The “Aristocrats”
14 White Admiral, 01-07-2018 Bentley Wood
The White Admirals were running late this year (over 2 weeks) – or rather I was as I didn’t get to Bentley until the start of the ‘silly season’ and so missed out on the first flush of WA’s when they are really contrasting. Instead by the time I got to the woods they were looking a little ragged and had taken on the more dark brown appearance that seems to come with age for this species. I didn’t have to work too hard to find a couple in Bentley but my later visit meant that I can’t really be sure how they fared here though if I go with my digestive tract then I’d say that here at least they seemed fewer in numbers than last year?
15 Purple Emperor, 01-07-2018 Bentley Wood
It seems that the Emperors have taken to emerging early as this year they were out a day earlier than last. Mind you this could be because once again we experienced a period of searing temperatures and June really was ‘Flaming’.
Last year I reckoned that I was the second year into the usual three year cycle and so this would be the year when I would find them down on the ground. And so it turned out. It was cracking and the day is emblazoned on my mind as I experienced the full gamut of Emperor behaviour. There was the meet and greet from on high in the car park, surging flights along the tops of the Oaks that line the main ride, exploratory glides down lower and the final descent onto something utterly repulsive and in this case canine in origin. To cap it all not only did I get the open wing shots that I’d been craving and envying for several years but I was granted a private audience/trousering! It was fantastic to finally enjoy some quality time with this species. They seemed to have a good year number wise and there were huge numbers coming in from other sites too.
16 Red Admiral, 05-04-2018 Middle Street
After seeing my first much later this year, two months later in fact, seeing them through the spring was actually really tricky. They just didn’t seem to be around perhaps they were slowed down by the Beast from the East. The cold blast just as they were getting going possibly meant that they kept their heads down and got on with the business. Then when the summer started I started seeing them much more frequently. In fact by the end of the season, as is often the way they were at pretty much every site I visited and became the final species of the year. A much better finish than beginning.
17 Painted Lady, 15-07-2018 somewhere in Surrey…
In 2017 I saw just 4 of this species over the whole year and it felt what with their much later appearance (almost 6 weeks) that 2018 was going to follow in the same vain or maybe even worse. However after my initial sighting it seemed that the floodgates had been broken as I then saw two individuals at Laverstock, singletons at Broughton Down and Shipton Bellinger as well as at least 6 while sojourning in Wales. Whilst this isn’t exactly a record busting year it certainly beats the 4 from 2017 and is one of the best years in several for this species for me. Hopefully this year will finally be the year when we get another massive invasion, it’s been almost a decade since the last one…
18 Small Tortoiseshell, 21-03-2018 Work
Over a month later this year and once again I found my first at work but surprisingly I saw a Peacock prior to my first Tortie. After the masses that I saw last year I was hoping for a repeat performance this year too but whilst I could regularly find them in double figures in the short walk round the school site occasionally getting into the high teens my record number was 20 in one visit so a couple down on my highest number last year. They were also in good numbers at Middle Street but down at Five Rivers – possibly because this is an ‘early’ site for them and I missed them when Snow stopped play?
As last year they dwindled as the month progressed and rather than seeing in the teens I could occasionally find a couple with some pretty worn ones up on Pewsey Downs almost 2 months after my first. After this they were very hard to come by in the Autumn although a Small Tort was my penultimate photographed butterfly of 2018. This marked drop-off in the summer brood happened in 2017 as well and they did okay in the Spring of 2018 so fingers crossed that they’re okay for this year.
19 Peacock, 13-03-2018 Work
Normally it’s a Small Tort photo wise and a first fleeting view of a Red Admiral but not so this year. Unusually a Peacock was my first photographed and first seen butterfly of 2019. At Fiver Rivers when I was able to catch up with them there they were about in reasonable numbers but I still wasn’t convinced that they were catching up on the Small Tort – in fact they seemed to be down this year. They too showed the familiar pattern of the other Aristos in that the Hibernators put in a good showing but then the subsequent brood was far less numerous. As always they seemed to be the first to disappear and hibernate.
20 Comma, 21-03-2018 Work
I feel like I’m writing the same thing again and again when considering the Aristos but for the sake of completeness here goes… later in emerging, not in as high numbers as last year and then much harder to find come the autumn when you’re hoping for a few Aristos to maintain interest in the closing stages of the season. I’m wondering if the really cold snap in the spring followed by the almost unbearable heat have played a part in this pattern that I saw in the hibernators? Obviously the pattern gets broken though for the Comma as the H.Comma appears around July time giving us a nice fresh dose of Comma action. However this year I can’t recall seeing as many of these either. Hopefully this is more down to me just being in the wrong place or at the wrong time? The unusual thing that I can recall is that the Comma was my second butterfly in 2019 knocking the usual Number 1, the Small Tort, down to third!
Have a goodun
Wurzel