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Hi Trevor
I'm not really sure why Brown Hairstreak males are so reluctant to come down low at Steyning, but that's always been the case, even going back to the years when thistle and other nectar sources were plentiful. On the other hand, the males have always performed well at Shipton Bellinger. I'd be happy enough if we can get back to the days when I'd see as many as 20 females down low in a morning at Steyning. Fingers crossed for next year.

Hi David
How times have changed! Prior to 2013, I would have been tempted to travel some distance if a single Long-tailed Blue had been reported in the UK. Our expectations have changed beyond all recognition, along with the species' status.
Even now, there are plenty of Brown Hairstreak flying in Sussex. While sitting outside the converted barn, where we start our Knepp safaris, I saw three fly across the lawn in just 15 minutes a couple of days back ... and another yesterday.

BWs, Neil

Planting Primula

It's that time of year when the fast-fading flight season gives way to habitat management work, which I see as some payback for all the pleasure that butterflies have given me over the spring and summer. In recent years, much of this work has become my day job, but I still try to fit in as much voluntary work as I can, particularly when helping out such good causes as the Steyning Downland Scheme.

On Saturday (25 October), I joined a dozen SDS volunteers to plant out c.1500 Primula plugs, which had been collected as seed from a local source and grown-on. Following much habitat enhancement over areas identified as being potentially suitable for Duke of Burgundy, during the Dukes of Steyning project (2014 - 2016), the target species made its first appearance here in 2020. Numbers were encouraging in the spring of 2021, suggesting that the Duke is gaining a firm foothold. Hopefully, these additional larval food-plants will ensure that His Grace is here to stay.

Neil Hulme wrote: ↑Tue Sep 28, 2021 12:00 pmIt's that time of year when the fast-fading flight season gives way to habitat management work, which I see as some payback for all the pleasure that butterflies have given me over the spring and summer.

Agreed, Neil. You have certainly done more than most on this front, and I hope you will be able to continue. Good luck during the 'grafting' period and I'm sure your efforts will bear dividends.

Thank you, David. There's already been plenty of work going on at the BC Park Corner Heath reserve. Here are a few images of the fab volunteers who have given their time so generously over the last couple of months. Images by Fiona Symington and Bob Foreman.
BWs, Neil

A great effort Neil. The bracken was the most luxuriant I have ever seen it at PCH this year.
I spent an hour pulling some up by the roots in the summer, with little to show for it.

Fingers crossed for the SPBF IN 2022.

Have a great Christmas and 2022.
Trevor.

Congratulations!

Belated congratulations to Will Langdon for winning the 2021 UK Butterflies Outstanding Contribution Award. I can't think of a more deserving recipient. Will is one of the bright young stars of the butterfly and moth world, and butterflies will need others like him in the future. It's so sad that we lost one of his contemporaries this year, in the shape of Douglas Boyes.

Congratulations also to Katrina, for winning the 2021 UK Butterflies Annual Photography Competition, and thanks to the judges for taking the time to perform a difficult and often thankless task. There were so many good entries this year, and plenty of other shots could have ended up in the chosen half-dozen. I've seen plenty of similar shots to Mark Searle's Silver-studded Blues, but that one is perfectly pretty-in-pink; that said, his pair of High Browns shaded it for me. Similarly, I slightly preferred Nigel Kiteley's Orange-tip over his Marbled Whites, but both photographers had to be in there somewhere. IAC's Orange-tip would also have been among my own choices. On a slightly different note, Toby Ludlow's trio of aberrant forms had me positively drooling!

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all UKBers a very Merry Christmas and a happy and butterfly-filled 2022.

Thanks, Trevor, wishing you a wonderful Christmas and great New Year too.
Rest assured, the naughty Bracken has been given a severe thrashing.
BWs, Neil

Knepp 2021 Deer Rut

This year, I led more safaris at the Knepp Wildland than ever before, ranging from spring tours to enjoy the Nightingales, Cuckoos, Turtle Doves and the vast numbers of warblers which arrive here to breed, through the Purple Emperor season, and into the autumn, when the deer rut provides a grand finale to the wildlife tourism calendar. However, there's always something of interest at Knepp year-round, and only yesterday I was there with my kids, watching Barn Owls hunting.

Here are a few images of some of Knepp's Red and Fallow Deer, seen either on or before/after my walks. Both species grow to immense proportions here. The last image shows one of our safari vehicles, the Austrian Pinzgauer, crossing what is usually a small stream, following flash floods in early October.

Nice to see you've been keeping busy, Neil. That last image from Knepp really does merit the description 'safari'. If you didn't know the location, you could be fooled for believing that it was taken somewhere in Africa!

All the best for Christmas and New Year. I hope 2022 will be a more positive year for all of us.

Thanks, David. The scene was even more safari-like just ten minutes before this was taken, as half-a-dozen White Storks were parading up-and-down the water's edge, grabbing any invertebrates or small mammals escaping from the flood water.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a much better 2022, for both people and butterflies.

BWs, Neil

Snowflake On The Beach

These days, for me, birding is almost entirely restricted to the winter months, although I put a lot more effort into chasing them in my youth. This usually means spending a little time on the South Downs near Arundel, watching Short-eared Owls, Hen Harriers and the many other raptors which are thriving on the Norfolk Estate. However, one species which will always get me moving is the beautiful Snow Bunting, which occasionally appears on the beaches of the South Coast, not least because they remind me of the years I spent in Scotland. This one appeared in Worthing in late November and was typically confiding, allowing a very close approach.

