Excerpt from Oates' Diary: Sun June 29th 2025

Knepp - 

Bentons Gorse W Side: Rosemary’s Tree 5.10 – 6.55.  Big and overdue session here, and a deeply memorable one.  I needed to make up for missing out on the teenage jackdaw-chasing episode here last Friday, which had Neil and Kat rolling around in laughter (several Emperors terrorising a flock of young 'daws).  I did make up, and with Neil. 

Things started off with a brace of males sapping on a low horizontal SW side oak branch, and 2-3 others flying about higher up, and deteriorated nicely from there. 

5.20.  A female panicked after failing to shake off 2 over-amorous males through a tumbledown, and hurtled off south along the oak edge, zig-zagging and alternating high and low.  Eventually they went off squabbling and she escaped.  I wouldn’t like to be a female Purple Emperor…

Then, a vista of five males in the air at once, all oak edging separately. 

5.27.  Six in a vista.  3 males feeding well apart on the favoured horizontal bough, plus two males mucking about and another trying to come in to feed.

5.30.  4 males feeding separately on the favoured branch, 3 in perfect condition, one frayed. 

5.44.  Female on the feeding bough, plus 3 males and a Red Admiral, but problems with hornets. 

6pm.  Seven males in a vista around Rosemary’s Tree. 

6.03.  Six males feeding along a 3m length of bough. 

6.05.  Ten in a vista!  8 males feeding loosely along the branch length, two in flight nearby, plus a Purple Hairstreak and the hive bee-mimic hoverfly Brachypalpus laphriformis feeding on sap bleeds.   

6.20.  OMG!  A fresh (Neil thought female) Large Tortoiseshell flew in through the tree, to settle and display on the barkless dead branch rising vertically off the main feeder branch.  We both managed to get token photos before it got disturbed by hornets and was then chased off south along the oak line by two irate Emperors.   When were Purple Emperors and Large Tortoiseshells last seen interacting together in Britain? 

6.25.  Excellent tumbledown involving a fresh but mated female and two Andrew Tate males. 

6.40.  Female being hotly pursued around Rosemary’s Tree by 6-7 males, but they were too frenetic to count.  Then things went quiet. 

6.55 – 7.05.  When leaving, I counted 22 males along the whole quarter mile west edge of Bentons Gorse. 

Ambition: we want people to be able to have similar experiences with this butterfly all over England, and Wales, and Scotland.