Neil and I run an Emperor transect at Knepp. It runs along 2km of green lane, fringed by oaks and bordered in places by huge sallow thickets. We walk the transect once a week during the five or six week Emperor season, in afternoons only (when males are in the oak canopy), and when the wind is below Moderate strength. The main difference is that there is no transect box (the 5m box used by the UKBMS is inappropriate for iris) - if it's an Emperor we haven't already seen, it counts...
This year, from five heady weeks we have counted 184 Emperors. Last year's six week tally was 118, and 2016's was a meagre 89. If I remember correctly, in 2017 a mere 14 Emperors were recorded by the UKBMS transects (mainly males on dog muck)...
We may be able to fit another weekly count in at Knepp this year. Today's tally (Week 5) was 24.
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