scraps, including a high-spiralling one involving two Commas, a Speckled Wood, a Red Admiral and an unsuspecting Green-veined White which got carried aloft quite inadvertently. The roster was generally as it had been earlier in the week, though the afternoon heat kept many darker butterflies in the shade. I came across a patch of pathside verge that had been mown once earlier in the year, but now supported a flourishing growth of young nettles. There was also a nest of young Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars.
Going back past the same spot later, I saw a pair of courting Small Tortoiseshells preparing to create a few more caterpillars and another couple of the same came down to investigate while I watched.
The unfortunate thing is that this nettle patch and others like it along this path will almost certainly be mown again before too long. I wonder how many nettle-eating larvae are lost to unnecessary mowing in this way?
At one point I was buzzed by a very fast-moving black butterfly, which then circled and landed high up on a buddleia. I could just make out (and get a record shot of) a new season Peacock, the first I'd seen.
Towards the end of my walk, I came across a female Essex Skipper, a long way from either of the other two colonies I know of, and in a place I had not seen one before. Curiously, it was being constantly hassled by a male Large Skipper which clearly had poor eyesight.
I in turn was then hassled by an aggressive Red Admiral which clearly objected to me stopping on his bit of path to look at the Skippers.
Dave