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I agree with the others Toby beautiful first photo, and group photo is amazing - never seen so many on one plant

Toby Ludlow wrote: ↑Fri Sep 20, 2024 10:33 pm Of note were two aberrant individuals....but perhaps the most rewarding sighting of my visit was that of 10 Small Coppers on the same Ragwort plant - something you don't see every day! Incredibly, the Ragwort plant next to it also had 8 Small Coppers on it!!!

Amazing Toby, congratulations on the sightings and wow - what photographs. I too have never seen so many Small Copper nectaring on a single plant - too busy chasing each other and with dog fights - plus the numbers are terrific

and

Thank you Jack, David, Katrina, and David for your kind comments; they are much appreciated. I must say that I wish that I had your confidence, Jack - I entered the photographic competition a few years ago with some “dead certs”, but ultimately failed to get a look in! And, as the standard of photography on this site is quite high, I’m sure there will be others that are far more worthy. For me, it is reward enough to see a species in good numbers that others have been seeing in ones and twos. Anyway, thank you all for your feedback.

Staggering to see so many Small Coppers gathered together, Toby - the most I've seen in one spot this year was four, and that was three males squabbling over a female. No amicable nectaring there! Terrific shots of them.

I did see six on my local patch this afternoon after the sun came out, but well-spaced out... However, I did spot another Clouded Yellow, a male this time, but it was even less cooperative than the female a couple of days ago and nearly made it out of the frame in a blur of unmistakable yellow...Apologies for the most basic of record shots.

Dave

Just catching up with that photo. There's more Small Coppers on that ragwort plant than I've seen all year.

millerd wrote: ↑Sat Sep 21, 2024 6:01 pm Apologies for the most basic of record shots.

You need to start running before it comes past you, Dave

David Lazarus wrote: ↑Sat Sep 21, 2024 6:43 pm

millerd wrote: ↑Sat Sep 21, 2024 6:01 pm Apologies for the most basic of record shots.

You need to start running before it comes past you, Dave

My goodness could that butterfly move! Fingers crossed it might decide to hang around - a few years back there were a couple of males appeared here in early October and were to be seen on every sunny day for about a fortnight.

Cheers,

Dave

I can't compete with Toby's truly marvelous multitude (I reckon only Allan at Dungeness possibly can), but I did see a lot of insects in a small space earlier today (several birds had certainly noticed them too).

At the bottom of the Downs a Brown Hairstreak was showing well along a country lane. She's only the second I've seen on one of my wanders this year. Lots of Red Admiral enjoying the abundant ivy flower too, circa 8 Speckled Wood (3 whirling together in a close knot), 3 Meadow Brown, one, I repeat, one Small Copper plus a few whites but nowhere near as many as others have reported recently.

Toby Ludlow wrote: ↑Fri Sep 20, 2024 10:33 pm That's more like it! Today I paid a trip to Kirkby Moor Nature Reserve, Lincolnshire, and was pleased to find that third brood Small Coppers are now emerging in good numbers. An afternoon spent on site produced a very respectable count of 134 Small Coppers, which included one mating pair. Many of them were quite worn, but I did manage to find a few fresh ones. Of note were two aberrant individuals:



But perhaps the most rewarding sighting of my visit was that of 10 Small Coppers on the same Ragwort plant - something you don't see every day! Incredibly, the Ragwort plant next to it also had 8 Small Coppers on it!!!


Small Copper Collection on Ragwort

Amazing to get 10 Small Coppers on the same Ragwort Plant here, well done!!!.......I saw just the 1 Small Copper yesterday!!! an i had to walk 5+ miles in order to find it!
It would seem you are not alone either...Approx a week ago, 2 members on the Kent Butterfly Site also had high numbers of Small Copper on Ragwort(although their best was 6 on the same plant) This news/photos almost made me visit this local Kent site too(Knole Park, Sevenoaks) but i opted for another site instead!

Yesterday (Sunday) an i made a visit to Cliffe Pools in Kent, i was hoping to maybe see a couple of stray Clouded Yellow, but not a single one seen! 5 hours an 5+ miles walked. Other Butterflies seen were - 75+ Whites (Large/Small/GVW) 20+ Wall Brown, 10+ Common Blue (half fresh/half worn) 6+ Red Admiral, 3+ Peacock, 10+ Small Heath, 6+ Meadow Brown, 2 Brown Argus, 1 Small Copper, 1 Painted Lady.

