Padfield

[Padfield]

Long time no report! Sorry for not replying, Jack and Matsukaze! I wasn't abducted by aliens but have simply had no time of late, for various reasons.

Today I was able to take what might a last true altitude trip this year. The weather wasn't great - pretty much 100% cloud cover most of the time, and rain as we started back down again - but I did manage to see a few butterflies. It felt as if the last embers of the year were glowing up here (the walk was between 2300m and 2500m) ...


(scarce copper)




(Eros blues)


(Eros blue)


(Swiss brassy ringlet)

... but this painted lady, at least, was freshly emerged:



Other species flying were small tortoiseshell, chalkhill blue and red admiral.

So much for the butterflies. But who doesn't love marmots?

Minnie does:



He was watching her, too, but never straight on (prey animals have their eyes on the sides of the head so they have to look sideways to get a good view!):





Here are a few more shots of these noisy, fun, furrballs:









Guy

[Padfield]

Iris update:

When I returned from the UK, Stan's Mum had gone awol, presumed eaten (the entire lower half of her seat leaf had been eaten by something that wasn't a purple emperor caterpillar - perhaps a deer). Kenny was still there, now in second instar and on a different leaf:



My parents had flown out with me and while I was looking after them I had no chance to visit the woods. After they left, Kenny was nowhere to be seen. HOWEVER, today I found him again, on a new leaf, and now I think in 3rd instar. He was inaccessible and very hard to photograph but I got this poor shot of him:



Of the two eggs on the same leaf, one had obviously hatched (the egg was reduced to its basal plate) but the larva was nowhere to be seen. The other egg had suffered unusual damage:



I don't know what happend there. Perhaps the caterpillar hatched out, began eating his egg and then got taken by something, leaving the egg half-eaten. I don't think the other egg hatched and consumed this one on the way down to the tip because the other egg was less developed when I left for England.

SO - from five eggs found in August a single caterpillar survives: Kenny. South Park fans will see the irony in this.

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

SO - from five eggs found in August a single caterpillar survives: Kenny. South Park fans will see the irony in this.

I can hear the chants now - "Who saved Kenny?"

Great report - as ever.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

Fingers crossed for the little fellow!

I forgot to mention that the housemartins were in a great state of agitation on Sunday morning. Their excitement was infectious - I felt both nervous and thrilled for them as I watched them preparing for their great adventure. All these pictures were taken with the iPhone:







Tonight, when I took Minnie for her evening walk, there were still some sounds coming from their clay houses under the eaves but the majority have now gone. I imagine those left are this season's brood - if house martins behave like swallows, anyway. As soon as their flight feathers are ready for it they will be up and away too.

Guy

[essexbuzzard]

Who doesn't love marmots? My girlfriend loves them. When we go to Europe,I think she enjoys them more than the butterflies. A lot of the leaves seem to have gone already from the trees in your house Martin pics, Guy...

[Padfield]

You're right about that tree, Buzzard. But most trees are still in full leaf. I'll take a closer look on my morning walk tomorrow.

In the absence of any butterfly images, a few more self-indulgent pictures of Minnie, from a colleague driving down the hill behind her.







We're famous in the district. If I commit any traffic infringement on my bike, there's no possibility of escaping identification ...

Guy

[Goldie M]

Minnie seems to be a lovely patient dog Guy, it's great she goes with you every where.
Lovely shots of the marmot too Goldie

[Padfield]

Thanks Goldie.

I had a free day today but the forecast was for rain. So instead of autumn Swiss butterflies I headed off to the Papiliorama, which I haven't visited for some months now. Even there it seemed unusually cool and gloomy but as usual I saw a few species I had never seen before, bringing the total illustrated in my Butterfly House pages (http://www.guypadfield.com/butterflyhouse.html) to 111.

The first new species was Euxanthe tiberius, a very striking butterfly from Africa. I found it just after entering the dome and my camera was still very misty but I managed to clean up the photo digitally so it doesn't look too bad:



The butterfly was freshly emerged and soon dived down beneath the leaves to finish drying its wings in peace. By the time my camera was properly clear it was in hiding.

