Padfield

[Padfield]

I remember your large skipper, William - and I remember the amazing quality of your pictures, too. My compact cannot compete! I agree, it is quite magical to watch a creature make its first moves in the world.

Thanks for the comments, Vince and Chris. Indeed, I was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. Perhaps it wasn't entirely a coincidence - perhaps Sarasvatī was also waiting for the rain to stop before venturing out ...

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

And a belated congrats from me - that really is quite something! Thx for sharing!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Nick Broomer]

Just brilliant, Guy. As are all your photos of the early stages in your PD.

All the best, Nick.

[Padfield]

Thanks Pete and Nick. My camera does struggle to capture purple emperor eggs and first instar larvae because they are nearly always deep in shade. Newer models of Powershot perform better, apparently, but I can't afford to upgrade at the moment.

Brahmā and Sarasvatī had both transferred to different leaves by this morning and Brahmā moved again, later. This does not surprise me, as the sun shone for a short period this morning. They were born into rain and gloom - and the eggs were probably laid in rain and gloom - so it will have been difficult to judge aspect and shade. They are tiny little things, though, and it is not at all easy to find them again when they keep moving from twig to twig.

This morning, Brahmā was at the tip of a leaf some distance from his birth leaf:



It is amazing how this behavioiur is programmed into them.

By the afternoon, he had found himself a different home leaf:



Sarasvatī stayed put all day at the tip of a different leaf:



One other egg is ready to hatch in the next couple of days and I found a further egg, not yet heads-up, in a different part of the forest.



Guy

[Padfield]

At the risk of overkill, here are Sarasvatī and Brahmā sheltering in raindrops:





Literally, the name Sarasvatī means 'abounding with ponds'...

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

Now you're just showing off Seriously - amazing images - and several sights I've not come across anywhere else (books, the web, etc.). Great stuff!

When I get a mo I'll upload some Purple Emperor egg images - which show the purple band gradually migrating to the top of the egg and which then, I think, ultimately forms part of the head. While taking some of the images I could see the developing larva inside the "immature" egg moving!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

I'm looking forward to your pictures, Pete. My own observations are that the band forms at the base, rises a little, then sort of destabilises. This egg was photographed yesterday - the day before it went heads-up:



Today it looked like this:



Still rubbish pictures, I know - but they will lay in the shade!

Actually, I found a further three eggs today, in a more open spot, allowing slightly better pictures. They are quite young:



Guy

[NickMorgan]

Wow, great study on the early lives of these creatures. I had always imagined that if a caterpillar was innundated with water it would drown, but if that were true Purple Emperors would not have evolved. I wonder how long they can survive being completely covered in water?

[Padfield]

I hope no one knows the answer to your question, Nick - or at least, that no one has done an experiment to find it out!

The forecast looked OK for today so Minnie and I went up - to see if we could find Aricia nicias. The site turned out to be a good one, with plenty of Geranium sylvaticum growing, but we didn't find our target, probably because by the time the day should have hotted up the clouds had come over and it was rather cool. I saw plenty before that, but nicias is easiest to find when large groups of puddling blues have built up, and that didn't happen.

The commonest blue was little blue, but they weren't very little and some of them were very blue so they often misled my eye:


¨
Glandon blues were also about in reasonable numbers:



Surprisingly, for the date, cranberry blues were wonderfully fresh ...





... as were many of the mazarine blues:



So I didn't really mind missing nicias.

The commonest Erebia was euryale:



But locally, mnestra was also common:



This is a somewhat tarnished tyndarus!



Mountain green-veined white:



And a late but fresh Pyrgus andromedae, that I found stunned by a road and transferred to a flower:





I took this picture of Minnie before the clouds came:



And this one in the bus on the way down:



As soon as we got home we went out again to check on the iris eggs and cats. As I had hoped, Rāma, the great hero of the Rāmāyaṇa, had emerged:



Sarasvatī and Brahmā were still fine, on the same leaves they had occupied yesterday:





This egg will be heads-up tomorrow and probably hatch a day or two after that:



Of the other eggs, one has been heads-up since yesterday and will probably hatch tomorrow.

Guy

[Padfield]

I haven't been up my local mountain much this year, mainly because of the weather, so I popped up today. One target was to get decent pictures of Erebia pronoe, which is one of the most unapproachable Erebia, settling rarely and briefly. Although I saw a few, I failed again to get decent photos - not helped by the numbers of walkers and cyclists zooming past. Here is probably the best I got:


(pronoe is the one on the right, the one on the left being aethiops)

Maybe I'll try again next week ...

I didn't spend long at that site because it seemed such a popular path today. But I snapped up a few butterflies between walkers, including these large grizzled skippers (alveus):



It was interesting to note how fluffly their bottoms can be! Pyrgus belieri is normally said to have a fluffy bottom and this is a distinguishing feature from alveus. But alveus isn't clean-shaven ...



This is Erebia melampus:



And here is a chalkhill blue:



I then headed higher up the mountain, where there were fewer people - but the clouds came over, as they had been threatening to do all day. Here is a cranberry blue against the cloudy sky:



I was pleased to get a decent upperside shot of female manto:



Minnie and I then walked back down the mountain and on to our purple emperor woods to check all ten eggs/caterpillars.

