Sat June 27th: Muggy, Still & Cloudy

Change in the weather, to warm, muggy cloud, with hardly a breath of wind. Perfect Emperoring weather! They love it, and are fully active.

Back at Knepp, after a week elsewhere. People had struggled to see PEs at Knepp during the heatwave, but that changed today: most of the favoured male territories were occupied, with males sailing around joyously, and some females evident. 

Three 'tumbledowns' were seen: descending spiralling flights with "Hi! I'm Andrew Tate" males circling around an "I'm washing my hair tonight" mated female. At the last second she will do a U-turn, hoping that he will crash land and smash up his top range performance motor. This behaviour was first observed by KJ Willmott at Bookham in 1983 - Heslop never saw it, nor me till Knepp. It's common at Knepp during the second half of the flight season.

Here's a female basking in a sloe bush yesterday -

And here's a more typical view of a female (again, yesterday): they spend hours sulking in sallows, all but out of view - 

Today, though, Sunday 28th, the wind has returned. Leeward, leeward and leeward...

June 25th

This time 50 years ago, during the midsummer heatwave that immortalised the Long Hot Summer of 1976, the first Emperor of the year was seen on Midsummer Day, June 24th, by KJ Willmott, at Bookham Common. That equalled what was then the known earliest PE record (the Marlborough College record of 10/6/1893 had not come to light). The following day, June 25th, the first was seen in Alice Holt Forest. Then the Emperor erupted...

Right now, males and the first females are emerging nicely at most sites. In particular, this is the week to look for males feeding on the rides: watch out for the shark's fin wing shape, especially on or around any form of dung.  

In hot weather, and especially in bright sunlight, they tend to feed with their wings tightly closed, opening up only if they crawl into shade. However, you can persuade them to open up by slowly casting your shadow over them IF they are fully absorbed in feeding - watch for the probing yellow tongue and the rocking head. If they take off, freeze - play musical statues. Be careful not to make footfall vibrations, to which they are very sensitive.  

Note that they often take a break whilst feeding, flying up into a nearby bush to clean their tongue for several minutes before descending again. Watch out for the second coming...

Nationally, they'll probably stop descending to feed on the rides shortly after the coming weekend - only males aged 1-4 days do it, plus the odd female in extreme weather.

They should move on to the sap runs soon, to get plastered...

Back to Bernwood 25th June 2026

 At least 4 male emperors found throughout a four hour trial by heat with temperatures reaching 36F.Late morning I flushed a male from dog poo which flew up about four feet to sit for twenty minutes on a shaded blackthorn leaf before descending for another fifteen minute feed on the dog poo.It then flew back into the blackthorn and perched again for twenty minutes on a shaded leaf this time no more than three feet above the ground.Conjecture I know but maybe it did this because if it went to the top of the oaks it would be too hot?

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).

 

 We visited Chedworth Roman Villa yesterday (about 10 miles N of Cirencester) and saw a male PE fluttering around which we later found on one of the display boards. Here he is extracting sweat from my daughter's hand! Ironically, we'd been to

Sapperton the day before and seen none at all!

On 19 June I had an amazing encounter with a female Purple  Emperor in  Whitecross Green Wood in Oxon. I was looking over one of the woodland ponds when the PE dropped out of the trees to perch on Amphibious Bistort covering the pond. It sat there for several minutes, presumably drinking as the day was very warm, before flying off back into the canopy. I managed to get the posted photo which I am very pleased with and I believe it depicts behavior rarely documented by the camera. There were also several White Admirals present in this superb wood.

Foxley, Norfolk. 23rd June

A bit of over night rain was promising so an early start before the heat hits. Unfortunately 20 miles away at Foxley Woods it seemed they had very little and the main ride was bone dry. The first Emperor was seen at around 9am and the initial sightings were all Sallow searching. There was a peak in activity at 10ish when three were seen by the bench at the cross tracks. One male constantly buzzed my face and I thought would come to ground but no luck. At least six seen but probably still early days. Paphia and Camilla are doing well but the grassland species numbers are quite low. I will leave you with the only shot I got, use your imaginations.