www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Sighted a female peacock today whilst on my postal delivery in Hilcote,Derbys, its been a lovely sunny day and I almost took my coat off! It flew straight past me and over a bungalow. Not much about for it to feed on, only a few winter pansies. Hope it survives !


Dave C (aka Grumpy)

How did you know it was a female?

Clearly it failed to intercept a thrown stick or lump of soil...hence female!

(and if that makes no sense whatsoever, check your Thomas & Lewington!!)

Gibster.

How did you know it was a female?

Eyesight.

English restaurant customer in Paris finds a dead insect in his soup:
“Il y a le mouche dans mon soup”.
“Monsieur. C’est LA mouche”
“You must have damn good eyesight”

Jack

Hi David, it was a large individual, larger than I would expect a male to be, there is a marked difference in size between the two that you come to recognise in flight when you get to my grumpy old fart stage of life having spent a long time observing butterflies.

grumpy wrote:Hi David, it was a large individual, larger than I would expect a male to be, there is a marked difference in size between the two that you come to recognise in flight when you get to my grumpy old fart stage of life having spent a long time observing butterflies.

I'll take your word for it. Perhaps in time I will also be able to distinguish between male and female Vanessids.

Anyone want to start with this little lot?
(Second brood hatchlings on September 6th 2009)

Dave

Lovely sight.
What is the collective noun for these then?

I suggest a glare of Peacocks.

A wallpaper of Peacocks.

Jack

Whatever the collective noun chosen, the sight itself is a truly beautiful one.

Can you imagine if Peacocks were as rare as Black Hairstreaks? People would be rearranging their annual leave to come and spot them.

You have to be right about that. They are as striking as any butterfly in the world. Here's a close up of one of the same brood shown earlier on the thread.

It would help if I attached the picture...

Dave

Stunning.

I can still remember the first one I ever saw in the hot summer of 1976.

I didn't think it was real. I was blown away.

That's a perfect picture Dave (Miller).

I remember my first Peacock. Late summer 1945. Indeed, I remember my first sighting of almost EVERYTHING but in most cases, can't put an accurate date on it. One summer's day early July (almost certainly 1974) I got my first Small Pearl Bordered Fritillaries in the New Forest and then later that day, my first live Lulworth Skippers (but I had come a cross a dead individual a few years earlier on a path at Lulworth itself).

Jack

My first sighting of a Peacock butterfly, was back in 1956 when I was 4 years old, I also remember seeing Small Coppers and thinking that they were baby butterflies until my mother explained about the caterpillar being the growing stage of their lives

The first Peacock I can remember was one we found in the house one winter when I was about 4 or 5. My mother gave it honey/water and it did have a go at sucking some up. I don't know what became of it. I can remember being a bit scared of the black undersides because of an encounter I'd had with a large dark moth one evening.

Thanks for the comments about the photo - I am quite pleased with that one!

Dave

There - really scary!

Dave

Dave - what a photo (the upperside one). Wow.

The colours are just stunning. Simply breath-taking!

With the ones on the wall that are upside down, if you squint a bit, you can really see a small owl, with the abdomen being the beak and the bottom of the wings (the top end in your photo) being the ear tufts. A quick flick of the wings would surely be enough to scare off a foraging winter mouse that comes across a hibernating Peacock only to be faced with its own predator!

Cheers

Lee

PS - I would suggest by the shape of the abdomen that one is a female....

Cheers

Lee