www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

very nice susie hubba hubba

Err Susie, I don't remember you dressed like that on my field trip to Southwater Woods - and it was just as foggy.
Neil

You mean the one where we nearly drowned?

That is the second year running that it has been a wash out, next year please try to arrange for better weather!

At least you came up trumps in the end and I got to see my first Purple Emperors. I can't wait for next year!

Susie wrote:You mean the one where we nearly drowned?

That is the second year running that it has been a wash out, next year please try to arrange for better weather!

This year I'm going to beat the weather by doing a whole week of Purple Emperor events, including 'poaching' over the Surrey border at Botany Bay - I'll be able to lure the males to the ground here (unless it's slashing down again). Good job you've joined (at last ) as most of these events will be members-only next year. Field trip numbers reached 40 twice this summer, so we're going to have to start giving BC members priority.
Neil

Better late than never.

Just take your shirt off, I am sure a sweaty kipper will attract the Emperor males just as well as any rotting prawn belachan.

Roll on next year's butterfly season, I am looking forward to it immensely already (especially seeing you on your seat high in the Purple Emperor's sap run tree!).

Hi all,
Just to lower the tone a bit, I thought I would post a mug-shot of me wearing my badge of office.

The picture is entitled “Beauty and the beast”. One vote per member only please, on which one is the beauty.

( Votes so far for Keith 000 ) ( Votes so far for Swallowtail 999 )

Here is a picture of me & a friend ( i'm the one in the background )



charles

Straight hair!!

It's tempting to suggest a "Miss UK Butterflies" Beauty Contest but that sort of thing is presumably non-PC nowadays.

I seem to recall Susie that you suggested meeting in Southwater Woods next summer. Trouble is I suspect that ugly b-gger Sussex Kipper will be there too just to spoil things.

Jack

Susie wrote:Straight hair!!

At least you have the option;
....most here would be "No hair!"

N

jackharr wrote:It's tempting to suggest a "Miss UK Butterflies" Beauty Contest but that sort of thing is presumably non-PC nowadays.

Jack

No doubt "Pin-up" is also unsuitable for a Butterfly forum?!

N

Hi Jack,
To keep things on a 'level playing field', there would of course have to be a 'Mr UKB' contest as well. I assume you're down the gym at the moment, working on those pecs and biceps The first time I met Susie I couldn't tell whether her hair was straight or wavy, as it was soaking wet after the shower we had just shared (along with 17 others - we're quite liberal here in Sussex). In fact it chucked it down until mid afternoon, until most participants had left and the Emperors finally emerged along with the sunshine.
Neil

Lol. What are you saying, Jack? You will scare poor old kipper half to death! He's perfectly safe with me, as you would be.

I think I have always had my hair straight-ish when I have seen you, Kipper, but naturally it is a mass of very tight curls (which tend to frizz!).

I don't think I would ever win any competitions. Plus I have been a Mrs for over 15 years so I am a bit long in the tooth to take place in anything entitled Miss.

..

Hey! Buffy!

Guy

Bucket of water for Guy, someone, please!

padfield wrote:Hey! Buffy!

Guy

She's behind you!! (in my best pantomine voice).

Here's an obvious Rogue ..... apprehend at first sight ~

BEWARE! ###

He's heavily armed with a butterfly net and is prone to adding female specimens to his collection...

Here is the 'ace' butterfly hunter ( me ... all nine stone of me ... ) aged fifteen ( 1957) in my favourite Gloucestershire wood.



That wood has sadly changed owing to commercialisation. Very dense plantations of alien conifer species up to 100 feet high now tower high above where the the glades once were .... ..... where clouds of Pearl Bordered Fritillaries flew in May 1959 ( I do not exaggerate ) and a little later, large numbers of Small Pearl Boredered Frits too. Deeper in the woods in July, Silver Washed Frits and numerous White Admirals. I saw a male Purple Emperor there too back then. The open heather areas supported a small form of the Greyling.... I caught a male specimen which I still have, my friend a female specimen. Both were basking on Oak tree trunks ~ a habit more familiar to me with the Greyling's larger close relatives sur la continent.

You'd be doing well to find a single example of any of those there now ...

Buzzards and Sparrow Hawk nests were found without looking ~ much rarer birds back then ~ and two pairs of the much rarer Montagu's Harrier were present in the more open areas back in the 1950s. I saw both sexes and had no idea what they were until I later met the landowner who confirmed what they were. He kindly gave me permission to come and go as I pleased. I once nearly stepped on a nesting Woodcock. The present owner of the shooting rights has extended the same courtesy to me when I met him recently. He's German and there's nowt wrong with that but, I have been amazed at how much of Gloucestershire's nicer 'habitats' for both insects and birds are now owned by aliens... who put a For Sale sign over the UK and its family silver and treasures ... Oh, I remember now....


The wood is still quite good for Birds ... there's at least one pair of Goshawks regularly nesting there each year ~ they are far from rare in parts of Gloucestershire ~ I've even seen one hunting on my own little Nature Reserve in the west of the county. That was a couple of years ago.

I've been on the planet long enough to realise that sadly, nothing lasts forever .... However, it would be nice if those in a position to do something about making these things last at least a little longer actually did so. Trouble is, they have other more important agendas.... more important to them that is .... there's the problem ....

There's one now over there counting quietly ... "One millyon, two millyon ..... "
......

Great picture and great story. How times have changed.

Thanks for all your reminiscences and pictures, CC. They evoke nostalgia in me, partly for my own childhood (which was rather later than yours, I think) but perhaps more by proxy, for the British countryside I read about in Ford and South and others when I was young. There is no doubt, something special has been lost with the destruction of so much of what you and they took for granted. I just hope that when humans get over themselves they'll allow something equally special, if different, to grow back.

Guy