Midsummer Day

Serious heatwave, breaking the record UK temperature for June (it may be broken further tomorrow)... and dead calm and excessively humid too.

Visited the north-west sector of Savernake, where I've always struggled to see Emperors, having never managed to find the male territories. Great to be shown an about-to-hatch pupa, from a larva my Savernake colleagues, Gary and Sarah, have been following since last Sept, called 'Rainman' (because he was found in heavy rain).  He hatched at about 1pm.  

Here's the empty pupal case of another pupa, again from a long-followed larva - 

I particularly wanted to see adults feeding on the mega sap run on the Bumble Oak, outside the FC loos. One was there around 9am, which I missed.  All I saw feeding there was Red Ads, Commas, hornets and the rare sap-run hoverfly Ferdinandea ruficornis (and I mean ruficornis, not the common cuprea).

Finally, here's the White Road Oak, another Savernake veteran. If you pass a small child through the portal on Midsummer Day you'll cure it of rickets...

Damn hard working Emperors in this heat, as many conk out around 1pm, before becoming active again in the evenings. Neil Hulme walked the 2 hour-long Knepp PE Transect yesterday evening, starting at 6pm with the butterflies nicely active. His count totalled 27 (including 1 female). That's a modest tally for Week 2 (the record individual count is 80, set in Week 3 last year).