Surrey Forges Ahead!

Surrey continues to forge ahead. This afternoon Ed Drewitt saw Himself at Ashtead Common, Leatherhead, and Rob Hill saw three battling males at the main Bookham Common territory / Master Tree / Sacred Grove (call it what you will...) and took this superb photo of a fight.

Not Out in Alice!

Surprised to find iris still not out in Alice Holt Forest, Hampshire, today - and I searched the key areas well in sunshine. Also, Brother Neil failed to see any in Botany Bay, on the West Sussex / Surrey border. So, Bookham seems well ahead of anywhere else at present.

But, seriously impressive numbers of White Admiral, including quite a few females. iris tends to appear when camilla is well out - and it is well out in Hampshire now. Only a few paphia though, all male, and only a lone Purple Hairstreak, and just 2 fresh Ringlet.

The equation for the appearance of iris seems to be -

WA females+SWF+PH+Ri = PE

He must be imminent...

Slow Progress ...

June is falling apart (I was reduced to looking for water beetles today, albeit Agabus brunneus which is the H20 beetle equivalent of the Large Tortoiseshell, and in a Heath Fritillary combe on Exmoor to boot). Note that the Met Office predicted a wonderful June (they should be impaled on Nordick walking poles and used as bait for iris).

The only other sightings reported are of two chasing males at the Hill Farm sacred grove at Bookham Common on Thurs 16th (Rob Hill), where one was seen on Mon 13th, and Susie's possible sighting in Southwater Woods on Wed 15th.

The race for second place is therefore still firmly on ... we may all come in second on Sunday...

Re Susie's sighting. Distant momentary sightings are difficult. Some are iris, some are camilla, some are atalanta, some are paphia and some are wonderful hallucinations. With anything better than distant momentary sightings, if you're in any doubt it is not iris!

Re 1893. The best account I have of that remarkable summer is in a horticultural book, but it was a cracker.

A brief glimpse

Apologies for the tardiness of posting but I believe I had a glimpse of Him at Marlpost Woods, Southwater, on Wednesday morning when the sun briefly shone. No photo to back up my suspicion though.

Old Records - thoughts revisited

Thoughts revisited

Having thought more about old records and early dates and looked at my notes from the NHM visit, I need to correct my original post.

My mind had been set that many of the pinned iris in the NHM had actual dates rather than just years on their labels. When looking up my notes this wasn’t the case, most were simply years but several stated bred. There were no actual early dates in this collection. Whereas now, if someone bred iris they would release into the wild back in the 1800s anything bred was destined for the collection, I assume without doubt.

However, although the NHM didn’t have any dates, some other collections did. I had been asking curators to check their specimens because at the time in 2003, I was trying to locate a Hertfordshire iris. Many of the historic Hertfordshire sightings were hearsay with no absolute proof whereas many other county had definite records (pinned specimens)!

One of the museums had one from the New Forest date 10.06.1918 but doesn’t state whether bred whereas others in the collection do………….

Also Dave Miller sent me this….
“The year of the previous earliest sighting was 1893. I believe the climate records for that year actually show that it resembled 2011 with an amazingly warm spell in late April - and 2011 has had the warmest spring since... 1893. It is therefore possible that the Purple Emperor record may actually be genuine.
http://www.ideashelper.com/the-weather-in-1893-in-cardiff-16.htm
is a lovely piece of overblown Victorian prose about the year...”
Liz

Early Iris

No further reports of early iris, despite vigilance (e.g. Tony Baines searched the main Alice Holt territories on Tues unsuccessfully). It seems that one or two males jumped the gun rather at Bookham.

The National Trust is proud that one of its places produced what seems to be the earliest Purple Emperor since 1893. And it's proud of the levels of butterfly interest and entomological recording at Bookham.

The start of the main emergence may be some days off...

Sussex Still In The Starting Blocks

Scoured Southwater Woods today. White Admiral males still building (early days) - no sign of female WA yet. Silver-washed Fritillary males building - just one female. No Gatekeeper, Purple Hairstreak or Ringlet yet, but Small Skipper just starting. Emergence events are all early, but in sync, suggesting we are still 3 - 4 days to first Purple Emperor in Sussex. This Bookham chap has turned up to the party very early.