Brahmā, Sarasvatī and Rāma are all still fine:


(Brahmā)


(Sarasvatī )


(Rāma)

Far away, at the end of a different ride, Sītā has emerged:



Sītā is Rāma's bride but in the myth she is abducted by the evil demon Rāvaṇa and taken across the sea to his palace in Laṅkā, from where Rāma saves her. Maybe next July he will fulfil his destiny. Meanwhile, the egg a few leaves away from Rāma is due to hatch tomorrow (or maybe the next day, looking at the weather forecast). He will be Rāma's brother, Lakṣmaṇa, who aids Rāma in his heroic mission:



After all this I left Minnie at home and dropped down to the valley on my bike for provisions. I caught the train back up just in time to escape a violent thunderstorm, which flashed and crashed for the whole journey. But nature was kind to me and the storm cleared at the top and I could cycle home getting only a bit wet. Then, as I reached the house, the most beautiful rainbow I have ever seen appeared. It was complete and double, reaching from mountain to mountain and enclosing a brilliant patch of sunlight that my iPhone (which is all I had with me) couldn't capture at all:









Quite magical!

Guy

[David M]

Just catching up with your diary after a few days away, Guy. Some wonderful images as ever, but those of the larvae within the raindrops are remarkable. You always seem to find something new. Excellent stuff!

[Padfield]

Of exactly a dozen iris eggs I have found this year, five have now hatched, three are heads-up for hatching in the next couple of days and one has been taken by the evil demon Rāvaṇa:



Notice the small hole, through which the egg was sucked dry. Here is the same egg yesterday:



This suggests either that the egg is still entirely liquid inside at this stage or that the predator injected digestive fluid to liquify it.

Not to worry - elsewhere in the woods the heroic brothers Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa are growing strong, ready to do battle with Rāvaṇa:



Lakṣmaṇa was born this morning:



The eldest caterpillar is Brahmā, who is now a week old. In one more week he should shed his skin and vulgar, phallic head to become a horned, second-instar caterpillar.


(Brahmā)

To give an idea of the egg-ripening timetable I've made this image, showing a single egg from laying to day 12 (yesterday):



It hadn't hatched today. I'll fill in the last spot with its last appearance before hatching.


(the same egg, today)

Guy

PS - thanks for your comment, David. You typed it while I was typing my last post.

[Pete Eeles]

To give an idea of the egg-ripening timetable I've made this image, showing a single egg from laying to day 12 (yesterday)

Superb!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

Thanks Pete. I can finish that today, as the egg hatched this morning. We are back to rainy weather again - no, wait, we never left the rainy weather - so I named the new emergee Varuṇa, the god of water and the oceans (whom Rāma had to appease before he could cross the sea to Laṅkā and rescue Sītā). Ironically, Varuṇa was occupying just about the only leaf in the forest that was completely dry:





When he had finished breakfast he settled down at the tip of his leaf:



Everyone else was inundated:


(Sītā)


(Brahmā, who is beginning to develop the swollen shoulder pad where the next instar's horns are growing)


(Sarasvatī)

Another egg hatched this morning. This is Hanumān, the monkey who played such a great part (along with hosts of other monkeys) in rescuing Sītā:



Guy

[Padfield]

Brahmā on day 10:



This is the 1st instar iris equivalent of puberty - that strange swelling behind the head capsule will lead to a profound change of body-shape in a few days' time. He's not a baby any more.

It was briefly sunny today and when I came across Varuṇa (hatched yesterday) he was busy scuttling down the middle of a leaf some way from his birth leaf:



I watched him from a distance for some minutes as he crawled along branches and leaves, checking them all out:



When I passed by again, probably about forty minutes later, he had made up his mind:



I hope he will stay there for the rest of this instar.

Otherwise, no change. Seven eggs have hatched, one was sucked dry, three are currently heads-up and one is still banded. I last saw an adult iris three days ago, striking into some young sallow placed rather inaccessibly off the track, so I don't know if her visit was productive.


(Female purple emperor, 9th August)

Guy

[Padfield]

I'm beginning to get fed up with rain. Almost every day for a month and a half now - and it's cold as well at the moment. How the insectivorous birds are surviving I don't know.



Normally at this time of year I would be showing off interesting high alpine stuff but all I've got to offer are yet more photos of iris cats in the rain!! Iris was the goddess of the rainbow - bring on the rainbows ... and the sun ...


(Sarasvatī)


(Sītā)


(Brahmā)


(Varuṇa)

I'm not checking on Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa until Brahmā is in second instar because I've already made too much of a path to their spot, which is thigh-high off the ground and very vulnerable if an animal or human should start using my track.

Hanumān was nowhere to be seen, but being born of the wind and able to change shape at will he has probably relocated to somewhere a little drier. Or, he might be the first to have fallen victim to hungry birds.

Guy

[Chris Jackson]

Bravo Guy for your 12-day egg maturing guide higher up - a nice piece of work with devotion and perseverance that would get you high marks in a natural history class.
Looking on the bright side, perhaps that miserable Swiss weather you're getting at the moment means you'll have a nice long mild autumn?
Chris

[David M]

It really HAS been grim in Switzerland - I've just read about the train accident near St. Moritz which was due to a landslide. Mind you, our own weather seems to be reverting to type.....the WET type!

[Padfield]

Thanks Chris. Yes, David - we've never known anything like this. That won't be the last landslide this year.

Between showers, though, another rainbow arched across the forest this afternoon. This was taken from the bus-stop in my village, looking up towards Villars:



Iris protecting iris? I like to think so ...

I couldn't resist checking Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa this afternoon - the two brothers off the main track - just to see if they were still alive. They both were:


(Rāma )


(Lakṣmaṇa )

All the others except Hanumān, who has gone AWOL, were on their usual leaves and all remaining eggs are now heads-up.

Guy

[andy brown]

Great shots again Guy, I have a liberty card most of the weekend so will be off looking for larvae in general and if I get a chance use some extension tubes on my 180 macro to see what there like, will be especially useful for just hatched White admiral larvae,

Ta

Andy