Bugboys mission

[Butterflysaurus rex]

Good to see you again today Buggy, we tried to find you and say farewell but you were nowhere to be seen.

Best Wishes

James

[bugboy]

Good to see you again today Buggy, we tried to find you and say farewell but you were nowhere to be seen.

Best Wishes

James

Haha, sorry, I was wandering far and wide and left around 4ish in the end, no LTB's for me either though

[bugboy]

2nd October, Tide Mills

Another trip down south on what turned out to be a very pleasant day (despite the nightmarish journey to and from courtesy of Southern Railways).

Within a couple of minutes of arriving I heard a couple of voices calling my name, B’rex and Badgerbob pointing out a grounded Clouded Yellow which I promptly spooked . I made up for it though by quickly finding Bobs lost glasses .

Butterfly life in general was rather thin on the ground, an occasional White fluttered by but in the distance I could see a lot of activity, Sid the Shrike was still doing his thing and being a complete tart in front of his adorning public! Amongst today’s set of fans I was introduced to Mark Colving.

Between all of us though no LTB’s were to be found. Several Red Admiral flew by, mostly southwards although the odd one was flying north for reasons best known to itself! After saying my goodbyes to Mark (and losing track of the other two) my wanderings found a female Cloudie feeding whilst a flock of Curlew flew over, heading in the general direction of Brighton.

I had to wait another half hour before I found another settled butterfly, this time a rather lovely female Comma who was very reticent to fly.

My wanderings always took me back to Sid and his fans. I chatted to a few and some had come a fair distance for him. I did find it a little amusing how some were wearing full on camouflage gear and were sporting some impressively huge lenses and there was me with my puny macro in ‘normal clothes’ getting pictures like this of him. He'd decided to perch on this shrub as I walked past it and barely acknowledged my presence as I got to within 5 feet. This picture is uncropped!

The only reason I couldn't get closer to him because the shrub he was perched on was in the way

Sid is actually still in his Juvenile plumage and so in theory we’re not able to tell what sex he is just yet but my gut feeling is that he is a ‘he’. He has been seen to be singing on occasion (or at least trying to) and some of the more distant shots I’ve seen there does seem to be a hint of greyish head about him. Off course I could be completely wrong about him/her but he will always be Sid to me . It was good to see him again, not realising at the time that this was his last day here, kind of poetic to have enjoyed his company on his first and last days here

To end the day another Cloudie, this one a different male from the one I spooked at the beginning of my day, settled near me when a cloud passed over the sun and a very fresh Red Admiral perched nearby, perhaps waiting for tomorrow to start the journey south.

The season may be winding down but it’s not quite over yet!

[trevor]

Went over to Tide Mills today. The Shrike has departed. Lot's of Birder's on site, but no one saw anything.
Pleased you saw some Clouded Yellows yesterday.

Trevor.

[Butterflysaurus rex]

A nice report of an enjoyable day Buggy, I hope your journey home was a lot less troublesome. No problem at all spooking the Cloudy, we'd already moved on from him to embark on a glasses hunt. Well spotted by you, I'm just glad we didn't tread on them whilst searching!

Even though the LTB's have been elusive your discovery of the Shrike made Tidemills the place to be for many a wildlife enthusiast. I'm glad that your first sighting of a Long-tailed Blue wasn't in the beak of this very hungry carnivorous bird!!

Best wishes

James

[millerd]

More nice Clouded Yellows, Buggy. They are the one thing missing from round here at the moment - maybe one more expedition beckons...

Dave

[Wurzel]

Great Cloudy shots Bugboy and of 'Sid' - a name that works for both genders (Sidney(m) or Sidonie (f))

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

Shame about the LTB's, Bugboy, but Clouded Yellows are decent compensation.

Looks like you are having a better end of season than most.

[bugboy]

I've enjoyed following Sids escapades on here and various other websites James. Since he found it such a good hunting ground I wonder if it will be a regular stopping off point for him in future years?

I think you might have time to fit in one or two more expeditions before the weather closes in for the winter Dave

Thanks Wurzel and David, gotta squeeze in what you can at this time of year, maybe one more day for me what with a run of six days at work from Thursday

4th October, Tottenham Marshes

A little afternoon jaunt to one of my local spots that I haven't been to since April. With temperatures beginning to wane as the season comes to a close I wasn't expecting too much but when you got out of the stiff breeze the sun felt really rather warm. Despite this the Nymphalids seem to all have vanished, just one brief flyby of what was probably a Red Admiral.

There were however still several Whites flitting here and there, mostly unidentified but one male Small and a female GVW settled close enough so I didn't go home with nothing to show.

Dragonflies were out in force, Common Darters looking rather faded but still full of life

and several Migrant Hawkers hawking. I spent quite a while attempting some in-flight shots of the Hawkers which mostly turned out to be blurred blobs but the odd one came out ok-ish, certainly better than anything else I've managed in the past. I like the second one here since although it slipped out of focus (auto focus really struggles to keep up with these things) it does show how they keep their heads parallel to the horizon when turning

[bugboy]

5th October, Bookham

Another sunny Autumn day beckoned me out the house today and off to Bookham to see how the Coppers are doing. In fact I saw my first butterfly of the day within 20 mins of leaving the house, a Red Admiral fluttering around Hackney train station at 7am with the sun just poking over the horizon. I did briefly consider whipping out my camera but there's a time and a place for this sort of thing, and a busy rush hour platform isn't really it...