Flying Start

A walk through Rewell Wood today (1 January) produced a Red Admiral, Peacock and Buff-tailed Bumblebee during the single ten-minute spell of milky sunshine. 2022 is off to a flyer!

The primary reason for my visit was to look at the PBF habitat recently created both by the Norfolk Estate and South Downs National Park Authority (supported by the SD Volunteer Ranger Service). I've never seen so much excellent PBF habitat in one place, some of which is easily accessible to the public; if the weather plays ball (unlike last year), it could be a bumper year for the species here.

Neil Hulme wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 5:58 pm Flying Start

A walk through Rewell Wood today (1 January) produced a Red Admiral, Peacock and Buff-tailed Bumblebee during the single ten-minute spell of milky sunshine. 2022 is off to a flyer!

The primary reason for my visit was to look at the PBF habitat recently created both by the Norfolk Estate and South Downs National Park Authority (supported by the SD Volunteer Ranger Service). I've never seen so much excellent PBF habitat in one place, some of which is easily accessible to the public; if the weather plays ball (unlike last year), it could be a bumper year for the species here.

Excellent, Neil. I'm sure plenty of butterflies were on the wing yesterday in those places where the sun made an appearance. With extraordinary temperatures of 16c in some places it must have felt more like April!!

Encouraging to hear of the first class PBF habitat at Rewell. Let's hope conditions during their flight period this year are rather better than in 2021.

After such brilliant work a record smashing year will surely soon occur if a few factors line up correctly.

Last year I spent a fruitless couple of afternoons in early April searching for larvae there, but with frozen fingers I couldn’t stick it for long - unfortunately a sign of things to (or not to) come.

It was still an impressive and enjoyable flight period at this site though, but with so much potential for fireworks, you couldn’t help but feel a little disappointment. Fingers crossed PBF will kick 2022 off with a bang…..

Thanks, David and Ben. Last year was indeed a damp, cold squib, with PBF numbers about 70% below expectations. But the big one's coming - I can feel it in my waters.
BWs, Neil

Park Corner Heath 9.1.22

Many thanks to all who joined me for another magnificent push towards the ever more complete reclamation of lowland heath habitat at Park Corner Heath on Sunday. We may have been a little lower in number than normal, but we did benefit from having the 7th Armoured Division with us - socially distanced brushcutters and chainsaw, so we achieved a great deal. However, it would be great if we could get a few more infantry along for the next campaign (Sunday 13 February at 10.00 am) as their contribution is vital.

Large Tortoiseshell

Yesterday afternoon (22 March), I attended a meeting on the Sussex reserves with Julian Bendle (BC's Senior Land Use Officer), Forestry Commission and Natural England. This gave me the morning free to visit Friston Forest, in the hope of tracking down Stephen Riggs' Large Tortoiseshell (19.3.22). Despite failing to locate the beast, I saw plenty of post-hibernators there, many of which (particularly Comma and Peacock) were congregating to feed high up on the Sallow flowers. At times I had up to five Brimstone in sight and I watched a Small Tortoiseshell laying eggs.

After our group meeting on the reserves, we had just reached the top edge of Rushy Meadow (Rowland Wood) when a Large Tortoiseshell glided majestically past me at shoulder height. Most of the group probably thought I'd lost my marbles when I shouted 'Large Tortoiseshell' and gave chase. I couldn't keep up with it but could still see it about 50 metres ahead of me as it reached the in-reserve parking area, but it then looped round and powered back towards and past me, close enough to see that it appeared to be richly coloured and probably in good condition. As it reached and passed Julian, he did his best to track it as it dropped down into the Bracken in the northern part of Birch Meadow, clearly going to roost in the now rapidly cooling air. Rather than search for a needle-in-a-haystack, I'll be heading out there this morning. Andrea Gibbs photographed a Large Tortoiseshell here in 2019, and Trevor Rapley followed suit in 2021.

Carry On Coppicing

I recently visited a site where a friend and I have been coppicing Hazel since 2016, as I wanted to keep my photographic record up-to-date. Our work here forms part of a larger project to create a network of actively coppiced sites between Arundel (Rewell Wood) and Worthing, which we've been working on with the South Downs National Park Authority (staff and volunteers) and several very helpful landowners. The intention is to assist the recovery of species such as Pearl-bordered Fritillary and Duke of Burgundy, on a landscape-scale.

The first image shows the coppice coupe we cut this winter, looking typically barren. The other habitat shots show areas cut the previous winter, which are now bursting with Primrose and Common Dog-violet. Elsewhere in the wood, Wild Daffodils were approaching peak, although their distribution is limited to a small patch here. I took my lunch by a small stream, where three male Comma were squabbling over a territory, regularly displacing each other. Before I knew it, an hour-and-a-half had slipped away; a welcome distraction while much of the world appears to have gone mad.

Those images of the clearances look very much like what's been done at Bookham this winter, can't wait to see how things develop in the coming seasons there

There has been quite a lot of coppicing going on in my 2 local woods this winter (and is still going on at present, 2 or 3 times a week). I will be interested to see what difference it makes. The area where much of it is going on in one place was quite popular with Speckled Woods. I was interested to note that in the aftermath of the work undertaken, about 6-8 bird boxes have been hammered in to the trees that remain.