www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

HI Guy,
You're at it again !, taunting us with exotica,we're defenceless.

Absolutely fabulous stuff !

TREVOR.

Thanks Tevor! Fear not - the black hairstreak season will be upon you too very soon. It is an infernally difficult butterfly to photograph, though, not least because it rests at such peculiar angles and twists about so much. When a butterfly lies down on a leaf at head-height there's not a lot you can do! Sadly, there aren't large copper seasons in the UK any more.

Guy

That first Large Copper is breathtaking, Guy - a butterfly I would love one day to see

BWs,

William

Fantastic Butterflies shots Guy, your so lucky to see so many lovely Butterflies Goldie

Thank you William and Goldie. If you would dearly love to see large copper, William, I'm quite sure you will!! I first tried at Woodwalton Fen the year after (I later discovered) it went extinct there. I didn't see the species until I was 30, on a conservation trip to Hungary (one individual) and then not again until 2008, when Tim Cowles showed me a colony in Fance. They are worth waiting for.

I spent a very frustrating morning on a steep learning curve (to use David's expression) this morning. I intended to mark up loads of cardinals. But I couldn't even catch the first 6 individuals I saw! I've caught hundreds, if not thousands, of Erebia and Pyrgus without any difficulty but somehow these giants of the air completely eluded me - and once spooked, that was it! I did manage to catch the 7th one I saw but she escaped while I was taking her out of the net. Finally, wiser and more than a little chastened, I got my act together and marked up the three final individuals I saw before I had to return home.





The white powder is cornflour, which I dipped into to avoid my greasy fingers pulling the scales off the wings. There are marks on no. 11 which I think might be from my net. I restrained the butterfly in the net to stop it flapping and damaging itself. I now think I should do that without holding the butterfly itself through the net - just drawing the tension of the net on it. Anyway, I don't think I did any actual damage and with practice I will get quicker and more efficient and the butterflies will barely know they've been counted ...

I spotted the Berger's clouded yellow my colleague had tried out the technique on, before venturing on a cardinal:



I think he labelled that on Monday.

Finally, and changing the subject, I checked on Agni today and yesterday. Yesterday I had been a little disturbed to see the fly that was beneath his leaf still sitting there, in exactly the same place, 24 hours after I had previously checked. I wondered if it was a parasitic fly, waiting to attack the pupa. Today the fly was still there, in exactly the same place! But I think it is dead, as every limb is in exactly the same place as it was yesterday - it has remained completely motionless for 24 hours ...

Two days ago:



Yesterday:



Today:



Guy

Hi! Guy, it seems strange to see Butterflies with Numbers on them
I was at Gait Barrow last week and I saw this women with a net, I wondered then what she was doing, what ever it was she wasn't very successful, we saw her a few times waving the net around but to no avail, when she'd gone I was nosey and went to see what she was looking at, I saw nothing. Goldie

I agree with you, Goldie - it is strange to see numbers on butterflies (I would prefer names ). I think it is also ugly. That is one of the reasons, strangely, that I agreed to this project. The cardinal is probably the rarest resident Swiss butterfly so collectors might be tempted. But who would want a butterfly with '10' written on both hindwings? If any evidence emerges that it actually harms the butterflies I will oppose it.

Apart from this project I only use a net for identifying butterflies and/or obtaining photographic proof. To date, I think, every individual of Erebia christi I have photographic proof of has been netted. I discovered a previously unrecorded population of Pyrgus warrenensis by netting, photographing and releasing and there are several other species for which my records wouldn't have been accepted if I hadn't netted them. But wherever possible I don't use a net and I didn't even take my net to Geneva yesterday.

Guy

Edit: on a totally different subject, it suddenly occurred to me this evening that if that fly really is dead under Agni's leaf it could be because Agni is already laying down the silk attachment and the fly has got caught ...

The fly is dead - Agni is not. Note the silk with which he has been securing this leaf. That doesn't mean he will definitely pupate here but it's still a possibility.



