www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

You'll run out of Buffy characters at this rate Guy!

That would be a good excuse to get out the box sets and watch them again, Buggy!

Sadly, Buffy was the first one I found of this brood and the first to be slain ... I haven't seen her since 31st July 2017, when she was still 1st instar:





Guy

Padfield wrote:Thank you David, Goldie and Andrew.

I must confess to being a little obsessed with purple emperor caterpillars.

You are not alone with that obsession Guy, it is a worldwide disorder ... ... and no known cure....

Padfield wrote:
The giveaway in both cases was the pattern of feeding damage on nearby leaves, but both were also interesting in that they shared they patches with other herbivores. Normally, I take the presence of non-iris damage to mean it's not worth looking just there for iris. But this leaf spray shows both - iris on the right and something else on the left:



Guy

Yes iris larvae feeding evidence is very distinctive particularly in late summer and until the leaves fall with the approach of winter. On two occasions when taking a roadside comfort break when travelling in terra incognita to me, those giveaway signs have showed two new to me iris localities. One in West Sussex in the late 1960s and the other in Central France a few years later. My late friend, Peter Cribb revisited the French locality the following summer and it proved to be a strong site for iris. The West Sussex locality was the finest of the two dozen or so sites for this butterfly I know of in the UK. I spent many happy hours there throughout the 1970s and never saw another soul in any of my visits during the four seasons. Sadly, a change of woodland management with massive planting of alien pine species excluded most butterflies. Not even a Speckled Wood seen on my last visit about twelve years ago.

I used to breed a range of Apatura species back in the 1970-80s but that required 24/7/365 attention. A must with livestock. All that had to stop in the mid-1980s when I became a father of two fine sons who consumed much time too... Something had to give. Prior to that, I occasionally gave talks on Butterfly Breeding and how best to see them when out and about. I prepared a card with three Salix leaves showing what to look for in late summer until the leaves fall with the onset of winter. Here is a digital image of a laptop screen image of a Photo bucket image of mine I can no longer access and post owing to Photobucket's changes of hosting policy. Those are two 6x4 Prints .. Old technology ...
My "Penins" shorthand labelling of those suspended iris pupae were actually iris livestock I raised for several generations from the extreme eastern edge of its Worldwide range in South Korea. RED Pins for female pupae, Blue for Males. Last time I checked, it was Apatura iris peninsularis but name changes may have occurred since those long ago days. The Korean iris were on average slightly larger than UK ones with often a beautiful mauve sheen over much of the underside hindwings. Otherwise identical. I was told that the species in some parts of Siberia is even larger. My contact for them lost touch and I never was able to raise some of those.

EDIT TO ADD @: 22:53

This is what my once finest UK iris locality looked like when I visited about a dozen years ago. Totally unsuitable for most of the superb woodland species which were once there in abundance.
This wider shot shows the size of those massive pines compared to my trusty Rover 620ti. I remember when they were seedlings planted about one metre high ...

A tragedy that a site like that should be lost, CC. On the other hand, I believe the species is returning to former strongholds in East Anglia, so the empire is still thriving.

Little by little, spring is edging into summer. Black hairstreaks are on the wing in Geneva and Vaud. Yesterday, in Geneva, the weather was fantastic and plenty of them were dancing inaccessibly over high stands of blackthorn. I didn't get a single photo-opportunity. Today, in Vaud, the sky was overcast and it even rained off and on during the morning, but one hairstreak kindly settled just long enough for me to get a poor shot. My camera struggles in low light conditions:



This green hairstreak was also enjoying the privet. The sky was completely overcast but in the warmth he or she was really quite active:



Surprisingly, the season in Vaud seems more advanced than in Geneva. Yesterday I saw no pearly heaths in a pearly heath stronghold. Today they were everywhere:



Another spring-into-summer species is black-veined white. None stopped yesterday. In today's dull conditions, this one did:



One of my targets yesterday was large copper. I saw no males, but two females crossed my path. This one first settled near my (patent non-leather) boot:





Knapweed and heath fritillaries are both on the wing now. I also saw quite a few Reverdin's blues yesterday, but they were mostly flying in a reserve where dogs aren't allowed, so I was carrying Minnie in my backpack and had my other backpack on my front. Photography was therefore quite difficult!!

This first, awful shot is interesting only in that it shows two males going at it like lovers in the grass. They never actually coupled, but it did look like the preamble to love:



The next shot is a male I photographed with Minnie on my back. He is relatively worn and has lost the lovely 'argy' whiteness:



I would probably have called this female idas had I seen her elsewhere, because of the dirtiness of the fringes. She may indeed be idas - it is quite possible both fly there - but my intuition is still that she is argyrognomon:



Finally, the annual shot of black kites gathering in the Geneva skies:



Guy

Padfield wrote:
A tragedy that a site like that should be lost, CC. On the other hand, I believe the species is returning to former strongholds in East Anglia, so the empire is still thriving.

