Windy Sunday! June 22nd

Back at Knepp today, where despite a Fresh SW wind I managed to see exactly100 Purple Emperors (probable individuals), including just three females (all being severely bothered by males). This is the first time I've managed to get the hundred up for several years...

Pleased to share this hungry fellow with 20 or so other people - 

So far this season at Knepp, I've managed to show over fifty visitors their very first Emperor - and charged each one of them never to forget it...

The butterfly is by no means fully out at Knepp. My guess is that about half of the emergence is still to come, so this is National Throw a Sickie and Go Emperoring Week...

However, it looks likely to be a particularly windy week. Wednesday is likely to be the calmest day, so I'll do the Knepp PE Transect then. That will tell us just how good this year's emergence is... At this stage, 2025 seems to be challenging the Great and Immortal 2018 emergence... ... ...

Fingers crossed, but it looks as though another big anticyclone will be over the Empire for next weekend - in time for Peak Season. You may need to skip next Saturday's wedding too...

Elsewhere, it seems that His Gloriousity is now out in all known Purple counties, apart from Dorset and Norfolk (will Dorset and Norfolk please Come Out)...

 

Sat June 21st: Summer Solstice

And the sun actually shone at the Stonehenge Solstice sunrise...

However, a plume of warm cloud, carrying rain that died before it landed, rather blotted out the morning in the western parts of the Empire (it was on its way to Headingley, to interrupt the test match there).  

And with the afternoon sun, came a Fresh SE wind - a Clouded Yellow wind perhaps...

Further east, conditions were better for Emperoring, and a lot of impressive doings have been reported - many of them involving males feeding on the ground (usually on something vile). Lots of pics like this doing the rounds on social media - 

The year's second female was reported, in Heartwood Forest, Hearts.

Good to hear of (yet another) sighting in Winchester, a truly Purple city, and the butterfly being seen in Suffolk.  

I'm heading back to Knepp (very) early tomorrow. Yesterday, ten were seen in a vista there...  

 

To the Woods!

 It's now clear that Purple Emperors are emerging in superb numbers. This weekend is going to be MEGA...

Everyone reading this Blog should be out Emperoring this weekend. No excuses, skip the wedding, even if it's yours... You may see things like this -

Some sites / districts are only just kicking off now. Today, I was in a superb (but very private) Emperor wood need Woodstock in Oxon, and felt it was Day 1 or Day 2 there (a scatter of freshly emerged males, who were not holding territory, but were wandering slowly around, exploring their Empire - classic freshly emerged male behaviour...).

Elsewhere, the butterfly has now been seen in Berks, Middx, Notts and Warwicks (Oversley Wood).  

Knepp produced the first female of the year today, and a large number of males.  

If you're unsure of where to go, or are a newcomer to Emperor, visit Knepp - scroll back on this Blog for visiting details.

In the immortal words of our inspirational leader, IRP Heslop of Notes & View of the Purple Emperor (1964) fame: 'To the woods, without breakfast!'

  

 Northern iris.

The specimen seen in Cotgrave wood Nottinghamshire on 18/6 is, according to the recorder, Stephen Mathers, an all time early date for this county by six days!

 Northern iris.

Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire have declared themselves purple in the last couple of days

Well Worth the Wait 20th June 2025

Hot and humid with strong sun only appearing mid morning brought a slow start for me at Bernwood with one reported in the car park fairly early but then no further contact until late morning  when a male was  briefly on the deck feeding along the butterfly trail near the cross roads and an hour later another male spent at least 45 mins feeding in a muddy culvert by the main track. Despite regularly checking the oaks none seen flying above them or perched aloft. Delighted to see the males in pristine condition.

June 19th: Boil-in-the-bag Emperoring...

30 degrees Celsius in the Empire today, and not a breath of wind, and never a cloudlet... Congrats to all who braved it.

Knepp News: A big emergence there today, and about a dozen seen feeding on the tracks. Interestingly, they didn't conk out in the mid-afternoon heat, like they did yesterday - probably because there were so many of them about. They wind each other up.

I drove back home for a couple of days, via Savernake. Instant Emperor there, looking for moisture on a very dusty Grand Avenue. A second coming down to feed, but only a solitary male in any of the territories (the infamous Dead Beech Glade). Very early days in Sav. Here's No 2, feeding on the aphid 'honeydew' secretion (there's actually a bit of honeydew around this summer for them) -

Elsewhere, Leicestershire has declared itself Purple for the year, and Hatfield Forest in Essex, and Trench Wood in Worcs, but none yet in Notts. Also good to hear of a male in the FC Research Centre grounds at The Lodge, Alice Holt Forest. 

Any news from Kent?! Must be out there...

This is looking like a very good Purple Emperor summer... (The only butterflies faring poorly are large blue, whose larvae fail in dry springs, and the poor Ringlet).  

Onward! and take plenty of water with you...