Māyā was deep in prayer at lunchtime today:





And a white admiral cat:



Guy

The white admiral caterpillar above is, I think, penultimate instar. It is in a shady part of the wood, near my house, where the leaves came out on the honeysuckle about two weeks later than in the sunny parts a little lower down. Tonight I visited the part of the woods, about 200m lower in altitude, where the first caterpillars had emerged from their hibernacula way back in April. There I found this chap, about an inch long and certainly in his final instar:


(taken with flash)

Summer is on its way ...

Guy

School sports day in the valley today. I nipped away a little early, after running a hyper-efficient long jump, and took Minnie to a nearby meadow just in case it wasn't too late for short-tailed blues. It doesn't matter that much, as they are double-brooded, but I don't like to miss the spring brood. The grass was too long and the short-tailed blues were over for the spring. Tant pis. Plenty of Adonis blues were flying, some looking rather worn, and some Chapman's and common. At one point I think I saw an iolas blue over the bladder senna but it disappeared and I didn't get the confirmation. This is an Adonis blue:



I saw my first marbled white of the year and a few large walls, amazingly also my first of the year:



Hot Minnie:



Cool Minnie:



Good beer spot that, but I didn't have any beer as I'd been on duty ...

This morning I checked quickly on Agni. He is still on his leaf with the dead fly, and still on the upperside, meaning he probably has no intention of pupating there. He's just maturing. It is now 17 days since he entered 5th instar. In the past, caterpillars I've followed have set off for the pupation spot on day 18 - I just thought Agni had been doing everything so fast he might have been ready to pupate early. SO, when he moves off there'll be another neck-straining search in the canopy ...

Māyā is still laid up for graduation into 5th instar. Last night's storms blew her spindling all over the place so her leaf is now right next to a sallow stem. She couldn't have reached this tree overground because of the terrain but if she's lucky she'll get onto it as soon as she moults and climb up towards the light.





Guy

It's all approaching the climax!

I couldn't find Agni today - so very soon I shall be scanning the canopy not for a caterpillar but a pupa.

Kālī and Nakula are also high up trees but both quite visible at the moment and can be photographed with the zoom - with little option as to angle, though!

Kālī:





Nakula:



They are both serious, full-grown 5th instar cats now, just maturing gently until they too go off and pupate.

Māyā has now moulted into 5th instar but has rejected the option of climbing up the nearby sallow:



Guy

Lovely cat shots Guy, my how they've grown The Large Wall is a lovely looking butterflyalmosta a cross between a Wall and a Meadow Brown

Have a goodun

Wurzel

I can sense your tension through your words, Guy.

I'm just hoping you can locate at least one pupa to prolong this marvellous reportage a while longer.

Thanks, Wurzel and David. Yes, they've grown! They really are whopping great cats by the time they reach pupation.

The only tension I'm aware of, David, is in the back of my neck! But you're right - it's a critical time. I'm watching and trying to double guess what they're going to do next. No stress - just patience ...

And then it all starts again!

Here are a couple of glowworms on the newly cut verge near my house. Brilliant creatures!



The nearer one was moving around a lot, a little alarmed by my presence, so I didn't move in closer.

Guy

Glow worms. .. I see those in the Cotswold Grasslands a few miles from my home. I've also seen them deep in the Forest of Dean. Theory being they were imported there a long time ago along with the large quantities of ballast for the various railway tracks which one time serviced many parts of the forest.

My wife's work colleague bought a cottage in the Forest and invited us both for a house warming. I explored their long and overgrown interesting garden before it became dark and right at the bottom boundary, was a raised the bank of ballast which years ago used to support a railway Track. I told them about it and not only that, I had travelled on that very line by steam train as a commute from Gloucester to Hereford for my first job aged seventeen. That was in the late 1950s and the Forest was far more remote than it is today. That train ride gave me my first ever glimpse of the brilliant coloured Kingfisher as my carriage passed over the bridge on its stream.

