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Just got the Autumn 2012 edition of Butterfly magazine. Another front cover Neil .
Congratulations.

Vince

Thanks Vince - I wasn't expecting it! Being a bit pernickety I would have rather seen it less tightly cropped, and shifted slightly to the right, but I'm very pleased that it was used.
I hope you've got your BC Sussex newsletter by now. I think Leigh Prevost has done a great job in editing his first edition.
While reading it I looked out of the window and saw a Holly Blue; I suspect that'll be the last I see until spring now.
BWs, Neil

Downs Link

On Saturday (6th October) I joined my parents for a walk along the Downs Link disused railway line north of Henfield. Every patch of ivy hosted a few butterflies and we probably saw a total of 20 Red Admiral and 10 Comma. Even at this late stage in the season we also found a couple of freshly emerged Speckled Wood and a third brood Green-veined White. Recent heavy rainfall had caused flooding of the farmland around the River Adur; the image below shows the beautiful Sussex countryside SW towards Chanctonbury Ring in the far distance.

Best Of 2012 - April

2012 has been a challenging year for butterfly watchers, particularly through the wettest April/May/June period on record. At times it was hard work ... very hard work. I doubt that I'll forget the many days when I, and many others I know, headed out in the most appalling conditions in the hope of finding a few butterflies. Under such conditions it was all the more satisfying when hard won success was achieved. But despite everything, when I look back through my pictorial record of the year, there were a surprising number of highlights.

Grizzled Skipper, Orange Tip and Pearl-bordered Fritillary numbers were all down on 2011 and yet they managed to make the most of brief spells of sunshine. Locally at least, the Dingy Skipper did rather well, with numbers about average when compared to recent years.

Best Of 2012 - May

The Duke of Burgundy had a poor season, following several good ones, particularly 2011. In some parts of the country the flight season was conducted under relentlessly cool and cloudy conditions without any significant sunshine - very worrying! In West Sussex, where the butterfly emerges later than in many areas of the South, their delayed appearance overlapped with a few warm and sunny days at the end of May and through early June.

The Small Blue had a poor season and the second brood was very weak on many sites. Green-veined and Wood White were both down on 2011 numbers, although neither disastrously so. The former had a better second brood and the latter coped quite well with the weather, being less reliant upon full sunshine than most species.

One of the highlights of 2012 was undoubtedly the three days I spent around Fort William, under clear blue skies and with temperatures in the mid 80s. Iain Leach and a few others who were also in the right place at the right time enjoyed a good emergence of Chequered Skipper. Before the sun appeared over the peaks one morning I found a beautiful and unusually obliging Argent & Sable moth.

Pearl-bordered Fritillary and Dingy Skipper remained on the wing throughout May.

Absolutely stunning images.

Hi Neil,

Some really nice shots

The female Chequered Skipper and the male Duke on the bracken frond are in the lead for me ...

Keep them coming.

Kind regards. Mark

Fantastic pictures of a lot of lovely species.

Thanks Susie, Mark and Nick - much appreciated. Best of June on the way!
Neil

Best Of 2012 - June

On my local patch the Small Pearl-bordered and Silver-washed Fritillary both had poor years, with the latter failing to produce any aberrant forms for me and only a single valezina. The Meadow Brown coped well with the lack of sunshine and its performance was certainly no less than average.

It is always more difficult to assess how those species which require a journey far from home fared. However, there were certainly plenty of Mountain Ringlet at Irton Fell and Lulworth Skipper at The Cove. While searching for skippers near Corfe Castle I came across the best colony of Bee Orchid I've ever seen. I ventured to East Blean Wood during the first days of emergence at the start of June, so there was only a handful of male Heath Fritillary on the wing.

