The 2020 Purple Emperor season fluttered into being yesterday, on Saturday June 13th (it would have started a week back had the weather not deteriorated).
One, quite possibly two, was seen all too briefly at Knepp Wildland, and there was a possible, brief and distant sighting at Bookham Common (the umpire's finger, though, was not raised). That was the prelude, rather than the real kick off.
The butterfly could come out with a bang, very soon. Numbers could still be high but the longer the insect spends in the pupal stage the fewer fly, and the pupal stage has been protracted by a cold ten days (during which time one out of four monitored wild pupae got crunched). Much depends on flight season weather.
Enjoy your Emperors...
1 comment:
First sightings in Germany:
http://www.lepiforum.de/2_forum_2017.pl?page=1;md=read;id=24776
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