Apatura iris 'cretaceus' - Emperor Also A Species Of Downland Crests!

We can now add 'downland crests' as a further habitat association of the Purple One! Following on from sightings over several years, by Biddy and Paul Dimmer (guardians of the stunningly beautiful Graffham Down Reserve - see right), Bruce Middleton (Murray Downland Trust and South Downs Joint Committee) and myself, further effort has been focussed on studying these 'most irregular' colonies.


On 4 July I watched two males clashing above the downland crest near Storrington, at an elevation of 558' above mean sea level. These are not just 'hill-topping' males - the butterfly breeds here. Prior to the demise of the 'Magic Sallow' (foully killed by tree-rats), I have previously watched females lay eggs, and have monitored larval and pupal development on the site since 2006. The surrounding lowland is arable, so there are no woods from which the butterfly is ascending.


On 13 July, following reports from the Dimmers, I visited the crest of Graffham Down near Midhurst, with Hannah Sanders and Susie Milbank. A total of four 'apparent' males were observed, together with an egg-laying female at an altitude of 728' amsl. Although the butterflies may well ascend from the wooded slopes and lower areas of Charlton Forest to the south, they clearly live and breed here, in this most lofty of habitats. I have since seen a photograph of an egg-laying female taken by Paul Dimmer two days previously. The image to the left shows the margin of the main stand of nursery sallows (near left), and a male assembly area in the pines (far right).

The image to the right shows a male 'on station' near the top of one of these pines, about 40' above the very highest point of the downs here (c.760' amsl!).

We walked west along the South Downs Way and came across another male iris, just short of the triangulation point at Heyshott. He was crossing an open meadow on the very peak of the downs at an elevation of 745' amsl, travelling from one stand of ash to another.

Back towards Storrington, male Emperors have been recorded sitting on the chalk path of the SDW above Rackham village, at an altitude of 623' amsl.

We clearly still have much to learn about this butterfly - and long may that be the case!

A Purple Lunch

Could only manage an hour or so around lunchtime on Thursday so wandered through the local sallow scrub up to an identified high spot here near Odiham. Managed four male sightings (one very clearly sallow searching) and a female in and around the lightly wooded scrub but nothing at the high point.

It's certainly worth looking at any patches of land with decent sallow coverage in central southern England, however close they are to recognised Purple colonies. Was quite surprised to get a reasonably high count in such a short space of time at this stage of the season.

Empire extends southwards

A decent day at last, but much damage has been done by recent foul and abusive weather and iris is now decidedly on the wane, especially the males. It's the wind that knocks out these canopy butterflies.

Today, Neil and I looked at iris colonising the 'abandoned' fields of the Knepp Castle estate in W Sussex, just S of Marlpost Wood etc. Here, the owner, Charlie Burrell, is taking 3000 acres out of intensive agriculture and managing it through extensive grazing, in huge compartments, mainly by Long-horn cattle. It will run to wood-pasture, with sallows being prominent for a long era. Many former arable fields have been colonised by dense sallows, whips in the 2-3m range mainly. We saw a male over some boundary oaks and then one of the best sightings of a female I've had - a superb Empress on egg-laying runs over the young sallows before drifting effortlessly away eastwards. Tomorrow I search for eggs in these jungles.... It looks as though iris is quite an early coloniser. Again, here it is by no means a woodland butterfly, let alone a creature of dense forest. It needs sallow jungles, sallow-rich landscapes. I'm not even sure if it needs tall trees... .

Later, we visited the main known spots in Marlpost + Dogbarking woods to the N. We saw 6 males and 1 female. The main Dogbarking territory held only 1 quiescent male (4 at peak) but we were pleased to see 2 at the Marlpost NW gate site. Best of all, 2 late in the day at my beloved Dragons Green, including 1 visiting a sap run high on oak.

We applauded the England captain's century by the Dogbarking Wood 'master tree'.

MATTHEW.

St Swithun not happy

St Swithun's day if thou dost rain

For forty days it will remain

St Swithun's day if thou be fair

For forty days 'twill rain na mair

Seems there's a bit of historical background to all this - take a look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swithun

St Swithun's Day

Not a pleasant day, and after a wild, wet and windy night. Methinks that wretched jet stream has jumped south - tho it may save us from getting stuffed by the Aussies.

Iris was hard to find today in Alice Holt. They may well have been decimated during the night (they get blasted away by gales, as do the arboreal hairstreaks). I managed only 8 all day, including 3 females.

But, had I been a collector I would have gone home with a bag of 4 paphia var ocellata (3 males, 1 female), 1 rather torn camilla var obliterae, and a lovely c-album var suffusa! 2009 would have gone down as a great aberration year, presumably due to high temperatures whilst pupae were forming in late May / early June.

Matthew

Alice males look second class!

Back home in Alice Holt, showing Mike McCarthy from The Independent his first Iris. Of course, just after he left, Herself appeared (at the main male assembly point at Goose Green Old Car park) and immediately attracted 4 males from trees I thought held only 2. Chaos ensued. She led them a merry dance, then vanished; and then it clouded up. She minxed the lot of us. I hung around for ages of course, eventually watching 3 males joining in Brother Quercus's evening flight - at last a decent evening flight of PH.

Also today, a freshly emerged male in Straits Inclosure, tho all the others seen today were faded or torn or both. I saw 11 there (2 females) which is less than half peak season numbers. A couple of males were still sallow searching - quite late for this stage in the season.

At Goose Green I nailed a nice male paphia ab ocellata which I'd walked past, only for Mike to spot it.....

I've now seen Iris for 21 consecutive days, the longest run since 1975 when I did the whole season. I have lost all sense of time, place, distance, perspective and reason - it it so enliberating: I'm talking about Freedom..... 'Our life is no dream, but it should and perhaps will become one' (Novalis).

Matthew

Reg Still Watching Emperors At 89

The following is taken from a report posted on the Butterfly Conservation Sussex Branch website.

'News for Sunday 12 July: A massive 41 people attended the BC outing to Southwater Woods today. The Purple Emperor once more proved to be a major crowd-pleaser, providing many people with their first sighting of this spectacular butterfly. He again arrived 'on cue', appearing above the outing assembly point at precisely 11am. By the time the 'official' walk had ended we had seen a minimum of 8 different Emperors, with many in spectacular aerial combat. However, it was one of those magical days when many did not want to go home! At 5.30pm a still sizeable group were treated to the amusing spectacle of a mass 'punch-up' between the Purple Emperors and the Purple Hairstreaks, high above the canopy. First one species would start, keeping the argument amongst themselves, then the other would charge in and cause mayhem. By this time we had seen a minimum total of 14 (probably 15) Emperors and were lucky enough to have witnessed the spectacular, tumbling, male-rejection behaviour of a female. I still wasn't finished and stopped off to watch the evening flight of another 2 Purple Emperors, along a meadow margin towards Dragons Green.

However, the highlight of the day for me was spending some time with Reg Trench and his lovely wife Sophie. I sincerely hope that I am still full of the same enthusiasm that Reg shows at the remarkable age of 89 (and the mind, body and soul to indulge this passion we have). A mile or two over rough ground and stiles - no problem! Reg started watching butterflies in 1930, so he would have already been a young man by the time we experienced the greatest ever invasion of rare migrants in 1945, when Britain was blessed with good numbers of Queen of Spain Fritillary, Long-tailed Blue and Bath White!'