For She on Honeydew Hath Fed...

I rarely see Purple Emperors feeding on honeydew (aphid secretion on leaves), as claimed in most text books. However, today at Knepp I first watched a middle aged male doing so for 5 mins some 35' up on an oak tree, and then a female feeding for 10 mins 20' up on another tree. 

Both fed on single leaves, which seem to have been randomly selected. There can't have been much honeydew on the oaks this season, due to the weather and a general shortage of aphids. 

I am far from convinced that honeydew is a major source of sustenance for Emperors - it's too episodic and ephemeral in appearance, and most of the sightings I've had of Emperors probing on oak leaves were of males tongue cleaning (the equivalent of beak wiping in birds). Here's the female - 

Incidentally, there was another sighting of the Emperor feeding on a cow pat at Knepp today. The cattle here are organic and are not treated with wormers or dosed up with antibiotics. Consequently, the cow pats are biological rather than chemical entities, and we've recorded 23 species of dung beetle in a single Knepp cow pat - and now Purple Emperors are feeding merrily on the pats, like they used to. I hadn't seen an Emperor on a cow pat in decades...

The season is now well advanced at Knepp, with perhaps only one or two females still to emerge...