Tuesday, July 2, 2019

2nd July Update

Briefly, another good hatch of (mostly males) today at Knepp. A lot of sallow searching observed there, which included males on their maiden flights, still hardening off their wings. I also saw two definite females, one of which attracted a male at a primary territory at 4.45 and led him off over tall sallow bushes. 

Apparently, males were seen yesterday in one of the Fermyn Woods woods but not in Fermyn Wood proper and Lady Wood / Souther Wood. Males have also been seen in Bucks and Oxon, including a bundle of five together over a territory near Bicester.

Numbers are still very low everywhere apart from around the M25 corridor and at Knepp, which is almost on a different planet anyway. So, it's still early days except around London and at Knepp, and it hasn't been reported yet in Wiltshire.  

Here's a male pausing during sallow searching, at Knepp today - 


And here are several members of The Wildlife Trust's Exec Team suitably prostrate, at Knepp this morning (plus a baronet and Milo the Knepp Castle hound) -



1 comment:

Dee said...

Good to hear thanks for this update, I’m visiting on Thursday for the first time. I was lucky to see two jousting males yesterday at Northaw Great Wood, Herts my first ever sighting of PE hoping it will be a purple week as I also saw my furst Purple Hairstreaks at Northaw yesterday.