Knepp Erupts! Day 8

I started the day, and ended the morning, worried that I'd wrongly predicted an immense emergence this year - yesterday was relatively poor and this morning was rather flat. With hindsight, emergence may have been held up by a series of cool nights, and it's still early days...

This afternoon was stupendous. I had to retire at 5.30 due to a touch of heatstroke (and I'm awaiting a new knee off the NHS...). But by then I'd clocked up an impressive 121, 120 of which were males - the lone female was seen in cop at 5.15, carrying a male in flight: I suspect they'd been pestered out of the oak tops by randy males. This is the first time I've seen iris flying whilst in cop (though there are records of pairs being blown out of tree tops on windy days).  

Between 2.30 and 4.30 the males were on most oak tops, often in twos or threes. I hit one six, one five, five fours and innumerable threes. A lot were seen sallow searching.

I saw only two males down: one on an old fox scat around 2.30 and another on nothing in particular at 5.25. But I don't deliberately hunt grounded males.

Tomorrow is going to be simply amazing. I will end with the immortal words of my hero IRP Heslop: 'To the woods, without breakfast!'

#30DaysPurple