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South Cambridgeshire 1st September.

Mass emergence of new brood Speckled Woods after rain previous day.
Along 300 metres of lane circa 15 males seen, often sparring with one
another at edges of territories.

Jack

Stafford

Dozens here too, and in sparkling condition. A few Camberwell Beauties and a Monarch or two and my year will be complete

I still "NEED" one more species for my half-century this year. The main hope is for Clouded Yellow.

Jack

Nice Speckled wood shot! I have yet to see anything, thunder, hail, rain here most of day so not a good start to my September. I have to check when weathers good and I get a chance, for anything fluttering, only a bunch of moths tonight and thats all I have seen

1st of September...my first UK sighting of Clouded Yellow Seen at Lulworth Cove (just got back) but no sign of Lulworth Skipper

1st September

Large White observation. The caterpillars resulting from eggs laid in July have almost disappeared from my brassicas (off to their pupation sites I presume). So a newly emerged female Large White almost certainly third brood. Interestingly, the behaviour was different and it showed no interest whatsoever in the remaining brassica leaves.

It was in some ways I saw a parallel with Brimstone behaviour. After emergence in the summer, they are not sexually mature and pay no attention to buckthorn (or each other). But in the spring the behaviour is very different; they are either searching for mates (males) or for buckthorn (females).

Jack

My local reserve was well populated yesterday with four different dragonfly species, lots of different hoverflies, large, small and GV whites, a single meadow brown and this fresh looking comma.

It was a nice sunny day in North Wales to-day and I managed to see one or two butterflies. Thought you might like to see them.

Awesome Shirley. It certainly seems that there are still many butterflies out!

Nice Pictures

Mouse

It's been a suprisingly good day today: 3 Red Admirals, 2 Small Tortoiseshells, 4 Peacocks and the first Comma I've seen this year as well, ok nothing spectactular but compared to recent times around here, this is quite a lot.

I'll post a few pics later, but today I saw when I was out in my area:

20+ Small Tortoiseshells (all in 100 yard area or around)
3-4 Red Admirals
15+ Speckled Woods (All in same small area)
25+ Small Whites
5+ Large Whites
2 Silver Y Moths
1 White ermine caterpillar (fast moving arn't they, wow. Speedy little thing)

good finds, especially the increasing numbers of Small Tortoiseshells about

I'm glad your seeing some butterflies at last Dave, may be in Northern Ireland and North Wales we'll have an Indian Summer, we certainly deserve one, look forward to seeing your photos.
Shirley

This today, 8th September.

Jack

What happened to the rest of this but'fly!

yeah Jack, whats up with that?

Here are some of the highlights of today (I was told I started college today, but went and was told it was wednesday, so I made good use of the warm weather and had to go out and look for these):

Small Tortoiseshell:



White Ermine Caterpillar:



Speckled woods:









Can you guess where the speckled wood is in the last shot? It was chased by another male. (Well I was aiming for a willo the wisp (bottom of shot) and the rest was just an optional extra )

What happened to the rest of this but'fly!

Remember that I chewed some Ragwort yesterday to test its potentially toxic effect on me. That's why I only managed to take a picture of part of a butterfly before I succumbed to Ragwort poisoning

Jack

Did it kill you?

Did it kill you?

No but a strange thing happened while I was conducting the experiment. I was leaning on the gate into a field where there are some horses. As soon as the mare (called Shirley I believe) saw me chewing, it let out a strangled kind of snorting sound and keeled over.

Jack

[quote="jackharr"][/quote] a strange thing happened while I was conducting the experiment. I was leaning on the gate into a field where there are some horses. As soon as the mare (called Shirley I believe) saw me chewing, it let out a strangled kind of snorting sound and keeled over.

That's the first thing to make me laugh all day.
Nice one Jack

Denise

I'm not laughing, poor little orse . I was too busy taking photos. Tomorrow when I playing golf, just before I hit the ball I'll think of you Jack and that ball will go miles or perhaps I'll think of Mr. Jones. I A ' moth.