Final Savernake Tally

This year's tally of autumn larvae found in/ around Savernake Forest is 21.  This is the same as last year's (poor) tally, but is better than I'd feared as the survey season ended relatively strongly yesterday.  My sincere thanks to Mark Tutton for helping.

Most larvae were found in two hot spot areas. Several favoured breeding areas were unsuitable this year because of severe tree hopper damage to foliage during June and / or serious squirrel damage to bark.  

Yesterday we found that two larvae had probably gone into hibernation (their feeding sprays had yellowed or fallen), though we couldn't actually find them - they may have travelled >3m.  I'll look again when all the leaves are off.

Two of the six larvae we saw yesterday were about 50% coloured up, prior to hibernation, three of the other four were starting to colour up, but one was still in full Lincoln green. 

Here's a green one hiding in a leaf tip drip - 

And here's one who will have to go off into hibernation very soon (though it will have sealed its leaf on to the twig stem with silk) - 

Towards Hibernation

My two captive larvae coloured up ridiculously early this year. This one was photographed on 14th Oct and went into hibernation on or around the 20th - 

That's early, very early...  And they are on a bush which stays suitably green well into November.

I checked six in the wild last Sunday (the 19th), and found that they were colouring up fast.  

Looks like they're going into hibernation early, which is odd as they changed into the 3rd instar rather late.  

All this begs the question of what do they know which we don't?????

1001*

Purple Emperor larva No 1001 was found yesterday at Marwell Zoo, by the leopard enclosure.  I'm particularly proud of this find, though the Marwell car park and woods has long been a good site for iris - I worked it during the late 1980s.  

There's a wooden walkway which skirts the leopard enclosure, running along the edge of a stand of old caprea-type sallows - at just the right height for sallow searching...  This is what was going on in the leopard enclosure -

Greater violence takes place over the nearby oaks in July...

What we really need at Marwell is a Violent Butterfly Inclosure: a massive netted flight area, containing tall oaks and aerial walkways, planted up with sallows and strawberry tree, and well stocked with Purple Emperor and the Two-tailed Pasha Charaxes jasius, only.  Male Emperors would have a fantastic time kicking the living daylights out of Two-tailed Pashas...  If Marwell wont do it, Knepp certainly will...  Bring it on!

Oates's Marathon Innings

Today I at last reached the 1000 landmark - i.e. 1000 Purple Emperor eggs and larvae in the wild, with a pair of 3rd instar larvae close by on the same spray, on the edge of Savernake Forest. 

Unusual to find two together as, surprise surprise, they hate each other and squabble like mad - if one invades the other's leaf they lock horns and try to wrestle each other off...  

Also found a deceased larva (which counts in the 1000) - 

Note the shiny egg case base at 2 o'clock from the head.

It would be nice to think I could retire now, but I can't, so I took a fresh guard, uttered a profanity against the Two-tailed Pasha and batted on.  For those who like statistics, the innings took 40 years, lasted over 1000 hours, and included one nine, two sevens, three sixes and 24 fours...  Over half were found in four glorious seasons.

Can someone please certify me...

Battle of the Titans...

Just returned from a visit to my best friend from school's villa on the Costa Brava...  

Here's the view -

This was my first opportunity to look for the Two-tailed Pasha Charaxes jasius, the one butterfly I feared might rival iris for the position of Europe's premier butterfly. It's larger for a start.  I'd lost a lot of sleep worrying that jasius might prove mightier than iris.

I need not have worried.  It's a cowardly beast, which wouldn't last five minutes in the Knepp Wildlands oaks.  With such a jerky flight it would never be able to out-manoeuvre iris in a clash and chase, and would quickly be shot down in  flames.  The first one I saw got beaten up by a Red Admiral.  Imagine that!  No Red Admiral would dare to fly into an iris territory, though they often set up territories directly below those of iris.  I chose to turn my back on Charaxes jasius, and refused to photograph it.  I was wearing purple and white at the time, of course.

This establishes a precedent: from now on all People of Purple Persuasion are obliged to turn their back on their first Charaxes.  

For the record, Long-tailed Blue, Lang's Short-tailed Blue (more of a Long-tailed lookalike) and Geranium Bronze were numerous in my friend's garden.  Nigel's Pelargoniums had been suitably shredded by the latter, except for those with aromatic leaves which the females seem to ignore.  Here are the pics, I didn't bother to photograph jasius - 

Egg Lay Woes

Ably assisted by Mark Tutton (who seems to be better at finding iris larvae than me) I am two-thirds of the way through my annual monitoring of eggs and larvae in and around Savernake Forest.  

It is not good news.  Although I kicked off with a miraculous five larvae on the first tree I searched, the tally has since struggled to reach ten, suggesting that my final total may be a measly 15 - that's significantly lower than last year's count, which itself was the lowest recorded since monitoring began in 2009.  

Yesterday, in seven hours of combined searching Mark and I found a single 2nd instar larva and one failed breeding site (first instar feeding leaf & seat pad, + egg case base remnant, but no sign of the 'pillar).  

So far in Savernake, I am averaging one find per 3 hours searching. Brother Dennis, active in North Bucks, is doing much better, averaging one find per hour.  In 2009 and 2013 Savernake was produce a larva every 20 minutes.

There are several reasons.  In Savernake, the flight season kicked off late (mid-July), then the weather deteriorated and the females had to contend with windy and at times wet weather.  Iris hates wind.  I was not expecting a big emergence there anyway, due to a poor egg lay in 2014.  Also, most of the favoured sallows at the southern end of the forest have been rendered unsuitable this year by extensive damage by tree hopper nymphs, several breeding sallows have been badly damaged by squirrels, and others have been pruned back or removed during ride-widening work.   

This monitoring is, of course, based on the assumption that the butterfly lays the same proportion of its eggs low down annually - reachable from the ground with a shepherd's crook.  There is no evidence to support or counter that assumption...

For the record, the few larvae that are around are changing from 2nd to 3rd instar now.  

The prospects for the 2016 flight season are, at this distance, not great...

Here's yesterday's 2nd instar larva - 

And here's His Tuttonship, at the joyous moment of finding his first iris larva - 

Mark is now on 2 not out...

I am on 997 not out (accrued during a marathon innings of 40 years), but I'm not particularly confident about reaching the magical four figures this year...

Caterpillar hunting at Knepp

Knepp may have topped the table with sheer numbers of adults on the wing year but finding caterpillars is no easy task.

I must say that spending the afternoon with Matthew was an absolute pleasure (as usual), expert guidance is a prerequisite to finding the little blighters. Thankfully, earlier in the day Penny, Knepp's ecologist found one and I was able to have an introduction.

Having only found one today has whetted the appetite to find more so back to Knepp very soon.

I almost forgot to mention that Knepp has a new limited edition Purple Emperor pin badge. It is a larger, 3cm wide version of the original Empire badge. Limited to 100 badges to celebrate the 100+ sightings on a Safari this year. The badges are available to personal visitors.