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Help me please
I'm new to this forums business but I want to report a butterfly sighting and can't seem to get anywhere! I thought i could email Pete Eales but I seem to be going around in circles. I've no idea who the "county recorder" is so now that I'm in I'm going to let you know what I've seen.

The date was 04/07/10, Alice Holt Straits enclosure at around 09:30. I had gone there in the hope of seeing the purple emperor. Last year on the 5th I was extremely fortumate enough to find a male (at around 13:30) and film it before the rest of the other butterfly spotters turned up. This year I came the week before 27/06/10 and about 150-200 yards in on the L/H side there were a lot of vetches and a few common blues (no purple emperors unfortunately. This time I checked the vetches and noticed a small blue butterfly on a bramble flower. I attempted to film it with my camcorder but the light was extreme even at this time in the morning. As I was filming it I became convinced it was a Long Tailed Blue. Unfortunately it didn't stay long on the flower, flying of very fast and low. Later on I met someone (sorry terrible with names) who i'd seen the year before and we got talking. Another person (this time a work colleague) turned up and I told them what i'd seen. Their reaction was "you've seen a purple hairstreak" and I felt somewhat embarassed (after all even if it had been a long-tailed blue they only turn up late (Aug - Sept) in the year and on downland. This was woodland in early July and full of purple hairstreak (later on I got to film them too).
The day progressed ... I saw all black white admirals and a few PE's circled but didn't get the shot I had got last year. I forgot all about the little butterfly i'd recorded in the morning .. until today
I ran the camcorder footage on the TV and couldn't beleive it ....It was a long tailed blue ...not particularly focussed but the underside is unmistakable.
Unfortunately I cannot transfer this to the internet (not .wmv or mpeg format) but i am willing to show anyone who happens to come to Straits enclosure Alice Holt this Sunday (might be Saturday if the weather is more conduceive to seeing the PE.

Hi Phil ... zoid

Philzoid wrote:I thought i could email Pete Eales but I seem to be going around in circles.

Sure you can email me - but if you're trying to email me a multi-megabyte video file then it may not get through!

Philzoid wrote:I've no idea who the "county recorder" is so now that I'm in I'm going to let you know what I've seen.

As shown on then Hants website (http://www.hantsiow-butterflies.org.uk/ ... t%20Editor) the county recorder is Linda Barker.

Philzoid wrote:I ran the camcorder footage on the TV and couldn't beleive it ....It was a long tailed blue ...not particularly focussed but the underside is unmistakable. Unfortunately I cannot transfer this to the internet (not .wmv or mpeg format) but i am willing to show anyone who happens to come to Straits enclosure Alice Holt this Sunday (might be Saturday if the weather is more conduceive to seeing the PE.

You should be able to stick it on YouTube, which supports several formats (assuming you have the bandwidth to perform the transfer). You can then post a link here.

Cheers,

- Pete

Most video software allows you to extract frames as jpegs, in which case you could choose some which adequately illustrate the butterfly and post them here.

Or, if that isn't possible, stop the video at a suitable point, take a screen grab (PrtSc in Windows), paste it into your favourite image programme, crop it and post a still here.

Guy

Thanks for all your replies.
With respect to trying to post you (Pete Eales the video file) I can't even get it to play on my computer let alone try and post it. The cam corder uses mini 1.4GB DVD discs and the ones I've been getting recently don't have a re-write option, or initialise or finalise ...or a way of converting video to stills. I put the disc in the computer DVD drive and nothing happens. What I can do is play it through the TV on using cables and the AV3 port. I can also play it back through the camcorder miniscreen. The camcorder takes (low resolution) photos and I only wished I had done some now.
At work tomorrow I'll try and get help from my mate who is less technically challenged on these issues. I'm also going to show it to the work colleague who I met on that day and who is a butterfly enthusiast to get his opinion (although he said it would be a purple hairstreak)

One way or another i'm going to get this confirmed ... or go mad in the process

It will be quite interesting even if it is a purple hairstreak, as this insect is not particularly fond of nectaring on flowers. Long-tailed blue, of course, is, favouring vetches and peas - and I note your butterfly was near vetch.

Anyway, we'll soon know, so speculation is futile!

Guy


(Long-tailed blue tucking into some birds-foot trefoil last year)

The picture posted shows the buuterfly at an angle very similar to the one on my camcorder.

As I said I have sought advice today aty work. my mate reckons i should have a transfer cable from camcorder to USB so I'm going to look for that. I showed the the video to a work colleage an lepidoptera expert Paul Wheeler and asked him what he thought it was. Without any prior prompting he said "It's a blue ... a short ... or a long-tailed blue?"
I'm pretty chuffed about that. Paul can differentiate between pugs and all the 'little grey brown jobs' with ease so if he says it's a long-tailed blue then i'm nearer to a positive ID.