Also had an amazing - "Close Encounter With A Bird Kind"!!!
Sighted a Kestrel on the Sea Wall, it looked to be a Juvenile/female, it was flying down off the sea wall, an feeding on Grasshoppers etc. Each time, it returned back up to the sea wall. There was also another Kestrel flying around, but that did not land. I only had a 60mm macro lens attached, so i thought i would try to capture a few long range shots, never expecting to get too close to this special beauty...take a few more steps, shoot a few more shots...getting real close now...I would say i was within an easy 10 feet of the Kestrel!!! Ive never managed to get that close to a wild bird of prey before, i even thought the bird may be injured or something?? Each time i got too close (down to approx 6 feet) it would fly 30 feet further down the sea wall, an we would repeat. So, then it takes off for the last time, starts interacting with the other Kestrel, an they both fly off out of sight.............WOW, what an experience. You dont expect to capture any half decent images of a wild Kestrel, whilst using just a 60mm macro lens.

No images are cropped (both butterfly an bird pics) cheers Paul.

Female Wall Brown.
Peacock.

That special Kestrel.

A bit of brightness appeared late afternoon after a rather dull, damp and muggy day. The remaining butterflies on my local patch needed little encouragement: as well as seven Small Coppers (all males keeping their distance in distinct territories) there were some newish looking Common Blues and Brown Argus......and though more worn, outnumbering all the others still were a selection of Small Heaths.No Cloudies today though...

Dave

If anyone's wondering why the weather has suddenly turned to #@*** again, I've just started a week off work, my bad, sorry .

Anyway, despite the weather I thought I'd take advantage of a promised window in the rain this afternoon down Essex way and investigate David Lazarus's newly discovered Wall Nirvana near east Tilbury. Safe to say he wasn't exaggerating the numbers. I didn't cover as much area and my time was further curtailed by squally showers but even so, I amassed somewhere between 30 - 40 individuals. Difficult to be more accurate with the strong wind blowing everything around but they were by a long stretch the most numerous butterfly of the day and the only one of the nine species to make it into double figures. Pic of the bunch of the other species were a few rather nice Common Blues

Other species seen were Meadow Brown, Small Heath, Speckled Wood, all three Whites, Red Admiral. Unfortunately there was no sign of any Clouded Yellows

On the bird front I was pleased to see a flock of 200+ Avocet feeding along the mudflats before the tide rolled in

bugboy wrote: ↑Mon Sep 23, 2024 7:25 pm If anyone's wondering why the weather has suddenly turned to #@*** again, I've just started a week off work, my bad, sorry .

Anyway, despite the weather I thought I'd take advantage of a promised window in the rain this afternoon down Essex way and investigate David Lazarus's newly discovered Wall Nirvana near east Tilbury. Safe to say he wasn't exaggerating the numbers. I didn't cover as much area and my time was further curtailed by squally showers but even so, I amassed somewhere between 30 - 40 individuals. Difficult to be more accurate with the strong wind blowing everything around but they were by a long stretch the most numerous butterfly of the day and the only one of the nine species to make it into double figures.IMG_0424.JPGIMG_0429.JPGIMG_0574.JPG
Pic of the bunch of the other species were a few rather nice Common BluesIMG_0307.JPG

Other species seen were Meadow Brown, Small Heath, Speckled Wood, all three Whites, Red Admiral. Unfortunately there was no sign of any Clouded Yellows

On the bird front I was pleased to see a flock of 200+ Avocet feeding along the mudflats before the tide rolled inIMG_0205.JPG

Nice one, we need someone to blame for this weeks **** weather then

Looking at the East Tilbury map, i was just across the river from you(Kent side) at Cliffe Pools last weekend, where i also saw good numbers of Wall Brown, which would make sense, given the same type of habitat/environment.
First time ive seen Wall Brown courtship, so i was a little surprised by the males butting approach!!
Cheers Paul.

Saw a couple of moth species at work on Monday and what my wife informs me are caddisfly eggs.

One of the moths is, I believe, Marbled Fern (Musotima nitidalis). UK Moths tells me:

Adventive.

This species was first found in Dorset in 2009, and since then there have been quite a number of records scattered in the southern counties between Dorset and Essex. Some locations have had multiple occurrences suggesting that it may now be resident in these areas.

It is native to Australia and New Zealand and is suspected to have originally been imported with tree ferns.

This would fit as it was on the side wall of the bed where all our ferns were (very few left now though - sold very well this year). I saw a second individual on one of the remaining pots. Have to assume these arrived with the supplied plug-plants at an earlier life-cycle stage rather than locally established individuals finding them, although they are taking a liking to UK bracken apparently.

The other moth was a lot easier to focus the camera on, albet in heavy sunlight. I think it's a Willow Beauty (Peribatodes rhomboidaria).

