www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Thoughts from the one and only Matthew Oates:

http://www.dispar.org/reference.php?id=95

Cheers,

- Pete

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and it has answered many of the questions I had regarding this population.

I already knew about the original introduction in 1983, but wasn't aware of the subsequent one. I'd even heard rumours that 'topping up' was being done by official bodies!

I visited the site on 26th May 2012 and saw 30+ Glanvilles, but when I returned in 2013 could not find any. Bill (Willrow) tried a couple of times that year without reward and I think he may have gone there again last year only to draw a blank.

I was particularly interested in the section which dealt with the aberrant markings that some individuals on this site showed, suggesting that they were continental in origin.

Guy Padfield highlighted a couple of the individuals I photographed as being abnormally weakly marked so there is clearly something in this. Here's one of them:

This taken Sand Point May 2011 would seem to have "standard" markings.



Jack

I found this an interesting and useful article, explaining how re-introductions rarely succeed in places that the butterflies haven't found for themselves.

I was fortunate to make my own visit to Sand Point in 2012, when the adult population was at its peak. I took some 'habitat shots' of the South-facing slope, where most of the butterflies were flying, on 28th May 2012 and thought at the time that the grasses were looking rather dense, compared with sites that I have visited on the Isle of Wight.
This is one of the Glanville Fritillaries that I photographed on that day. The markings seemed 'normal' to me, though I have no experience of continental specimens.
Mike