I've reported my sighting to the Hants county recorder. I presume for species such as this they will require some form of verification if it's to go on the database? I will still try and get some still images made from the DVD disc and also intend to show other lepidopterists this weekend at Straits Enclosure Alice Holt to try and substatiate my claim.

P.S there is a chap I've met on a couple of occasions who comes from Portsmouth who goes on butterfly chases to see the Purple Emperor and seems very knowlegable on the subject. Unfortunately I don't have his name. Anyone have any idea?

Thanks
Phil

Sounds like Ashley Whitlock - the Purple Emperor coordinator for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight branch of BC. Top chap!

And you're right - we'd need evidence of your LTB, I'm afraid

Cheers,

- Pete

Thanks Pete
Unfortunately the name doesn't ring a bell. Ive partly gone through the members list but there's tons from that area!! Whilst doing this I spotted Colin Baker. Nice fellow. Met him last year and this year also. Unfortunately he's away this weekend in Cornwall.
The Portsmouth chap; late 20's early 30's, shaven head and wears a white T shirt because "White attracts PE's". He also carries shrimp paste .. an occupational hazard cos he hates the smell.

Am hoping he and others will be at Alice this w/e.

Hi Phil
I think it was me you bumped into again this year - don't use the forum myself that much - it's just a time thing.
I will be interested to see your video when you manged to dowload!
Had some good views of PE's at straits again on monday very early 7.30 - 9.30 am and viewed about four individuals.
Saw four different ab obliterae white admirals too.
I will be back early Saturday morning if you are about

Mark Tutton

Hi Phil,

you could upload the video to Youtube and use the video tag to post it here (when your writing a message you see a video button, press it and copy the video link in between the code, e.g. www.google.com/gkdd/583.wmv[/video*], (I added the * in the video tag to show the tag as it won't show otherwise, just show the link inside the tag as a video) just put the link to the video in the video tag there

I'm sorry if I sound hopeless but I haven't a clue how to use YOUTube (I struggle with navigating around this forum as it is).
My Disc has around 24 minutes of footage more than half which is family stuff and the butterfly shot in question lasts around 25 seconds. I cannot get my partners or my daughters computer to recognise the disc (Sony DVD R- no editing functionality ...bought it and others when Jessops stopped doing their excellent and cheap DVD-RW ... now wishing I hadn't) or to open the drive to see what type of files are on the disc. Even if i could I don't want to upload this (sorry).
I'm willing to travel to a meeting place with camcorder (and cables if they have a telly to play it on).

Any way you can get this to DVD? If so, you can post it to me and I can do the editing!

Failing that - whereabouts are you based?

Cheers,

- Pete

I'm based in sheerwater, Woking surrey.

I've taken some photo's of the images on my TV (you'll have to excuse the quality)
I've scaled them down to around 250kB in size. How do i upload them? i tried clicking on the Img button but all that happened was this came up ??

I was expecting to navigate to the folder that I've got them on ?

Hang on there's an upload attachement button Managed to muck this up too !?

I'm submitting this before i lose it

Oops missed one and duplicated another

i now sit back and wait in anticipation

Mark thanks for reading and replying, and sorry for forgetting your name.

Saturday (10th) early, is a bit awkward but I'll do my best. I can definitely make it around 11:00

Hope you've already seen the LTB pics I've posted (had to use a camera and photo the TV screen ... hope they'll agree it is a LTB)

Phil

Hi Phil - and congrats! Definitely a Long-tailed Blue. Thanks for putting in the effort to get the images on the website!

If you could also record this sighting on the Hants BC website, it will undoubtedly get a mention in the annual report! The form is at:

http://www.hantsiow-butterflies.org.uk/ ... g_form.php

Cheers,

- Pete

Hi Phil
see it was worth the effort definately a LTB good spot - shame I missed it!!!!
Went back to straits this morning and had PE on the track in 5 mins - there were probably five individuals in all several on the floor in various places but none hanging around for long.
Will be back at SI tomorrow but might have to leave before 11 fingers crossed.
Well done again

I am very pleased at last we've now got an outcome. However, it's not quite all over yet. Although I have the pics on my home PC (the PC I'm working on now) the ones I sent to UK BF message boards are on my works PC. The reason? The files are 2.5MB in size and I don't have image editing software at home. I emailed the pics to my work address then modified them to around 200KB size then sent these scaled down ones to this message board. I should've emailed these back home! Oh well I don't suppose a couple more days will matter.

Mark. Looks like you are having a lot of success with the Purple Emperors. I've decided i'll get up early and make my way over for around 09:00 (my nearest and dearest isn't too pleased though ... it's my job to get the week's fruit and veg shop in from Woking Market plus she'll be left with the kids).