Back into the fiery furnace, at Knepp, in 30 Celsius (anyone having problems with this heat, just say the magic word, 'January'. Problem solved). Managed to see some 36 Emperors and Empresses, including 20 females - and I wasn't butterflying for much of the afternoon.
One male and two females were in reasonable condition, the rest were worn and torn - seeing out their days feeding on oak sap. Here's a female (upper) and a male (lower) feeding close by, at high noon today -
All bar one of the 36 I saw were on or around oak 'feeder trees'. The exception was a middle aged male on territory, having a bad time dealing with a very stroppy immigrant Painted Lady male. Grey pilgrim Lady males are the only butterfly that can mix it with Emperors on territory, but home grown ladies don't exhibit that behaviour at all. Here's today's brave Horatio holding forth in one of the top Emperor territories -
Tomorrow, I'm going to attempt Week 5 of the Knepp Purple Emperor transect. I hope to get into double figures, but everything depends on the number of feeder trees along the route.
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