From Ashley Whitlock

 

Ive just received a great phone call from a Malcolm Hill who is a keen bird watcher and I met him a couple of weeks ago in Havant Thicket and he asked me what I was looking for...as I had my binoculars around my neck. And after a 30 minute conversation, he got quite rapped up in the Purple Empire, and as he was a local he said he would contact me if he saw any. Anyway he was in Havant Thicket yesterday at about mid-day, and he was at the Assembly point area at Horsefoot Hill, he near some good  sallow stands, when he saw a female actually laying her eggs. He also found one of the eggs on the sallow leaf which he thought was really marvellous. He actually espied two females there on the 4th August, so things are still not over yet in Hampshire. So nice to convert somebody to the Purple persuasion!