Guy

"Still thriving"

Returning or been there all the time at such a low level, even frequent visits at the right time show no visual evidence of their presence? Hard to say.

The best way to see if the bug is present in the Woods is searching the Sallows and Willows in late August, September and October for larvae when the population of iris is far greater than it will be come the next Spring and Summer. I have found larvae still on the leaves in November.

Back in my early bug-hunting days, I drove past a number of ideal looking suitable iris habitat to reach woodlands where I knew it existed. As the years passed I would break my journey and check for them at those woods I once drove past. Guess what... it was there!

That's the way it goes sometimes.. Good eh.

Beautiful Large Copper, Guy, but even that is eclipsed by your wonderful, mint-fresh Pearly Heath.

I suspect you're right, CC. For such a large, striking butterfly, the purple emperor can be surprisingly discreet.

Thanks, David. Here's another copper I know you have a soft spot for:


(male violet copper)


(female violet copper)

You might remember that the last time I went up for this species I was reduced to photographing green hairstreaks on the snow. There was no spring vegetative growth at all after the long, hard winter. Today the bistort was in full leaf and the aconite-leaved buttercups in flower everywhere. It was in fact mostly overcast, and all these pictures were taken under cloudy conditions, but I found the butterfly spread over a large area.

Not all were that fresh. This was the first I saw:



Nor were all very violet:



This is a glimpse of the underside of the same butterfly:



Here are a few more pictures:





This is another female:





The females weren't laying so I'll probably go up again in a week or so to see if I can photograph some eggs.

Little else was on the wing. Normally, the violet coppers are accompanied by the first marsh fritillaries of the year, and often Titania's fritillaries. Today, only dingy skippers, little blues, green hairstreaks and a single chequered skipper.

Here is a little blue:



Guy

Oooooh those Coppers, especially that last female

Agreed. That female is to die for!

Thanks Buggy and Buzzard. Males emerge first and are quickly more worn than females, which seem to be pristine at the moment. I'll see what it's like in a week or so. I'd like to photograph the eggs, to add to my copper collection.

On 6th June 2015 I witnessed an unprecedented poplar admiral bonanza at a site in the Canton of Geneva. Here is a photo from that day, showing two poplar admirals in the same cluster (the rest are white admirals):



Understandably, I thought I'd found the world epicentre for populi. Nevertheless, repeat visits in 2016 and 2017 to the same rides in the same woods drew complete blanks. Today I paid my first visit for 2018, again drawing a blank for populi. I'll try again next week, but I'm wondering if what I saw in 2015 really was a one-off. I walked the area from 10h00 until about 14h30 today, clocking up over 20km in the process, and not a sniff of the big one. To be fair, there weren't that many of the little one either - I saw probably 20 in total. This contrasts very unfavourably with the maximum counts there, which can be in the thousands.





The lack of populi was compensated for by two species I've never seen there before. The first was black hairstreak. My normal black hairstreak sites are some 30km away, the other side of Geneva. I've seen ilex hairstreak here before but never black, so this was a good sighting. In fact, I saw two, in different parts of the woods. Neither landed very happily for pictures, but here they are anyway:





It just shows you have to keep your eyes open, whatever you're looking for!

The other surprise was large copper - also 30km from any other large coppers I've seen. I'd always imagined this species should fly here, but it's a nature reserve and the wetland parts of it are off-limits. This female was happily feeding on privet by a road:





The other notable species - though I am fortunate to have a large population of this near my home, so I don't need to go to Geneva - was woodland brown, which is just coming onto the wing:



I'm not a fan of arty shots, preferring context and naturalism. But this black-veined white, photographed into the sun, insisted there should be absolutely no background at all. It really wasn't my choice or intention :



Guy

I was loving the Pearly Heaths and then the Violet Coppers Guy and then you knock it out of the park with the final image of the Black-veined White

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Padfield wrote:Thanks, David. Here's another copper I know you have a soft spot for...

I certainly do, Guy, and I covet yours (particularly the males) even more than I do the Pyrenean race.

The more northerly specimens seem to have a greater profusion of irridescent purple....although I'm not complaining - to see it at all is a joy.

Lovely lovely butterflies in your recent posts Guy, cheered up my Monday no end.

Guy, love the admiral bonanza. I get excited when I see a single example. What you have there is amazing.
Like your good self, I prefer photographs to be as natural as possible, but I'll gladly make an exception for that Black Veined White. On my occasional ventures to mainland Europe, I always enjoy seeing them. They might not be packed with colour, but they are stunning nonetheless.