Some years later, well 1976 actually, had a holiday on the Island of Elba. Chose Elba to look for Charaxes jasius ( Two-Tailed Pasha ) on its foodplant which grew everywhere across the Island. On the first evening, we sat in the Hotel garden to cool off with a nice drink as it got dark. Suddenly there were dozens, maybe hundreds of "Fire flies" in every direction. I grabbed a few whilst in flight to discover they were not flies at all, but small beetles.

Grabbing insects "out of the sky" unharmed is a skill I developed from a very early age. It has come in useful on many occasions since most recently when I caught a Humming Bird Hawk Moth in my garden. I had hoped it was a female as it would be nice to breed them again. No such luck. It was a male.

That Elephant Hawk Moth Larva I found in my garden last summer successfully pupated and I kept it in a plastic container in my unheated garage over winter. Been checking it in recent weeks and pleased to see it wriggle vigorously as I pick up its container. Obviously very healthy. I shall bring it indoors soon where I can keep a closer watch on it as the warmth will trigger it to emerge. This beautiful moth in both colour and elegant shape is one of my favourites in all the Planet's Lepidoptera. Delighted it breeds in my garden. Actually there were two larvae on the Hairy Willow Herb. Both pupated successfully but one was parasitised. Shortly after pupation seven small pupae of a Tachinid Fly were found in its container. Despite fine weather today, only one butterfly seen in the garden, a male Small White.

Apologies for going off on a long and winding "tangerine". Sometimes one's enthusiasm runs too free...

Here's the Hawk's Larva... up in the top of the plant in the seeds :~

Fascinating tangerine, CC. Glowworms have suffered a lot from increasing light pollution in so many places it is good to know they are still going strong in the Cotswolds. In Switzerland, more and more people seem to go for perma-lights outside their chalets, and stepping-stone night lights along the paths leading to their doors - but walk away from the buildings and the magic lanterns of these enchanting beetles soon appear.

I'm off to try for another of your favourites today, CC - poplar admiral. It's always a gamble with this species but by coincidence a couple of friends visited my chosen site yesterday and saw two. Whatever happens, if the sun shines we'll see butterflies.

Guy

Padfield wrote:
I'm off to try for another of your favourites today, CC - poplar admiral. It's always a gamble with this species but by coincidence a couple of friends visited my chosen site yesterday and saw two. Whatever happens, if the sun shines we'll see butterflies.

Guy

Yes, fine butterfly and one of my European favourites. Can you get a few images of the habitat? I assume the foodplant is Aspen? Be interesting to see the density of Aspen in the area you visit. Has anyone seen females ovipositing? Unlike with the PEs in English localities where females laying are not rare sights, never seen or read of L. populi egg laying observations. I wonder if they, unlike A.iris, lay at heights well above eye level.

Long time ago, travelling through France, passed through extensive Forests of mainly Aspen. Massive and very tall trees and larger than any I've seen in England. The insect is in France of course but, I wonder if Forests of mainly Aspen are suitable.

I note that Poplar Admiral occurs just across the Channel in France. I wonder.....?

Jack

HI Guy,
If any Poplar Admirals come before your lens, would you be kind enough to post a warning so that
all of us in the UK can prepare ourselves before viewing. .
They are certainly one of the most stunning Butterflies on the Planet. And your camera will do it
full justice. OH! i nearly forgot ! we've yet to see the Lesser Purple Emperor, i'm sure you will
post some images when you find one .

Best wishes,
TREVOR.

Just returned from an unprecedentedly successful poplar admiral hunt! The warning is for Trevor ( ) but also because it's the last post on the page, so when I've processed my pictures the admirals will appear as the first post on a new page. Normally I see this insect at a rate of one a year. Last year I saw two (both females). Today I comfortably reached double figures, though all males - the females emerge later. Watch this space for piccies!

Guy