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Hi folks

The first decent day for what seems like a year and I was in the car pack at BW at 0810 (I live 5 miles away!). I've been visiting the wood for the last 2 or 3 years and have never seen a Purple Emperor. Over the last few weeks I've been going whenever I can whenever it has been even vaguely nice. Today I got lucky.

After walking to the elms to see if the White Letter Hairstreaks were about (they weren't although someone in the car park later said they were so I was unlucky), I walked back towards the visitors centre. I saw something large flitter in the the top of an oak and thought I had lost it but when I got the bins out, I found a female Purple Emperor. She sat there for the best part of an hour, moving aound the leave cluster and feeding on something (lots of proboscis activity). Excellent!

I also saw;

3 x White Admiral
10 x Red Admiral
1 x Small Tortoiseshell
10 x Comma
Many Silver Washed Fritillary including a valezina in the car park
3 x Marble White
100+ Ringlets
a pair of Essex Skippers mating

Here's a pic of the PE high in the tree (don't laugh I only had 3 x zoom!)



And the mating pair of Essex Skippers



I left the car park at 12:00 and there were ~30 cars there!!!

Cheers

Bill

Your Purple Emperor Photo looks like my Purple Emperor photos!

I remember being at the car park in BW once and there was a bloke there who was about 65 or so, and when he saw his first Emperor (a tatty female that decended down upon us), he literally jumped for joy. He lept in the air and clicked his heels together. It was quite funny!

Danny

Great skipper shot Bill! Although I think your skippers may be Small Skipper - there's definitely a brown tinge on their ends.

Cheers,

- Pete

Pete Eeles wrote:Great skipper shot Bill! Although I think your skippers may be Small Skipper - there's definitely a brown tinge on their ends.

Cheers,

- Pete

Thanks Pete. I wasn't sure but I thought that one was an Essex (the one closest in the above photo) and one was a small but they wouldn't interbreed (by mistake) would they? I've lots of photos of them, I'll see if any are any clearer in the antenna department.

Cheers

Bill