The caddisfly egg mass is on the underside of a metal tubular frame-support at the edge of the same fern bed. Adult caddisflies are present in decent numbers throughout the nursery right now. I guess a hopeful mother-to-be chose to lay them there when the bed was full of ferns and getting regular heavy dousing from the overhead sprinklers. Thus the edge of the bed would be pretty permanently damp and even puddled for long periods, but even at its soggiest a puddle on weed-control matting would struggle to support caddisfly larvae. So it seems an odd choice when we have a small reservoir less than 40 yards away and a drainage ditch closer than that.

I could try and move the egg mass to a dock leaf overhanging either of these water bodies, but I'm not sure I could do so safely or get it to stick to the leaf without it plopping into the water. I could try putting a container of water beneath it to catch them when they're ready, but a). I'm not sure how long it takes before they develop and b). the container will keep getting knocked out of the way (accidently or on purpose). The easiest action would be just to plonk it directly into the shallows of the small reservoir, but I guess this particular species doesn't lay eggs directly in the water for good reason....although it might give them marginally more chance than they have right now ?

Testudo Man wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 11:16 am

bugboy wrote: ↑Mon Sep 23, 2024 7:25 pm If anyone's wondering why the weather has suddenly turned to #@*** again, I've just started a week off work, my bad, sorry .

Anyway, despite the weather I thought I'd take advantage of a promised window in the rain this afternoon down Essex way and investigate David Lazarus's newly discovered Wall Nirvana near east Tilbury. Safe to say he wasn't exaggerating the numbers. I didn't cover as much area and my time was further curtailed by squally showers but even so, I amassed somewhere between 30 - 40 individuals. Difficult to be more accurate with the strong wind blowing everything around but they were by a long stretch the most numerous butterfly of the day and the only one of the nine species to make it into double figures.IMG_0424.JPGIMG_0429.JPGIMG_0574.JPG
Pic of the bunch of the other species were a few rather nice Common BluesIMG_0307.JPG

Other species seen were Meadow Brown, Small Heath, Speckled Wood, all three Whites, Red Admiral. Unfortunately there was no sign of any Clouded Yellows

On the bird front I was pleased to see a flock of 200+ Avocet feeding along the mudflats before the tide rolled inIMG_0205.JPG

Nice one, we need someone to blame for this weeks **** weather then

Looking at the East Tilbury map, i was just across the river from you(Kent side) at Cliffe Pools last weekend, where i also saw good numbers of Wall Brown, which would make sense, given the same type of habitat/environment.
First time ive seen Wall Brown courtship, so i was a little surprised by the males butting approach!!
Cheers Paul.

Technically he's not actually headbutting her, he's leaning forward so that her antennae brush against his scent patches which align with each other if done face to face, the same basic courtship ritual that can be seen with grayling (and presumably many other satyrids who have scent patches in the same place). This was my first time witnessing this behaviour and the motions are done fast so it really does simply look like he's headbutting her, quite comical in all honesty. For her part she was avoiding facing him and quivering her wings to tell him to bugger off, she escaped him in the end.

bugboy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 25, 2024 2:40 pm

Testudo Man wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 11:16 am

bugboy wrote: ↑Mon Sep 23, 2024 7:25 pm If anyone's wondering why the weather has suddenly turned to #@*** again, I've just started a week off work, my bad, sorry .

Anyway, despite the weather I thought I'd take advantage of a promised window in the rain this afternoon down Essex way and investigate David Lazarus's newly discovered Wall Nirvana near east Tilbury. Safe to say he wasn't exaggerating the numbers. I didn't cover as much area and my time was further curtailed by squally showers but even so, I amassed somewhere between 30 - 40 individuals. Difficult to be more accurate with the strong wind blowing everything around but they were by a long stretch the most numerous butterfly of the day and the only one of the nine species to make it into double figures.IMG_0424.JPGIMG_0429.JPGIMG_0574.JPG
Pic of the bunch of the other species were a few rather nice Common BluesIMG_0307.JPG

Other species seen were Meadow Brown, Small Heath, Speckled Wood, all three Whites, Red Admiral. Unfortunately there was no sign of any Clouded Yellows

On the bird front I was pleased to see a flock of 200+ Avocet feeding along the mudflats before the tide rolled inIMG_0205.JPG

Nice one, we need someone to blame for this weeks **** weather then

Looking at the East Tilbury map, i was just across the river from you(Kent side) at Cliffe Pools last weekend, where i also saw good numbers of Wall Brown, which would make sense, given the same type of habitat/environment.
First time ive seen Wall Brown courtship, so i was a little surprised by the males butting approach!!
Cheers Paul.

