www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

By God it's been a long time coming, but this afternoon's 6-15 day Met Office forecast finally offers some hope for all of us.

I check it every day, and it's been fairly pessimistic until suddenly, this afternoon, they must have seen evidence to replace their previous forecast model with this new offering:

UK Outlook for Wednesday 23 May 2012 to Friday 1 Jun 2012:

By the middle of next week much of the UK is likely to be dry with some sunshine, although eastern and southeastern areas may well be cloudy with outbreaks of rain at first. These mainly settled conditions seem likely to continue for the rest of May and into the start of June with a good deal of dry sunny weather likely. There are some indications that cloud and rain could spread into some western and southwestern areas towards the end of the month though. Temperatures look likely to be above average or warm in most places, and may become very warm locally. Eastern coasts may remain relatively cool though where easterly or northeasterly winds persist.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/ ... ather.html

David M wrote:By God it's been a long time coming, but this afternoon's 6-15 day Met Office forecast finally offers some hope for all of us.

I jolly well hope they get it right David, because if they don't then our spring will have been virtually wiped out and I'm taking my better half down to Cornwall next week, hopefully to catch some of that promised sunshine...and where there's sunshine we get butterflies...so let us hope

Bill

I am also keeping my fingers crossed, in my case I am off to Norfolk from next weekend for a week.
A family break but I should be able to get a couple of days butterflying...hoping that a bit of decent weather next week might tempt some early Swallowtails out for when I get there.

Cheers,

Neil F.

Wouldnt it be great to have good weather for the long jubilee weekend!

this gloomy weather is doing my head in

Having seen the BBC weather for the week, it looks as though we will practically all enjoy seriously inflated temperatures from Tuesday onwards with, according to the presenter, little chance of conditions changing for the foreseeable future.

I think we've earned a break. It's up to all of us to go out and enjoy it.

Really hoping those forecasts are correct. I have the next two weeks off and have been hoping for good weather. My aim is to see:
1) Green Hairstreak and Wall in the Peak District
2) Chequered Skipper (and assorted birds) in Scotland
3) Small Blue and Duke of Burgundy in Totternhoe
4) Duke of Burgundy in Kent
5) Marsh Fritillary in Lincolnshire
6) Grizzled Skipper and Pearl Bordered Fritillary in North Wales

Fingers crossed!

selbypaul wrote:Really hoping those forecasts are correct. I have the next two weeks off and have been hoping for good weather. My aim is to see:
1) Green Hairstreak and Wall in the Peak District
2) Chequered Skipper (and assorted birds) in Scotland
3) Small Blue and Duke of Burgundy in Totternhoe
4) Duke of Burgundy in Kent
5) Marsh Fritillary in Lincolnshire
6) Grizzled Skipper and Pearl Bordered Fritillary in North Wales

Fingers crossed!

Good luck, looking forward to hearing about your sightings!

I'd quite like 2 good weeks too, this week to kick start things and then a good week when I am in Norfolk the week after.

Would it be pushing things to hope for 3 good weeks, I am also in Norfolk for a week from next Friday and have another week off work after that

Neil F.

nfreem wrote:Would it be pushing things to hope for 3 good weeks, I am also in Norfolk for a week from next Friday and have another week off work after that

Neil F.

As hoping is free here's hoping for a scorching summer that lasts through til October and second and third brooded butterflies!

Wherever your going or whatever your doing...enjoy!!! We need and deserve as much sunshine as we can it's been a really tough spring for any naturalist and lets not forget the poor critters

Bill

Hopefully change is indeed on the way. Before this awful spell of weather actually ends, I thought I would summarise its apparent effects here in Cambridgeshire. April was so dreadful that I began keeping more detailed weather records, and this is what May looks like up to today: Average daily maximum - 61F (apologies to the young); average daily minimum - 47F (I expected this to be lower - a result of the never-ending cloud, presumably); rainfall - 30.5 mm; and most importantly, hours of sunshine - 25. However, 18 of those 25 hours of sunshine were recorded on just two dates, the 16th and 17th. Those two dates produced some butterflies but by no means a profusion; the last date on which I recorded any number was the 30th of April, and before that, the 28th of March.

The ability of some of our species to 'bounce back' has been discussed but such a poor spring will have affected others. I have run a Robinson trap in my garden for 22 years and last night managed to record not a single moth overnight - unheard of in the second half of May. Other moth recorders in the county are finding moths in prime sites but numbers of everything appear to be very low. It's reasonable to assume that butterflies and moths are not affected very differently by sustained poor weather, isn't it?

It will be interesting to see the effects on the season as a whole,

Rob