The Switch

Once all the females are out, wedded and bedded, the males tend to take the mornings off, and cease sallow searching. They also stop coming to the ground. Iris becomes an afternoon butterfly.

Photographers keep asking me, "When are they going to come down?" The answer is Next June... Yesterday, Neil and I did see one week old male down at Knepp, though he found nothing to his liking and soon went back up- 

In this heat I believe that the season will effectively be over at Knepp around July 15th, with just the odd sighting thereafter. This is the last weekend of the year for iris hunters.

For the record, Brown Hairstreak kicked off at Knepp yesterday, July 6th, and the White Admiral appears to be over (I searched hard yesterday, fifty years on from my first encounter with the butterfly, and saw none).

At some point I will count up how many 'day individuals' I've seen at Knepp this year - it's in four figures, and they're all type specimens.

I'm sorry I missed the honey dew rain at Fermyn Woods. We haven't had a drop of honey dew here at Knepp. In fact, I haven't experienced 'honey dew rain' since 1976, when it abounded (with a lesser occurrence in 1989).

#30DaysPurple