Two new (to me) species of Hamadryas were sitting around on trees, unnoticed by most. These were the red cracker, Hamadryas amphinome, and the variable cracker, Hamadryas feronia:


(amphinome)


(feronia)

On previous trips I have seen H. laodamia (the starry night cracker) and H. februa (the gray cracker).

Other species were ones I have shown in posts before. One of the nice things about the Papiliorama is that a lot of the species are able to engage in natural behaviour. This pair of Anartia amathea was behaving entirely normally - the male gagging for it and the female saying no!



I won't bore with the dozens of other pictures I took!

Guy

[Wurzel]

Great shots of the Marmots Guy Would your lack of posting have anything to do with the start of the school year? Mine has been even more hectic than last year

Have a goodun

Wurzl

[Jack Harrison]

Wurzel said:

...the start of the school year? Mine has been even more hectic than last year

That suggests Wurzel that are a teacher. Do your students call you Wurzel?

Jack

[Padfield]

Would your lack of posting have anything to do with the start of the school year? Mine has been even more hectic than last year

In part, but not entirely. I just have more things to do altogether than I am capable of doing in the time available. Some things (sleep and dog walks) are sacrosanct. Others wait in line ...

Kenny is still alive and well. If I ever do have to use those infamous words (''They killed Kenny, the b*******!') it is most likely to be of the group of chamois currently roaming the woods. I caught this one not 5m from Kenny's corner:





He, or one of his friends, probably took Stan's Mum, albeit quite innocently.

Here is Kenny himself:



And here is a white admiral cat. I have seen no signs of hibernaculum-construction yet:



Guy

[David M]

You did well to get that close to a chamois, Guy.

[bugboy]

You did well to get that close to a chamois, Guy.

I have a feeling his super dooper zoom may have come into good use here...

[Padfield]

I think it was a bit of each, David and Buggy. I did use the zoom, but this chap was also quite brazen!

It was sunny today and I managed to get out. I haven't been to the cardinal site for well over a month so I headed there this morning. I was also hoping for brown hairstreaks, which I hadn't yet seen this year. I saw both but got photos of neither. The Buddleia was almost completely over and I initially thought there would be no cardinals, but two bushes remained in a chalky hollow and there I saw my first male cardinal, at about 11h30. He didn't stop, even a second. His would zoom in, pointlessly attack every living creature in sight - mostly other butterflies gently nectaring in the evening of their lives - zoom across to the other Buddleia, then zoom off again, to return in about 10 minutes. I did take a video of one of his approaches but haven't uploaded it yet, and to be honest, it's not very good. At one point I thought there were two males, but I could have been mistaken, so swiftly do they move. Later, as I left the area, I saw a female taking flight over the trees. As for brown hairstreaks, I saw a single female in flight and two males, one of which settled briefly - but I couldn't get my zoom onto him in the bright light before he flew again. It's a shame, as I need photos of male brown hairstreak uppersides.

Other species flying were: a possible marbled skipper (if it was one, the only skipper I saw today), large white, small white, southern small white, green-veined white, clouded yellow, Berger's clouded yellow, common blue, Chapman's blue, Adonis blue, chalkhill blue, Damon blue, northern brown argus, red admiral, painted lady, comma, small tortoiseshell, Queen of Spain fritillary, high brown fritillary, wall, speckled wood, marbled ringlet, grayling and tree grayling.

A few piccies:


(southern small white)


(same individual, showing the upperside)


(red admiral)


(a tatty Damon blue)


(grayling)


(tree grayling)


(marbled ringlet)


(high brown fritillary)


(Queen of Spain)


(chalkhill blue)


(small tortoiseshell)


(a member of some weird cult)


(Minnie taking things carefully)


(Minnie trotting home - the day was still hot but we had things to do ...)