Technically he's not actually headbutting her, he's leaning forward so that her antennae brush against his scent patches which align with each other if done face to face, the same basic courtship ritual that can be seen with grayling (and presumably many other satyrids who have scent patches in the same place). This was my first time witnessing this behaviour and the motions are done fast so it really does simply look like he's headbutting her, quite comical in all honesty. For her part she was avoiding facing him and quivering her wings to tell him to bugger off, she escaped him in the end.

Yes, it was funny, but also fascinating to observe...I did capture a small sequence of this courtship (4 pics) but unfortunately my shutter speed was set too low at just 1/320 sec, so the action is all a bit of a blur!! A much faster shutter speed was really needed, but i will know for next time.
Heres the 4 pic sequence anyway, excuse the out of focus/blurry images though
Images are S.O.O.C. an no cropping, cheers Paul.

Could the return migration be underway already? Having seen relatively few Red Admirals and no Painted Ladies for about a fortnight, during a warm and sunny window first thing this morning before the rain returned I found ten of the former and two of the latter on my local patch.Six other species were also seen (Peacock, Comma, Common Blue, Speckled Wood, Small White, Large White) when dark clouds boiled up from nowhere and spoiled proceedings just as things were getting going.

Dave

Paid another visit to Kirkby Moor yesterday afternoon (25.09.2024) for a few hours, but the conditions were very different to the last time I visited - it was overcast and gloomy, very breezy, and therefore no butterflies were flying; I knew I'd have to work hard for my money!

As I walked along the main track, dozens of fully-grown Fox Moth caterpillars could be seen littering the heath, and during my time there I counted 163 without too much effort. The butterflies were not quite so easy to spot but, with careful examination of the heather, Small Coppers could be found clinging on for dear life. Once I got my eye in, I started to steadily build up a total. This was helped somewhat by a couple of brief bright spells, which coincided with my arrival at the fabled Ragwort plant. There were "only" 5 Small Coppers on it this time and, as I lifted my camera up, one of them flew off! However, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining, and with that a new copper flew in. This one was an aberrant individual - as near as damn it ab. obsoleta, but it did have a couple of minute traces of the hindwing copper marginal band. Therefore, as a purist, I would have to put it down as an extreme example of ab. radiata.
After a bit more searching, I also located a Brown Argus hunkered down in the heather, but this would be the only one of this species that I came across. However, in contrast, I had managed to see 80 Small Coppers over the course of the afternoon, in what I would deem very poor weather conditions.
Unfortunately for me, my best discovery of the afternoon did not occur until I was back at home and looking through my photographs: I realised that one of the Small Coppers that I had photographed was of an aberration that I had always wanted to see, and I had but not realised! Doh! This Small Copper aberration is ab. cupreopunctata, similar to that of ab. caeruleopunctata but, instead of a row of blue spots interior of the hindwing copper marginal band, there is a row of copper spots. However, unlike caeruleopunctata which is quite often encountered, this aberration is very rare and I don't know of any other photograph of one.

Testudo Man wrote: ↑Thu Sep 26, 2024 10:20 am

bugboy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 25, 2024 2:40 pm

Testudo Man wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 11:16 am

Nice one, we need someone to blame for this weeks **** weather then

Looking at the East Tilbury map, i was just across the river from you(Kent side) at Cliffe Pools last weekend, where i also saw good numbers of Wall Brown, which would make sense, given the same type of habitat/environment.
First time ive seen Wall Brown courtship, so i was a little surprised by the males butting approach!!
Cheers Paul.

Technically he's not actually headbutting her, he's leaning forward so that her antennae brush against his scent patches which align with each other if done face to face, the same basic courtship ritual that can be seen with grayling (and presumably many other satyrids who have scent patches in the same place). This was my first time witnessing this behaviour and the motions are done fast so it really does simply look like he's headbutting her, quite comical in all honesty. For her part she was avoiding facing him and quivering her wings to tell him to bugger off, she escaped him in the end.

Yes, it was funny, but also fascinating to observe...I did capture a small sequence of this courtship (4 pics) but unfortunately my shutter speed was set too low at just 1/320 sec, so the action is all a bit of a blur!! A much faster shutter speed was really needed, but i will know for next time.
Heres the 4 pic sequence anyway, excuse the out of focus/blurry images though
Images are S.O.O.C. an no cropping, cheers Paul.

I returned to Tilbury today, somehow managing to avoid the worst of the rain. Walls were again the most numerous butterfly seen in-between showers, around 20 found. Here's another courting pair, the interesting thing to note here is how the female has pulled back her antennae so no amount of head butting motions by the male will cause his scent patches to come into contact with them. When he got bored she went back to egg laying which is what she was doing before being rudely interrupted!