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Thank you Wurzel for your kind comments, appreciated as always. The only local loction i am seeing Red Admirals is my garden, for all the Ivy that grows around here, no other sightings of this butterfly, or any other for that matter have been made.

All the best Nick.

Lovely Red Admiral photos Nick, not easy to get a good shot because of the variation of brown inner-wings with orange, white and black outside

Mike

Thank you for your kind comments Mike, appreciated. The only Red Admirals i am seeing around here are in my garden. Saves on the legs though.

All the best, Nick.

27th October..

It was the eve of the storm that hit Southern England. The wind was already blowing a small gale so i was surprised to see a Red Admiral attached to the Choisya at the back of my garden, taking in as much nectar before the wind became too much and, it had to retire back to it`s chosen hidey-hole to hibernate.
I had already managed a few shots of the butterfly with it`s wings open, so all i needed was a couple of closed wing photos. The only trouble was the butterfly only closed it`s wings when it became too blustery, so proved rather difficult. But i perservered as did the butterfly, and eventually i managed one or two partial closed wing shots, but what i was really after was a complete closed wing photo. Eventually a Bee landed a bit to close for the Red Admiral`s liking, and as the butterfly took flight, it gave me the split second i needed to get a shot off, and capture the albeit slightly out of focus full closed wing photo that i wanted. 30th Oct. i saw another Red Admiral in my garden. Was it to be the last butterfly i would see this year in my garden? Time would only tell....

On 15th November i saw two more Red Admirals during my lunch hour, two weeks after i saw my last butterfly.

Lovely shots Nick my favourite is the third one down - the subtlety of the markings and the cooled proboscis - brill

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Hi Wurzel,

Thank you for your kind comments, as always appreciated. I`m glad you liked the 3rd photo of the Red Admiral with it`s wings closed most of all, as it was a particularly difficult shot to obtain thanks to the very blustery conditions, but well worth the efffort and patience it took to get the picture.

All the best, Nick.

Life cycle of a Clouded Yellow

I was fortunate enough to have reared a Clouded Yellow this year and managed to capture the life cycle on film. The life cycle of any living creature is a subject i find fascinating and, being able to witness this spectacle and to learn from the experience from my own home was one of the highlights of the year for me.

The pale yellow/off white coloured eggsare laid on the either side of a leaf, commonly in this country on plants such as Bird`s-foot Trefoil and Red Clover. The eggs take seven days to hatch and, after four days the eggs turn a orange/red colour,then twentyfour hours before the emergence of the larva it turns a bluey-grey.

Wonderful shots of the Clouded Yellow Ova - I look forward to the next instalment .

Hi William,

Thank you for your comments, appreciated. I will post more photos as and when i sort them out.

All the best, Nick.

Cracking shots again Nick, looking forward to a bluey/gray egg and then the various instars

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Thank you for your comments Wurzel, appreciated. My next posting will be of the bluey/grey ova, plus the little lady that has just emerged from it, side by side.

All the best, Nick.

Great stuff Nick,

looking forward to the next installments.

All the best,

Neil.

Thank you for your comments Neil, appreciated. I hope the forthcoming photos are up to scratch, but i do have one or two pictures that are not that clever. Thats the problem with having to work and, trying to do a project like this. Rushing home at lunch time or in the evening after work, hoping that the light is right and shooting off a few shots in a couple of minutes, hoping for the best that you can capture something different but interesting. But as you well know it does`nt always work like that.

All the best, Nick.

Life cycle of a clouded Yellow.......... continued

It was now the 7th day since the ovum was first laid, so before i left for work i looked in on it, and found the ovum had turned a bluey-grey in colour overnight. I came home at lunch time to find the ovum still intact and, then when i returned home after work i checked it again to find there had still been no action. I looked at the egg again just over an hour later only to find it had started to hatch. To say i got excited would be an understatement, i was like a child that had been given a new toy on my birthday. The first thing i did was to run indoors and tell my wife, who has absolutely no interest in butterflies, or any form of wildlife for that matter, who turned round and said, "dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes" What wonderful timing. So keeping a close eye on the hatching egg whilst eating my dinner at the same time, [running in and out of the house between throwing large amounts of food down my throat]. To my relief a few minutes after finishing my dinner the tiny larva had eaten it`s way out of the egg and wiggled it`s way onto the leaf. Taking about fifty minutes to emerge.The tiny Clouded Yellow larva along side the empty bluey/grey egg.This photo was taken just seconds after the caterpillar [about 2mm in length] hatched. The next photo depicts the eating pattern commonly found amongst 1st instar Clouded Yellow larva, eating only the upper Epidermis of the leaf, this 1st instar being six days old.When resting, which they did most of the time, the tiny larva were normally found either on the edge of their feeding leaf, or on the midrib.

Lovely shots Hideandseek - looking at your photos, I was reminded of some I took over the summer of some first instar larvae I found on white clover - they look very much like your Clouded Yellows - what do you reckon (sorry to hijack your diary)?

Thank you for your comments William, appreciated.

Your larva is definitely that of a 1st instar Clouded Yellow, slightly more advanced than mine. It has already lost the black to the rear of it`s body, as long as the larva of this species retain the black head it is a 1st instar. As far as i can tell, yours looks like it is in the transition of the body turning green, the last colouration of the 1st instar, shortly after this final process it will have it`s first moult and become a completely green 2nd instar larva.

All the best, Nick.

Fantastic shots and tale Nick, I eagerly await the next installment I can also imagine the look on your wife's face when you excitedly announced your news - my wife has a similar face which I'm sure she keeps in a drawer for just such occasions

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Thanks for your informative reply Nick . I wish I'd tried harder to keep an eye on them!

Thank you for your comments again Wurzel, appreciated as always. The look on my wife`s face as i told her my good news, totally blank, and probably thinking along the lines, how can a caterpillar hatching out of an egg get one so excited, poor boy. but if it keeps him happy, and more so, from out from under my feet all the better, i just do not understand it, whilst shaking her head from side to side.

William, you stated, i wished i had tried harder to keep an eye on them. Finding any 1st instar larva in the wild is an achievement in itself. A very high percentage of butterfly eggs and 1st instar larva are lost to predation. So keeping an eye on them in the wild is extremely difficult as i have found out for myself. You should pat yourself on the back for finding one in the fisrt place, so well done.

All the best, Nick.

Life cycle of a Clouded Yellow, continued.

The 2nd instar Clouded Yellow developed very slowly, most of the time just sitting there, not really noticing any change in it`s size, especially for the first 2 or 3 days. I only caught the caterpillar feeding a couple of times, and only towards it`s final couple of days as a 2nd instar larva when i could see it was actually growing.Early 2nd instar Clouded Yellow larva.Late 2nd instar Clouded Yellow larva just before it`s second moult.