Guy

PS - the b******* haven't got Kenny yet! This long zoom shot was taken yesterday:

[Padfield]

I only had time for a short walk in the valley today, but there's still enough on the wing to make every walk a butterfly walk. Here are a few piccies:


(Eastern Bath white)


(chalkhill blue)


(a very end-of-season Adonis blue)


(there are still loads of walls around...)


(... and even more tree graylings - this one is supping on my trouser leg)


(graylings are always less numerous but will be around for at least another month)


(this common blue was the size of a baby fingernail)


(female spotted fritillary)

Most interesting was this Pyrgus skipper, which I first took, without thinking really, to be rosy grizzled:



She was flitting around low, checking out some species of Potentilla for laying. I assumed she was rosy grizzly because she obviously wasn't grizzly and these are the only two species I see here late in the year. But then I caught a glimpse of the underside and was eventually able to get a single, very poor picture of it - she never stopped moving.



This is clearly not rosy grizzly. The only other Pyrgus species that fly at this site are carthami (safflower) and serratulae (olive). There are reasons to exclude both, so I'm not sure what to think. I'll do some analysis tomorrow.

The squirrels were very active and visible for a while. Unfortunately, I was the wrong side of the tree, but I got a shot or two.



The vast majority of our squirrels are black. Every so often I see a red or half-red one, but these are the exception.

Guy

[Wurzel]

Good to see you're still shoe-horning everything in Guy - it's a skill-set that I'm just starting to develop

Have a goodun

Wurzel

ps No Jack the pupils/students generally call me 'Sir'. I've told them that I had it changed by Deed Poll many years ago and they've bought it

[Padfield]

Yup - 'shoehorn' just about sums it up!

After a working week of glorious sun it was pretty miserable this weekend.



That shot was taken yesterday afternoon, at my cardinal site, where despite the rain I did manage to see a single female, high in flight, landing in a tree. I couldn't relocate her in the tree. Cycling to the site I saw a few whites and a single blue (probably common) but apart from the cardinal there was nothing at the site itself apart from a handful of walls and a couple of red admirals.

Talking of red admirals, a great capture-mark-release exercise was carried out on Thursday and Friday (while I was at school, working ...) on two local cols (passes), clocking up an incredible 7000 individuals (see photos here: https://goo.gl/photos/Q5JYK92fZTqMBr497). Let us hope there are plenty of sightings of these butterflies as they wend their way south. Even in the rain today I saw two red admirals - it has been a remarkable summer for them.

The local white admiral cats are still easy to find. This fat, third-grader is the nearest to my house:



There are few signs of hibernaculum construction yet. This is one, but I'm not sure the caterpillar sitting next to it is even alive still - he looks rather off-colour in the middle:



This still tiny cat is aiming to eat the whole leaf ...



Finally, Kenny is still cheating death. As usual, this photo is taken on full zoom, from a distance, owing to his inaccessible location:



Guy

[Padfield]

A fresh white admiral hibernaculum, not far from my house:




(note the copious silk attaching the hibernaculum leaf to the stem)



I don't know if it is finished or if he will stitch it up some more before he goes to sleep for the winter.

When I first approached Kenny's corner I thought he had been taken as his seat was vacated:



But he was still there - feeding just out of sight from that angle:



He is now just over two months old. He was born on 6th August:



He's done well to survive this far (the only survivor of 5 eggs I found this year) but there is a long way to go yet. A purple emperor spends over 10 perilous months as a caterpillar. It's amazing to me any survive to fly.

Guy

[Padfield]

Some more white admiral hibernacula and cats from a rather cold walk yesterday:






(I think this is a failed hibernaculum - and I don't know if the caterpillar is still alive)


(this little chap is still hanging on a non-hibernaculum leaf)

Kenny is back to his silk seat.

Guy

[Padfield]

Early evening today:



Kenny is just beginning to turn ... Here's the usual, distant shot, in half-light! I hope he hibernates somewhere a little more accessible.



Guy