Audience with an empress

I stole a few hours at Knepp on Saturday 21^st July and saw eight emperors. 

The best moment occurred in a sallow glade just off Green Lane. Trevor Apsley and I shared a wonderful fifteen minutes or so with a graceful empress who came floating out of an oak like a small paper kite to flit and glide in a flowery clearing. She sailed around us at chest height and lower, frequently stopping to take salts from the baked ground with a proboscis like a garden hose. She was a whopper, a spectacular insect. This was my most thrilling encounter with an empress. She was in reasonable condition but though she seemed serene she was in reality just spent, and as she drifted off into the sallow we wondered how many days she had left.

To end on a happy note, in Green Lane I met a couple called Christina and Roger. As very recent emperor converts they had missed peak Knepp but were hoping for their first emperor. When I bumped into them for a second time they told me they hadn’t clocked any, but had at least photographed a white admiral on the ground. They showed me the photo, and I was delighted to be able to congratulate them on their mistake - it wasn’t a white admiral. ;) 

Here's "my" empress.