Dangle Leafing Update...

Yes, the blog that brought you 'Dangle Leaf' now brings you 'Dangle Leafing', a term covering the art of looking for Emperor larvae using the Dangle Leaf Method... 

It's a bit like dry fly fishing for specimen Brown Trout on a southern chalk stream: a lot of wandering about, intense observation skills - and the last thing you do is cast...

Here's a particularly silly Dangle, but it is 100% Apatura iris -

But it was there one day, gone the next.

It is now half-time in the Dangle Leaf season here in the western reaches of the Empire: the leaves and dangles have come off the early leaf-fall sallows, and have all but gone from the mainstream leaf-fall sallows (more Emperoring terminology here...)

but the late leaf-fall sallows are still quite green. They are late to drop their leaves because they came into leaf last. 

These late leaf-fall sallows are likely to hold more larvae, because they were more attractive to the laying females, being thinner leaved in July... Crucially, they haven't started to reveal their dangles yet.

So the second half of the Dangle Leaf season here could be quite interesting... Of course, much depends on the weather - wind and rain take the dangles off, and the first half of November was marked by calm days.  

Most Emperor larvae are now in hibernation - apart from those on late leaf-fall sallows, many of which are still on leaf tips. So, to the woods, for the late sallows! You have until mid-December probably.

Another story, this 'pillar was in hibernation on a curled terminal leaf back on Oct 19th - 

However, in mid-November s/he moved 3m to a bud, and changed colour. Don't underestimate a caterpillar, let alone an Emperor - 

It took me half an hour up a ladder to find it...

Numbers remain very low in and around Savernake, but Ben Greenaway is finding good numbers in mid West Sussex, mainly through Dangle Leafing. 

Happy dangling!