Introducing His Imperial Majesty…

… the Purple Emperor!

(No, not the Right Honourable Member Prime Minister for Little Chalfont, as several people suggested when asked who or what I might have been referring to by “HIM”).

These majestic creatures showed superbly well at Lady Wood, south of Fermyn Woods near Corby on Sunday morning – I reckon I easily saw a dozen individuals (all males) late morning when the sun finally emerged. Unlike most butterflies, Emperors can be quite tricky to see, since they spend much time inactive high up in the canopy, rather than at ground level. But when the sun gets out, they come lower, gliding up and down the forest rides, before dropping down to feed on the tracks. This is in order to take onboard essential minerals from muddy puddles or (apparently even more delicious) animal droppings. This fox scat was a particularly choice morsel…

… though other observers footwear and trousers were also favoured! (“Hmmm, I really must change my socks / brand of antiperspirant / underwear…” (delete as applicable))

At times, there were up to five individuals on show along a short stretch of the track at one time, including three males around the same ‘delicacy’. These two posed rather nicely!

And despite the heat, it was a complete pleasure to spend an hour or two taking photos at point-blank range, especially since all the individuals were very freshly emerged, in pristine condition. They’re just stunning!

Back to macro

OK, so it’s taken me until the very end of June to crack, but today it was time to put the birding kit to one side and get back into butterflies and dragonflies! John, Graham and I headed up the M1 out of London, through Birmingham, and on to Whixall Moss on the Welsh border – one of the most southerly raised sphagnum and peat bogs in the country, and home to a range of rare species including two lifers for me. White-faced Darter is a pretty tricky dragonfly to see in the UK, with only a handful of English sites, while I’ve never been in the right place at the right time for the slightly more widespread Large Heath butterfly.

Arriving at Moss Cottages (SJ501364) on the eastern side of the site mid morning, the weather was far from perfect – largely cloudy with only fairly brief sunny intervals, with a fresh breeze. However, we were well pleased to find both target species almost immediately, along a small ditch on the left of the track only a couple of hundred yards beyond the last cottage.

Over the next few hours, we saw around 6-8 White-faced Darters, all males apart from one pair seen briefly in cop. Pretty smart little dragons, and reasonably obliging for photos!

By contrast, the Large Heaths were very tricky to see well – tucking well into the vegetation out of the wind most of the time, and then being carrying swiftly by the wind when they did get airborne. We only saw two or three on the deck, with this individual the only one I managed to photograph at all!

The real star of the show from a photographic point-of-view was the Four-spotted Chaser, the most abundant dragonfly at the site by some margin, and regularly perching out in the open and sitting tight for photos. I’d forgotten how tricky it is to get sharp images with a macro lens (and the correspondingly shallow depth of field), so plenty have just gone in the bin – but I’d also forgotten how much detail the Sigma 150mm can extract when you do get it something close to right. Pleased with some of these – click to enlarge!

Before heading back home (and suffering the post Grand Prix traffic on the M1), we popped into the nearby Prees Heath Butterfly Conservation reserve to have a look for newly emerged Silver-studded Blues. We quickly found about half a dozen of these, again showing well.

All in all, an excellent summer’s day!

Briefly back to Butterflies

Had a cracking day in Norfolk with the usual suspects (details on all their various blogs), featuring great views of the Western Bonelli’s Warbler, an occasionally obliging Red-backed Shrike, Red-necked Phalarope amongst a Cley wader spectacular, and finishing up with about 20 Lesser Whitethroats and a Pied Flycatcher at Warham Greens. Anyway, the internet already has enough words on that subject, so let’s move on to today.

I’ve probably mentioned here before that I’ve almost seen all the native British butterflies now: at the start of play today, there were four remaining. Only one of these occurs within 100 miles of London, though: Brown Hairstreak, a scarce insect that spends most of its time high up in ash trees. Given the forecast was for decent sunny intervals, Suzanne and I headed down for a look at Steyning Downlands in West Sussex.

