July 3rd, 2017 in Cotgrave Woods, Notts will always be most memorable for me, as I saw my first ab. Iole (lugenda). At the time, I did not realise how extraordinarily rarely these aberrations occur. I knew immediately it was an extreme aberration and, in case he flew, I took the record shot, below. I remember being struck by his darkness; almost jet black.
The first males in Cotgrave emerged on June 24th so my sighting was on the 10th day, consistent with the observation that Iole and semi-Iole aberrations usually emerge late. He took salts for 3 hours allowing me to take lots of photos and I'll share a few more below.
Looking at museum specimens of Iole, this chap was fairly extreme with only two white spots and third faint spot on the forewing and a few bluish white hairs on the hind wings, in place of the normal white band. Heslop states that he saw only 2 or 3 Iole (lugenda) in his career so I feel very lucky to have seen one. Fingers crossed for this season and hopefully catch up with a few of you at Knepp, Fermyn or maybe even Cotgrave :-)
6 comments:
Hi Richard
That was a stunning beastie! You were so fortunate to spend so much time with a unique creature - I had a fleeting glimpse of one in Alice Holt a number of years ago but it was is flight and 30ft in the air. Even so it was obviously different - Black in appearance and no sign of the white wing bars from underneath which are normally so apparent.
Great report thanks.
Mark
Thanks, Mark. I was there when he landed until he flew at 1pm. He was not seen again, so, extremely lucky. Your observation on the colour in flight is exactly the same as mine. Its interesting, the underside of Lugenda is light brown, in general, but in flight, it appears black. There were several males flying around but lugenda was easily recognisable.
Brilliant Richard what a fantastic find and lovely images, I guess when lady luck smiles be there!
Thankyou Brian. I could give the Jack Nicklaus answer and say "the more hours I spend looking and patiently waiting, the luckier I seem to get" but I had only been there 5 minutes, so it was pure luck. Funnily enough, two years ago, I had a fabulous day at Fermyn, or so I thought, and had taken some of my best ever Iris photos - both wings iridescent purple and left feeling very pleased. I arrived home and checked out the purple empire and a couple, who had been with me most of the day, had posted an afflicts/lugenda photograph on the blog. I missed it by a few minutes.
Richard, this life-altering event qualifies you for membership of The Iole Fellowship and a small badge. If you email me your address I'll bung a badge in the post (matthew@matthew-oates.co.uk). On each anniversary of the event, you are obliged to wear the badge, behave snobbishly towards other badge-wearing butterfly folk, and get thoroughly plastered in the evening. I have to behave like that on five days each season now...
Many thanks, Matthew. Will do. Sounds like it might be easier for me to wear it all the time and just be myself :-)
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