www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Is it something to do with the Earth's orbit being elliptical?

It is indeed, and earliest sunset/laterst sunrise depends entirely on latitude.

Explanation (one of the best):
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 321081.ece

To find your latitude & longitude go here:
http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html

To find sunset/sunrise times:
http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomi ... year-world

Reminder. Two good opportunities to see the Space Station tonight 10th November with clear skies expected widely. Moves sedately across sky - unmistakeable. You have the impression that it should be making a noise but it is absolutely silent. Don't forget to give the astronauts a wave
Approx times:
1627 to 1631 west to east
and it's round again 1802 to 1805 west to southeast and less high in the sky.

Jack

Jack

Well, I forgot and went outside too late. But sky was still pretty bright and I doubt that anyone in the southwest could have seen it.

Jack

At Bonchurch near Ventnor on the Isle of Wight today two Red Adimals competing for the sunniest spot.Plenty of room for both though on a south facing bank of a small allotment.
A glimpse too of a Red Squirrel foraging on the ground among the trees of a nearby tearoom.

Jack Harrison wrote:and it's round again 1802 to 1805 west to southeast and less high in the sky.

Jack

Jack

Went outside with my five-year-old - right on schedule! Thanks, Jack. I now have to persuade him it really is a spaceship...

Dave

But did he wave to them?

Jack

All this talk of SAD and BAD... Now is the time to enjoy reminiscing about the wonderful year we've just lived!! During the summer it's all action and not enough sitting back with a beer taking it in.

I was reviewing my photos tonight and actually got an armchair life-tick, which sort of counts as a November sighting, though it wasn't in the UK. Browsing photos of tailless lineblue (Prosotas dubiosa indica) taking minerals at damp sand in Mysore, in April, I noticed that one of them wasn't a tailless lineblue but a distinctly tailed transparent 6-lineblue (Nacaduba kurava). That brought my Indian blues tally to 13 and my year total to 208 species. Good times.


(Tailless lineblue)


(Transparent 6-lineblue)

Guy

That's a good result from your armchair Guy!

They look the same to me apart from the tail. Is that the maint point of difference? Very similar to Langs Short Tailed too.

Cheers

Lee

With some of the 'lineblues', including the transparent 6-lineblue, it helps to see the upperside - but too late for me to go back and get that now. Transparent 6-lineblue is the commonest likely candidate so that's what it's going down as.

I've just started making a page of Indian butterflies and have already linked all my blues. It is at http://www.guypadfield.com/speciesindia.html. Check out too the page for common mime (Chilasa clytia). One of my students took the photos when he went to India in October and thought he had two species there ...

Guy

Sorry Guy, I wasn't doubting your IDs!

The Langs type family must have quite a few members looking at those.

Those blues are lovely, I think my favourite is Plains Cupid, stunning.

Cheers

Lee

I think my favourite is Plains Cupid

You youngsters won’t remember the pop song of that (or a similar name ) by Connie Francis – who incidentally was born the same week as me.

I have had fun looking up the famous and infamous who are give-or-take the same age. Terry Wogan, Diana Rigg, Lord David Owen, Arthur Scargill (!) to name but a few.

Jack

We get Prosotas dubiosa and Nacaduba kurava here in Australia.

I can go with the dubiosa ID, but unless Indian N. kurava are very different to Aussie specimens I can't go with that one.


Aussie P. dubiosa : http://www.purvision.com/butterflies/Pr ... index.html
Aussie N. kurava : http://www.purvision.com/butterflies/Na ... index.html

I reckon it looks a lot closer to Ionolyce helicon : http://www.purvision.com/butterflies/Io ... index.html

Thanks Sooty. When I get home I shall check in my Indian books. My insect matches the text and photos for kurava, including all the points of distinction with related species, but I will happily change its name if it turns out I'm wrong! It was all discovery for me on that trip!

Guy

At least two (possibly three) very active Red Admirals in Hollicombe Park near Paignton yesterday. There was much chasing going on amongst the branches of the trees in the sheltered corner of the park. The park is the site of an old gas works and the butterfly activity almost always seems to be confined to the corner at the Torquay end of the park where there is a long wall that they are able to sun themselves on. This part is a real sun trap and it can be quite warm even in December and January. An added bonus yesterdays was the sighting of many Turnstone and a Redshank at Preston Sands.

N Hykeham, near Lincoln today (Tuesday 1.00pm) Very sunny but chilly

One Red Admiral nectaring on Mahonia shrub. Saw it while having lunch. Where I work they have three of these large shrubs. There were a good number of bees on it too. Watched it for a good ten minutes and it looked in pretty good nick.

Cheers

Pete

Sooty wrote:I can go with the dubiosa ID, but unless Indian N. kurava are very different to Aussie specimens I can't go with that one.

Aussie N. kurava : http://www.purvision.com/butterflies/Na ... index.html

Indian kurava are indeed quite different from your Aussie version! Here is the relevant page from The Book of Indian Butterflies by Isaac Kehimkar:



Mine again for comparison:



The book only illustrates about 200 of the 500 Indian blues, but it includes all the common ones and this is the best match (not perfect, but the differences are certainly no more than seen in intra-specific variation in European blues). Interesting to see how different the same species is across the ocean in Aussie!

Guy

(Sorry to have sidetracked the November sightings thread)

Another Red Admiral this afternoon, this time in a small park near Torquay town centre.

Thinking about the one's I saw yesterday, I am wondering whether Red Admirals in the the mllder parts of the UK are actually breeding all the year round rather than truly hibernating?

Hi Torbay Flyer, in the south of England their larval food plant, the nettle, dies back to almost nothing during the winter. So I doubt they could continuously brood here.

Regards Gruditch

I've worked out why the Aussie N. kurava has all that white on the underside - it's sunscreen.

I can't agree with Gruditch. Nettles remain healthy throughout the winter in many places, not only on the coast. It was Mike Tucker who first reported on overwintering larvae in Surrey. I think that would have been in the 90s. I was astounded at the time, but when I started looking here in Bournemouth I readily found them, and also in places further inland, such as Verwood and Ferndown, quite frosty spots. I have witnessed Red Admirals ovipositing in November and followed the slowly developing larvae through the winter on several occasions. I imagine the larvae are protected from the frost by the shelters they construct. If anything, I'd say Red Admiral caterpillars develop more slowly than those of the Clouded Yellow, which probably benefit more from radiant heat from the sun, which can be considerable even in mid winter. I once measured 18°among larval foodplant on a cold frosty day. The main threat to nettles on the cliffs is from salt spray which causes the leaves to blacken and die, but in some places the plants are sheltered behind beach huts.

Misha

There certainly still nettle plants around in Torbay including regrowth from recently cut back plants. Back in Cheshire there were also some sheltered places where nettle plants survived the winter intact.

Certainly the behaviour I was watching on Monday afternoon was of butterflies seeking to pair rather than to hibernate. Last year I was seeing Red Admirals in late December (Christmas Day in fact), and I saw another one in the same place in mid-January.