"Thank you for your contributions 'Wurzel' and David.
As I write, there are now daffodil heads appearing in a garden in Lincoln. Not long now.
I have yet to see any flowering in Lincolnshire but I have not been to the right locations to see the 'early narcissi' or the 'greenhouse grown'. We have seen the 'cut flowers', flowering rather early in supermarkets.
In the south of the United Kingdom, where the season was slightly more advanced, there were very few 'daffs' flowering in 2017 by April 11th.
I think I have a picture from 2016 of a Small Tortoiseshell, very briefly entering a daffodil head (proboscis first), but it was thought, generally speaking, they only try it once at most. I will edit that picture back here later (if I can find it).
'Common Blue Proboscis Study -27th May 9:57 -9:58'
'When thinking about extracting a McDonalds milkshake through a 'broad channeled straw' and the suck power required for the thick milkshake to enter ones mouth, it became more obvious to me that 'sticky nectar could be retracted into a butterflies head in 'drip form', or stuck around the outside of the curled up end of the proboscis.
How much use a butterfly makes of that form of feeding is unclear to me.
Some Butterflies often leave their perch with the proboscis not curled up and can be retracted back into their mouths, while in flight, later (another study).
I think that a proboscis varies considerably between species.
A Broad-bordered Bee Hawk-moth, which uses much energy at the same time as feeding has quite a long straight, apparently more obviously tubular, long proboscis that it holds quite straight for longish periods. One might say that it needs to extract nectar fast, to make up for the energy loss, while not landing and not remaining still while feeding.
https://youtu.be/ctxMrpmcCc8
- 9:57 and 43 seconds iPhone digital zoom (cropped).
- 9:57 and 48 seconds
- 9:57 and 53 seconds
- 9:58 and 16 seconds.
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