The best time to see BH is around the middle of the day, when females descend from the treetops to lay eggs on Blackthorn and Bullace. Although it’s getting a bit late this year (with most butterflies having emerged early after the exceptionally warm spring), we managed to find one rather battered specimen, which showed briefly for a few photos:

We also encountered a contrastingly pristine Comma on the way back to the car: stunning!

A superb late Sunday roast was devoured at White’s Bar & Kitchen, just down the road, before we headed up to take in some classic South Downs scenery at Devil’s Dyke, high above Hove.

High Brown Fritillaries (and some pubs) in Devon

Once again, apologies for the lack of recent updates: just not been out and about very much lately! However, Suzanne and I returned to London on Sunday night after an excellent weekend away in one of the few National Parks that I’d never visited previously: Exmoor, and the North Devon coast.

We set out early on Saturday morning, heading along the predictably tedious M4 in rather murky conditions, to arrive in a drizzly Lynton by about 9am. (Hmm… not really selling this yet, am I?) Undeterred by this typical English summer weather, we headed out for a walk through the nearby Valley of Rocks, with wildlife starting to feature in the form of two screechy young Peregrines, Stonechats and lots of feral goats! Fulmars wheeled around the cliffs below us and a few Gannets sailed past further out… definitely not in London now!

The major target of the trip for me was to catch up with High Brown Fritillary, an increasingly rare butterfly in the UK, which only has a patchy and localised distribution. As well as Devon, they only remain in pockets of South Wales and southern Cumbria. One of the best sites is the Heddon Valley, west of Lynton, in a large area of National Trust land. Access is by minor roads, north from the A39 near Parracombe, or east from Combe Martin. Parking, unusually for an NT site, is abundant and cheap, and even more happily, adjacent to a decent pub: the rather impressive Hunters Inn. When we arrived, there was still rain in the air, and besides, we were getting peckish… only one thing for it!

One very large jacket potato, and one local cheese Ploughmans later, we (st)rolled down the valley to Heddon Mouth, through oak woodland beside the river… quite idyllic (though still lacking in sunshine). In brief bursts of sunshine, a few fritillaries appeared over more open areas of bracken, but too far away for an ID – Dark Green and High Brown are very similar in pattern, and pretty much identical in structure. Down at the mouth of the river, seabirds were to-ing and fro-ing from breeding colonies on the cliffs: Guillemots and Razorbills in particular. A couple more young Peregrines chased overhead, giving superb views.

Feeling pretty tired after the early start, we checked into our luxury accommodation on Exmoor:

… before heading out to pub number 2: the Royal Oak, in Withypool. Pork Belly with a Cider Cream sauce… mmmm!

As we’d hoped, the next morning dawned–crystal clear, with deep blue (almost!) cloudless skies. We returned to Heddon Valley, and I’ll let the pictures tell the story for a while…

A rarity.

Not too terrible a place to spend an hour or two…

The target – will have to return for better photos!

Dark Green Fritillaries

… and finally some coastal scenery.

Oh, and there was a third excellent pub on the way home: The Rock, in Georgeham. I was most disappointed to see Doom Bar on draught, and Roast Beef on the menu.

Suzanne’s month in Ghana – moths and butterflies

I couldn’t begin to count the amount of time I spent waiting for the butterflies in Ghana to land and be nice to me but they just wouldn’t. They were everywhere but these are the only ones I managed to get… Once again, apologies for the quality, the Lumix does what I need but not much else!

     I was actually really excited to see two pairs of butterflies breeding as I’ve never seen it before. I have to say it does seem to take a remarkably long time to do the deed though. I felt like a bit of a gooseberry after a while!

 

Next are my moths. As you’ll see, most of them were taken in the same location, which was the toilets of the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary. I saw significantly more moths than monkeys and I’m rather ashamed to admit that one of the girls actually had to throw me out of the toilet once she realised the error she had made in inviting me into her cubical to take some photos. They were beautiful though…