There was a heavy dew at Bookham and still a distinct chill in the air but a few hardy Coppers were already on the wing, presumably having chosen roosting spots that caught the morning sun, and were warm enough to require careful stalking to get close.

Slow wandering along the hedges produced another one every so often, not as many as seven days ago but still enough to make it the second best Small Copper count for a fair few years, by the time I left around 2pm I’d probably got up to around twenty individuals, still with some fresh jewels amongst the faded, aged insects.

By 12 the temperature had got very pleasant, especially when out of the brisk wind, and these last two hours was when I found the majority of them, mostly staking out patches of south facing Blackthorn hedges to make the most of the low sun.

It was whilst watching this pair of males fighting over a small patch of choice hedge I spotted a female skulking around nearby, getting very excited about a small Sorrel leaf which already had an egg on it.

Closer inspection of this leaf when she fluttered off found it to be peppered with eggs on the underside. A little searching and two further leaves were found to be as equally as popular as well as eggs found on twigs and grass stems close to the leaves. In the end I found more eggs than adults!

I did see other butterflies, three or four Red Admirals saw me long before I saw them and vanished along with a single Comma and a couple of Speckled Woods were flitting in sunny glades in the woods, but it was the Coppers day again.

Not bad for the first week of October.

Hide and seek!

watching me watching you!

[Wurzel]

Great Coppers Bugboy - that was quite a haul of eggs I wonder what the success/conversion rate is like?

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Paul Harfield]

Hi Bugboy
I have to agree with Wurzel, that is a magnificent haul of Small Copper eggs . I have yet to see one. Is that a typical number of eggs per leaf?
Small Coppers seem to be putting on an unusually good show this Autumn though they were a bit elusive around here last weekend. Glad you are still finding plenty .

[bugboy]

Great Coppers Bugboy - that was quite a haul of eggs I wonder what the success/conversion rate is like?

Have a goodun

Wurzel

I'm not sure what the success rate would be in this case, they will most likely go into hibernation shortly after hatching if what I read is true so I'm not sure how easy it would be to keep track of any. Maybe worth a few visits to see if I can find any signs of activity in the spring though.

Hi Bugboy
I have to agree with Wurzel, that is a magnificent haul of Small Copper eggs . I have yet to see one. Is that a typical number of eggs per leaf?
Small Coppers seem to be putting on an unusually good show this Autumn though they were a bit elusive around here last weekend. Glad you are still finding plenty .

They really are amazing to see, proper little marvels of nature .

To quote Thomas/Lewington page 106: Later Broods almost invariably choose small, sprouting sorrels that are growing in warm, exposed positions, often selecting plants with no more than two or three little leaves... there is no doubt that small, fresh sorrels can be peppered with Small Copper eggs after a good summer. Frohawk describes finding an extreme example with 'over 300 eggs and many young larvae upon very small plants of sorrel growing on a dry bankin a space of 15 or 20 yards'

No quite as extreme in numbers and no larvae but other than that small detail it pretty much perfectly describes what I found

[bugboy]

12th October, Bookham

Another few hours at my home from home today. It wasn’t as sunny as the last few days but in the few sunny patches that did appear I was graced with the presence of a couple of Coppers. Just two males seen today but I’m sure more were lurking in the pastures and scrub.

The main reason for today’s visit though was to see how the eggs I found last week were doing (hopefully not munched on by the cows currently working away here) and to see if any had hatched. It didn’t take long to relocate the patch, with Sorrel leaves still peppered on both sides with eggs and turning over the largest leaf I found my very first wild Small Copper larvae . With my naked eye it just looked like a tiny pale green smudge and it wasn’t until I looked at the pictures on my camera that I could see the bizarre hairs down its back, like it’s wearing some false eyelashes !

It took a little wander, probably due to my attentions, and ended up posing next to an unhatched egg. (I checked on it before leaving a few hours later and it had settled down again along the midrib of the leaf).

How many eggs can you see? (clue, double figures)

I did spend a bit of time looking for Brown Hairstreak eggs as well but most of the Blackthorn is still in leaf so perhaps in a few weeks’ time I’ll have better luck. I did come across this Dark Bush-cricket Pholidoptera griseoaptera, serenading a couple of females who were lurking nearby in the undergrowth.

It was as I was preparing to leave that a tiny white speck caught my eye on a leafless stunted Blackthorn sucker. A Brown Hairstreak egg in the same spot I saw the female fluttering around two weeks previously.

A rather productive few hours in the middle of October

[Butterflysaurus rex]

Your Copper cat is a great find! I hope most of them survive, we're long overdue a good Small Copper year. Especially round these parts.

BW's

James

[Katrina]

Great photos, very interesting

[Wurzel]

Great find here Bugboy Great description of the false eyelashes

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

Tremendous find, BB, particularly given how minuscule it is.

[bugboy]

Thanks All had I not noticed the female ovipositing the previous week it's highly unlikely I'd have noticed the eggs, never mind the little larvae!

For those who are interested here's that picture again with all 21 eggs labelled, admittedly some are mere out of focus smudges tucked away behind stems but they are there, honest

[Chris Jackson]

Nice images Bugsie, you've really got your nose to the ground.
I wish I could do the same.
Chris