Fabulous Fermyn (Part 1)

On Thursday (27 June) I headed to Fermyn Woods. Having spent so much time at Knepp recently (and with eight safaris to co-lead there over the next two weeks), I was keen for a change of scenery, and also for the opportunity to photograph some more freshly emerged male Purple Emperors; most/all of the males are now out at Knepp. Although groundings are becoming far more regular at Knepp, Fermyn still outguns Knepp in this respect. In terms of population, Knepp is now in a league of its own. Although still early in the Northants season, I saw no more than c.30 emperors on either of the days I visited, despite the females being well out (three on Thursday, two on Friday).

I spent most of the two days in the excellent company of Dave Walker, who I'd met at Noar Hill during the Duke season. It was also good to catch up again with Dave Williams (plus brother), who I'd recently bumped into at Daneway Banks, and Bill & Mrs Seager (of the Fermyn Light Horse). Unfortunately, it seems I narrowly missed Neil Freeman.

The first thing I noticed on arrival was the excellent and much talked about ride widening through Fermyn proper; well done Forestry Commission! Within relatively few years, if left unmanaged, the Purple Emperors, Silver-washed Fritillaries, White Admirals and White-letter Hairstreaks would all have disappeared, leaving just Speckled Woods; it seems that many would prefer this, and are being quite vocal about it! That said, being such a well visited site, it would probably have been preferable to lift the brash mats (which protect the ground from the worst of mechanical damage) and chip them; so only 9 out of 10. The next thing I noticed was the constant rain of honeydew (I've seldom seen so much), which eventually started to gum-up my camera.

This first day of my visit was all about trouserings, of which I enjoyed four. In order to get the best angles I spent some time rolling around on the floor, performing contortions that Louie Spence would be proud of. I soon set to work laying belachan soup baits, which proved to be my most successful mix yet; apologies for the stink (not really). 95% of the emperor groundings (about 20 over the two days) came to the lures, together with c.30 Comma, a few Small Tortoiseshell and several hundred flies.