The 2022 Purple Emperor Season

 Unless the Platinum Jubilee generates the traditional foul & abusive jubilee weather we are set for a very early Purple Emperor flight season, and quite possibly an extremely good one.

I was going for a 1pm start on Thurs June 9th but the last week of May, a crucial period in determining our Midsummer butterflies' appearance, has been cool, especially at night. The 9th is still a distinct possibility but the weekend of the 11th-12th is now more likely. I'm going for 1pm on the 11th.

Neil Hulme is predicting the 15th, as "we're bound to get some poor weather" and Ben Greenaway is going for the 13th.  

The official record for the earliest UK Purple Emperor is 10/6/1893, though in that exceptionally hot summer it was 'out in the New Forest by early June' - whatever that means. The modern record is 11/6/2017 and 11/6/2019.

Those records could well be broken this year. 

However, each year we receive claims of very early Emperors from strange places by people who are not known to be official Emperorphiles. I'm sorry, but it is hard to accept such records. If there's a smidgen of doubt, don't claim it: genuine Emperor sightings leave you in no doubt whatsoever... (and this applies to me too).

Although much depends on weather during the pupation and pupal stages (more so than flight season weather) this summer could well see a distinctly large emergence - this could be an all-time great Purple Emperor year.

Meanwhile, here's Boris the Emperor caterpillar, taken the other day. He's full grown and ready to pupate, and he's in the sunless wastes of Gloucestershire. As has been written large on a bridge over the M4 at Bristol: Boris Is Helch - 

For regular updates on Emperor affairs follow me on Twitter @MatthewOates76

Early Season Likely...

 A quick heads up to say that Purple Emperor larvae are developing rapidly in this fine spring. Some are already entering the final instar. That's very early...

As things stand, we can anticipate the flight season to start in (or even by) mid-June, and for it to be over by, say, July 21st.  

I will post my official prediction for the start date in a week or so's time. 

Expect, though, extreme weather at and around the time of Her Majesty's jubilee - given that the seven royal jubilees held to date have all generated extreme (and mainly bad) weather. That may delay the flight season. 

Also, this could be an extremely good Emperor season, though much depends on weather during the pupation and pupal periods.   

Greening up, and getting crunched

  Purple Emperor larvae are greening up nicely at the back-end of yet another mild winter - at least, those that haven't been predated.

  Predation, seemingly mainly by birds and particularly by tits, is a major hazard during the five month-long diapause (which we call hibernation).  In most winters, about two-thirds are lost.

  This winter, Ben Greenaway seems set to lose 2/3rds (or maybe even 3/4s) from a sample of 40 in woods north of Knepp in West Sussex, and I seem set to lose about 2/3rds from much smaller samples in Savernake Forest, Wiltshire, and a small ancient woodland site on the Lambourn Downs.  I had hoped for less...

  The good news is that, to date, I have only lost one out of eight larvae in a new breeding ground in part of Cirencester Park Woods, Glos.  That's remarkable, though it may yet end in tears.  Tit populations, as measured, are relatively low in these woods (lack of nesting holes in plantation woodland) and it may be that the tits simply haven't discovered Emperor larvae on the sallows, in new sallow stands that only started to become suitable during 2021.  

  But Ben has had some losses to invertebrate predation, by some type of sucking bug (shield bugs, he thinks), and yesterday I found this had happened to one of the larvae I was following on a dead twig in Savernake - 

  You can see the hole plainly.  I have followed some 200 larvae in the wild through the last 13 winters but hadn't noticed this sort of loss before, though I had a number apparently shrivel up during the mild winter of 2013-14, some of which may have been sucked (only I didn't detect the pierced hole, which may only show up for a short while).  This may be a problem associated with mild winters...

  Meanwhile, here's a healthy larva, sleeping the final days of winter, dreaming up the spring, and scheming of flying the golden high summer skies - 

  And here's another from yesterday, starting to get some protection from swelling, silvering flower buds -

2022 Early News

2022 could be an annus mirabilis for the Purple Emperor, though much needs to go right and an awful lot mustn't go wrong...

Last year saw a surprisingly good egg lay and a goodly number of larvae entered hibernation. That's a big plus.

To date, winter losses have been low at some monitored sites (only 25% have been predated to date in my local woods, and 33% at another monitored site east of Swindon), though Ben Greenaway has recorded 60% losses so far (mid-Feb) in West Sussex and I've recorded similar losses in the Great Tit haven that is Savernake Forest, my main study site. The mid-February to early March period sees the highest mortality during hibernation.

Another period of high loss seems to be the pupal period, though we are only just starting to study this in the wild. It seems that the longer this butterfly spends in the pupal stage the fewer Emperors we see on the wing.  

This year we have The Queen's Platinum Jubilee in early June, when many larvae should be pupating. Please note that the track record of the Great British Weather during Royal Jubilees is nothing short of appalling - c/f the heavy cold rains of June 2012 and 1977.  Even Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1887 was ruined by the weather - an extreme heatwave ended in an apocalyptic heatwave which caused considerable crop damage...

Watch this space. Whatever will be will be, but it will be interesting...

Autumn & Early Winter News

Apologies for the lack of posts but I've acquired a new laptop and cannot (yet) post to the Empire on it...  This post is via the old, wobbly laptop...

The good news is that larvae are quite numerous this autumn / early winter, despite a low adult emergence and much poor flight season weather. This may be because sallow foliage was in good condition for the egg-laying females in July and for L1 larvae in August, due to the late spring and late leafing (it's complex, scientifically difficult, and covered in my book).

Larvae entered hibernation (or strictly, diapause) late, due to the mild November. The mild first three weeks of November also meant that many larvae wandered far and wide before entering diapause - so, they're hard to locate. This mildness also meant that larvae were still wandering around on the last day of November and first day of December - these are new record dates for active larvae.

At present, I am following at least 14 larvae in / around Savernake Forest. These are named after philosophers in Monty Python's Australian Philosophers Song.  I have also got another bunch on philosophers, non-Pythonesque and mainly Existentialist, near Lambourn and, joy of joys, Boris and his Cabinet in hibernation in my local wood (a new, radical and utterly wonderful colonisation). I've got a couple more elsewhere locally too. So, a good sample size to follow.

Better, Ben Greenaway is following an even larger number in West Sussex. 

So, we'll get a good measurement of winter survival and predation rates. Tit populations are down, due to a poor breeding season in the cold and wet spring, and when tits are down Emperors go up. Yay!

At this stage, the prospects for the 2022 season are genuinely good, but we don't need a mild, wet winter and an early spring (both of which lead to high larval mortality) and we really don't need the wet weather associated with Royal Jubilees next June (it's The Queen's Platinum Jubilee...).

Here's this winter's 'Priti', of the unusual olive-yellow colour form -

 And here's 'Jacques Derrida' -

The bad news is that the Dangle Leaf Season kicked off late, due to the mild autumn, and ended at most sites very early, due to Storm Arwen. Here's one of the few dangles I managed to find before Arwen blew them all away - 

You can follow these guys, and more, on Twitter at @MatthewOates76.

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Some disturbingly large Iris specimens have been appearing. Speculation  around horizontal gene transfer with bison has remained unproven as the dangerous species has so far eluded capture and neither is pupae nor eggs have yet been found. Against the trend of global warming the evolutionary variation seems to be heading south. First sightings in Ushaw Historic gardens then in Darlington and Bishop Aukland then Redcar. Attempts to mate it with standard size females have failed its genital optics appear to lack adequate precision. This being a new speciation  a name for the new species is being mooted  `purple galactic ethnarch` or `purple chief executive of the  universe` . Suggestions welcome.