Best Of 2012 - July

The weather remained poor through early and mid July but finally, around 20th July, the Jet Stream started to move northwards, allowing a glimmer of summer to finally appear. In Sussex the Silver-studded Blue, Dark Green Fritillary and Small Copper (particularly) all had relatively poor seasons. Purple Emperor numbers were down but the species was recorded in some new locations; elsewhere in the UK it did rather better. The same applies to the Grayling, with the hardy northerners of Arnside Knott doing much better than the southern softies. Marbled White and Gatekeeper coped quite well with the 2012 weather, but neither were better than average.

Throughout July I was seeing Red Admiral females at work in the nettle-beds wherever I went, and their subsequent appearance in great numbers during the autumn came as no surprise. As the end of the month approached the Chalkhill Blue started to give indications that an emergence of epic proportions was just artound the corner.

Best Of 2012 - August

By far the biggest 'winner' of 2012, of which there were really only two in Sussex, was the Chalkhill Blue. Unprecedented numbers emerged on some sites, with the combined estimate for the peak days at Friston Gallops and Amberley being in excess of 1 million butterflies, at densities of up to 33 per metre square and considerably higher when concentrated at roost. It seems that the soaking summer had allowed atypically profuse growth of lush, nitrogen-rich Horseshoe Vetch plants, capable of supporting a vast number of caterpillars; food-plant availability may well be a major factor in limiting population size in most years. With so many Chalkhill Blues around it was very easy to find aberrant forms and I discovered good numbers of ab. postcaeca at Friston (male and female examples below - first and last images). Adventurous males were seen 17.5 miles north of this site, well away from the Downs.

The Adonis Blue, the larva of which has subtly different requirements in terms of Horseshoe Vetch growth form, did not fare so well. A poor first brood was followed by a very patchy second, with only the very best-drained and warmest sites producing good numbers in August. Elsewhere the summer brood was very weak.

Small Heath did well in the spring but had a poor second brood, while Speckled Wood and Essex Skipper fell just on the wrong side of average. The Peacock had a relatively poor season and the summer brood emerged two weeks later than in recent years, subsequently going into hibernation very quickly.

Both of our late species, the Silver-spotted Skipper and Brown Hairstreak, had quite average seasons, but better weather through their flight periods will have allowed good egg-lays and bodes well for 2013. Warm, anticyclonic conditions may also have assisted colonisation of new sites, so it will be high on my list of priorities next year to look at currently unoccupied habitat patches close to existing populations.

Hi Neil,

Some more super shots

My favourites …

The Meadow Brown from June, the male Chalkhill Blue ab. postcaeca from August (weren’t they just fabulous), the Grayling pair in cop and male Dark Green Fritillary from July and the female Chequered Skipper from May (maybe next year - fingers crossed). How on earth you managed to find a pristine Peacock (in a photo worthy position AND in a year when there were hardly any around), can only suggest superglue or some element of witchcraft ...

I know it's just another brown butterfly, but knowing how difficult it is to get a really good, well composed shot of a Meadow Brown, even when you might be standing in a field full of thousands, makes it my overall favourite.

Great work.

Kind regards. Mark

Thanks Mark. As always it's a case of being in the right place at the right time. That day (8th August) I got a whole heap of Peacock photos, all of which are better than my previous best (see my August 9th posting for another). In a meadow at the base of Cissbury Ring, above Shepherd's Mead in Findon Valley, there were at least half a dozen Peacocks which clearly had just emerged. There are some very wide, rabbit-nibbled tracks amongst the longer grasses here, with a profusion of thistle and scabious etc along the edges and it was here that I took most shots. As is often the case when looking for a clean background, it helps hugely if the ground is falling away from you, and these days I habitually look for slopes when I'm on a photography mission. Well worth a visit next year on the way up to the Ring (TQ134067).
BWs, Neil

A great series of posts Neil, and some stunning photos as well

I am very interested in how your experience of the season in Sussex compares with mine in my bit of the Midlands. Common Blues and Small Coppers have had a bad year around here whereas Meadow Browns were well up as were Ringlets at their peak and Silver-washed Fritillaries seemed to be doing at least as well as last year.
White Admiral numbers seemed down again in Warwickshire yet across the border in Worcestershire they appeared to do better, I have no idea why.
Also Pearl-bordered and Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries seemed to do well in the Wyre Forest with both species seen in new locations within the forest.
Regarding Peacocks, I saw my first summer brood almost 4 weeks later than last year (along with my first second brood Common Blue) and although I saw good numbers at a couple of spots, they were only really about for 2 weeks before disappearing, presumably to hibernate.

