I spent this afternoon on the Knepp Castle Estate with Matthew, Amy Nightingale (Knepp Safaris www.kneppsafaris.co.uk) and a group of West Sussex County Council rangers and volunteers. The strong, gusty southwesterly undoubtedly suppressed aerial activity, but we still managed to chalk up 40 Emperors, including the first female of the season.
The wind tended to cool things down a little earlier than we would have liked and I watched a male deliberately searching out a roost for the night, eventually disappearing deep into a high, leafy ash spray at 5.15 pm.
Matthew had earlier located a few White-letter Hairstreak around a small group of elms near the Knepp Safaris glampsite. By 6 pm they were very active and we counted at least a dozen squabbling around the host trees and adjacent oak. This is a good record for Sussex, with known populations showing a strong bias towards the coastal DED control zone. It is, of course, greatly under-recorded.
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