Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Pupating...



This photo was taken this morning in my garden. Note that my captive larvae are nicely in harmony with their wild cousins in this part of the world, in terms of timing of development, and are not early birds.


Wild cousins in Sussex and Surrey will be further advanced.

Unless we get a cold wet late May (which isn't forecast) and a cold wet early June THE PURPLE EMPEROR WILL BE ON THE WING IN MID JUNE...

There have been summers when the insect has got stuck either pupating or in the pupal stage or both (1977, 1980 and 1990). I'll post some info about this later.


But we are panicking...



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