Looking forward to your next posts,

Cheers,

Neil F.

Best Of 2012 - September

The other 'winner' of 2012 was the beautiful Red Admiral, which even now in mid October is still around in good numbers, although a steady trickle is heading south for the winter. Throughout September almost every sunny patch of flowering ivy and buddleia was covered in freshly emerged butterflies, in numbers better than I remember seeing for a very long time. The best crop, in excess of 1000, was seen at a fruit farm in Ticehurst, where they were feeding on decaying Brighton Belle plums. Also in good numbers was the Comma, following a very average mid summer brood.

After sitting on my hands for a day or two I finally gave in to temptation and headed to Portland to see the magnificent Monarch. This was one of many long journeys I made throughout the 2012 season, but there are always fascinating things to see closer to home. After finding Holly Blue caterpillars in the back garden I then started seeing them on almost every suitable patch of ivy around Worthing town centre. At this time of year the garden shears and clippers tend to come out and many ivy flowers disappear, so in 2013 I will be running a campaign to try and persuade my neighbours to hold off on this aspect of their garden tidy-up for as long as possible.

Looking back on 2012 it was undoubtedly a tough year for butterflies, and species such as the Green Hairstreak and Common Blue suffered their worst seasons I can remember. However, there were some spectacular highlights and a few days I'll never forget. I can't wait for the first Orange Tip of 2013!

Thanks Neil F. Yes, it's always interesting to find out how things vary around the UK. One species I didn't mention in my summary was the White Admiral - another firmly in the 'loser' camp I'm afraid.
BWs, Neil

A splendid series of reports and photos. I particularly like the last Comma photo, with proboscis in silhouette above the blackberry - a wonderful pose

I hope you have held back the best of the best for the Winter series that Vince Massimo has organised.

Mike

Thanks Mike. Plenty more pics in reserve, but the very bestest are being saved for a long-term project, which will take at least one more summer to complete, possibly two.
BWs, Neil

On Saturday (13th October) I spent a very enjoyable day at the Hants & IOW AGM. It was great to see so many friendly faces and I would like to say 'thank you' to Reserves Officer Jayne Chapman for looking after Michael Blencowe and me so well, bearing in mind that we had set off from Sussex without any regard for the need for food and drink between 11 am and 6 pm! It's always nice to hear what's going on over the border and we will be looking at some joint ventures with our neighbours in the future. There was a series of exceptionally good talks and as always Jeremy Thomas was brilliant. I knew that Michael would leave the audience in stitches - he always does. Combining a serious conservation message with such humour is his trademark, and it's unsurprising that he gets asked to talk to so many organisations every winter. Nice to see such a busy UKB stall too.

Hacking At Heyshott

Winter would be much harder to get through without the hope for the future generated by every work party I attend. Every Wednesday will now be dedicated to further improving on last year's efforts at Heyshott Escarpment. On 10th October I joined UKBers Mark Colvin, Colin Knight, new BC Sussex Branch Chair Nigel Symington and half a dozen Murray Downland Trust volunteers, to hack, slash, rake and burn. The lowest open pit was strimmed and cleared of cuttings, while another team started to work on the currently wooded pits at the very base of the reserve. This area used to be the village rubbish tip, but it will now have a much brighter future. Once all the secondary woodland and heavy scrub has been cleared out, this large bowl will provide a very warm and sheltered home for more Duke of Burgundy. All we need now is a better spring and summer.