Kind Regards
Kev

Thanks Wurzel, David, Andrew and Kev.

I'll try again for populi next weekend, weather permitting. It is one of my all-time favourite butterflies and just one would be nice ...

On my local iris front, all my 5th instar cats disappeared on schedule without trace. Given that Principals Flutie and Snyder, as well as Harmony and Darla, were in isolated saplings of which I could check every leaf, I know they must have packed their bags and set off across the ground. Searching nearby bushes (sycamore, hazel, ash and bramble, as there are no nearby sallows) has so far produced no results but I will keep trying.

In the spirit of trying, I idly scanned some inaccessible sallows with my binoculars on my lunchtime walk today and was delighted to spot another late 5th instar iris cat - Oz - lurking near the top of one. I hadn't looked there earlier in the year because these trees are off the path and too distant for easy checking:



This is where the super-zoom comes into its own. It's not a great picture, but I was able to get a record shot of Oz and establish that he was indeed nearing the end of his leaf-bound life:



Now, if he pupated the other side of that leaf, I would never be able to see him from the path, so I tried to find a vantage point from the side. I took one, blurry photo ...



... and then the next moment he was gone. It turned out he was zooming up the tree to a higher leaf, which he set about demolishing:









Sadly, I had 11th Grade Theory of Knowledge expecting a lesson and had to leave Oz guzzling away. This is a final view from my first vantage point:



The woods must be full of pupae and cats shortly to pupate. Patience and careful observation over the next couple of weeks might pay off. Of the five pupae I have found in the past, I only knew two as caterpillars.

Guy

It looks as though you may be in for a bumper Iris season, Guy.
The experts here seem to be predicting a good season, I hope so,
as anticipation is beginning to build.
Also I hope you find your Poplar Admiral, surely the only Butterfly
that can eclipse an Emperor for sheer majesty.

Best wishes,
Trevor.

Excellent report, Guy. I can't even start to imagine a Purple Emperor larva wandering across the forest floor! Which, I assume, would only ever be done under the cover of darkness.

Cheers,

- Pete

Superb images in your latest post Guy. You sure know how to get the best out of a camera. Always good to see them. Fifty odd years I bought a pair of Zeiss West 10 x 50 Binoculars. They cost me a month's take home salary back then. It was money well spent. I used them to observe PEs settling down high in the trees in the evening. Usually head down and high on an East facing spray of leaves presumably to catch the first warming rays of the Sun come daylight. I also spotted ova with them too. Mostly at or near eye level but almost impossible to closely access because of masses of painful thorny plants in the way. These 10 x 50 Bins are still giving excellent service to this day.

In other news, disappointed at a poor showing of Brimstone larvae on my two potted Alder Buckthorns when I carefully checked them a few days ago, removing several small spiders, small slugs and snails during the search, all potential predators of ova and small larvae, I did a follow up check today.

Imagine my surprise to count twenty Brimstone larvae! Most were first or second instar so still very small. Four or five were up around 15mm in length already. Today's observations provided an answer to my "cannibal" question. Several larvae were on the same terminal growing tips within a few millimetres of each other. Three individuals very close. So, no evidence of cannibalism that you can see with Orange Tips and a few other species. Have actually witnessed that with OT larvae more than once.

Even so, I do not think there will be sufficient leaves to see 20+ ( I probably overlooked others ) larvae to maturity. If it gets too much I will remove a few larvae and place them on plants I planted in my own little nature reserve ten miles away in West Glos. I have both types of Buckthorn there. They are substantial plants now. Wild females lay on them most years.

I hope you're right, Trevor! I actually see very few adult purple emperors in a typical year. The forest is vast and I think they persist at a generally much lower density than is normal at the top English sites.

Thanks, Pete! It strikes me as very unlikely all the 5th instars I've been following were miraculously eaten by birds just as they reached maturity, and as they're not in their trees I think they must have taken the ground route.

Thanks too, CC. Interesting what you say about the brimstones. Both the batches of eggs (on alder buckthorn) I have followed so far this year have failed. I'll keep checking - last year it was the latest batches that produced the best cats.

As you might expect, I checked on Oz again this evening. When I arrived he was head-down on his original leaf:



That's absolutely the best picture I could get - he's a long way away and it was getting dark!

As I watched, he turned round and adopted the more standard head-up position:





It would be great if he nipped over the top of that leaf and pupated beneath it but I have learnt not to try and double-guess these canny creatures. It's definitely a good leaf, and they never pupate on leaves they have eaten, but I'm not holding my breath ...

Guy

I'm almost holding my breath for you, Guy. I'd love it so much if you were able to follow a larva into a pupa into an adult....surely your persistent observations MUST pay dividends sooner or later?