Back at Knepp today, though yet again a Moderate to Fresh SSW wind sprung up and reduced Emperorial activity - Knepp is a windswept site, being more open than most Emperor sites.
The good news is that the extreme hot spell does not seem to have reduced numbers dramatically at Knepp, and the season goes on and on. This is remarkable, as the butterfly has now been on the wing there for 35 days - 5 whole weeks... Despite the wind, I managed to see 17 iris this afternoon, including five females.
Neil and I spent four hours watching females feeding on sap bleeds on a veteran oak down at the bottom of Green Lane. The action started at 3pm and went on till 7pm. Initially there were two, who we named Colleen and Rebekka. They were joined by two more.
Meanwhile, His Vain Gloriousity was active in the crown above them, but only twice deigned to come down to meet them - and cause a couple of tumbledown rejection drop flights. Most of the time he was mucking about up top, blissfully - if not stupidly - unaware that there were two to four females just a few metres below him.
Here are some photos of Colleen and Rebekka -
One nearly got nabbed by a hornet. The pattern was for a female to feed for 15-30 mins, then fly to settle on foliage, clean the tongue then bask for anything up to 45 mins, before returning to feed again. They ended up basking in the early evening sunshine -
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