Wednesday, July 15, 2009

St Swithun's Day

Not a pleasant day, and after a wild, wet and windy night. Methinks that wretched jet stream has jumped south - tho it may save us from getting stuffed by the Aussies.

Iris was hard to find today in Alice Holt. They may well have been decimated during the night (they get blasted away by gales, as do the arboreal hairstreaks). I managed only 8 all day, including 3 females.

But, had I been a collector I would have gone home with a bag of 4 paphia var ocellata (3 males, 1 female), 1 rather torn camilla var obliterae, and a lovely c-album var suffusa! 2009 would have gone down as a great aberration year, presumably due to high temperatures whilst pupae were forming in late May / early June.

Matthew

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