Knepp: A look back to a stunning day

Knepp, Wednesday 27th June: Eleven hours walking goodness knows how many exhausting miles at the site during a heatwave. Three litres of water barely touched the sides. At the end of it all, the traditional lemonade from the fridge in the Go-Down was nectar. 

Emperors aside, the sheer abundance of life at Knepp blows my mind. I hope other farmers follow the example of Charlie and Isabella. But we were here for iris, and hoping for lots of them. Last year Nick and I doubted our own count of 96 - surely not - so this year we brought with us a pair of clicker-counters of the sort favoured by bouncers. It seemed appropriate, given the thuggish nature of our quarry. 

After the sort of heady day that causes you to question your senses, our counters displayed the number 349, a count that has now been exceeded by Matthew and Neil, who were pushing 400. Madness.   

Towards the end of our day a big, multi-storey oak near Camilla Corner gave us an unforgettable experience when, for a bizarrely brief window, it played host to a spectacular congregation of emperors. We'd never seen anything like this, even at Knepp. 

A zig-zagging male told us the tree was a feeder; if Matthew hadn't taught me the sapping flight of emperors a week before, we’d have moved on and missed the wonders that followed. We soon found him (the emperor, not Matthew) low down on a visible sap bleed - a wound oozing white froth. 

The branch and others around it soon transformed into Your Favourite Local Bar. Our male was joined by a quercus, four or five hornets and a procession of emperors. Various individual iris came and went while others spiralled and occasionally squabbled half-heartedly at all heights around the tree, while we became giddy with numbers as we tried to count the traffic. 

At times there were three or four sapping, at times five or six, and, briefly, a magnificent seven. The humans below laughed in disbelief, knowing we were sharing something special. There were never more than three emperors within wing distance of one another, but different groups of two or three and the odd loner were like punters at their beer. A much larger emperor blundered into the midst of a sapping group but was hassled immediately and quickly vanished. An empress, we guessed. 

Happily, we bumped into a couple of chaps at the tree, and one of them was a photographer. It is his photographs you see here; thanks Ben Richardson for sending them to me. 

In the early evening of that wonderful day, gangs of hooligan purple hairstreaks were harrying emperors who clearly just wanted a rest - especially adjacent to Hammer pond, where the big oaks were lit up like cathedrals, bathed in golden evening light. 

Looking back, we should have known the day would be a special one when we stumbled upon a 'streak on the ground by Hammer Pond at nine am. Later in the day, a young grass snake crossed a path under our feet. Minutes later a hobby shot directly over our heads like a missile. 

And we saw huge numbers of damsels and dragons, surely an early sign that the day would be a fairy tale. 

Emperor by Ben Richardson

Just the five sap-feeding emperors by Ben Richardson in this shot. For the original size image, contact me via comments.