Butterfly Diary
- field notes by Adrian Hoskins
my earliest
sightings of each brood are highlighted in bold type
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Sightings
policy - details of certain sites where visitor pressure
or trampling may pose a threat to butterflies or alienate
landowners are excluded from these pages.
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2008
Jan
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Feb
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Mar
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Apr
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May
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Jun
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Jly
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Aug
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Sep
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Oct
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Nov
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Dec
October-December
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Saturday
20th December
Several changes have been
made to the website in recent weeks, - the photo galleries
have been given a new look, and there have been many
additional photos and species accounts added which can be
accessed via the Species Index. You may have noticed that
many web pages now feature smaller fonts. This change has
been instigated to reflect the much greater legibility of
modern TFT monitors, and to allow more information to be
presented per page. It will be extended during the next 2
months so that all pages on the website have the new smaller
font.
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Saturday
6th December
There are few things I enjoy more than a walk in the
countryside on a bright sunny winter day, so after weeks of
miserable weather it was a great pleasure to visit Stansted
Forest this afternoon and spend 2 hours strolling around in
glorious sunshine. It came as no surprise when after half an
hour I spotted a Red Admiral basking on the trunk of a larch
tree, although it was the only butterfly seen.
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Friday 14th
October
Rain, rain, rain. Will it ever stop ?
The prospect of seeing any butterflies in
the UK this weekend looks unlikely with yet more rain and
wind forecast, but at least it will give me the chance to do
some more work on the website. During the last month many
new photographs and species accounts have been published,
depicting no less than 242 of the species seen on the
learnaboutbutterflies trip to Peru. For those who normally
only look at the British butterfly pages on the website,
here is a photograph that I hope will tempt you into
exploring the
Species Index :
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Temenis laothoe form
violetta, Rio Madre de Dios, Peru
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Saturday
25th
October
West Sussex experienced the first frosts of autumn earlier
this week, but a few Red Admirals are still surviving - I
saw one today basking on the trunk of a fir tree in Stansted
Forest. The frost does seem however to have killed off the
last Speckled Woods, and sent the Brimstones, Commas and
Peacocks into hibernation. However there are still plenty of
ivy flowers on the more sheltered oaks in the forest so
further sightings of Commas and Red Admirals are quite
possible if we get any warm sunny days in the next 2 or 3
weeks.
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Saturday
18th October
A gorgeous warm sunny
day, and I was tempted to head for the countryside and
search for some end of season butterflies, but decided
instead to go to the annual AES exhibition and insect trade
fair at Kempton Park, London. For me the purpose of the trip
was to meet friends and buy some secondhand entomological
books, and I was very pleased to be able to obtain some
plates of neotropical Arctiidae and Geometridae from the
Seitz Macrolepidoptera of the World series. Hopefully these
will enable me to identify some of the amazing Arctiid wasp
mimics and emerald moths seen on my recent Peru tour. There
was much else of great interest at the exhibition - new and
second hand books, moth traps, rearing cages, and a huge
variety of livestock including stick insects, katydids,
tarantulas, millipedes, caterpillars and silkmoth cocoons.
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Sunday
12th October
Yesterday I spent an hour
at midday walking around Stansted Forest in warm sunshine,
but only saw 1 Large White, 2 very worn Speckled Woods and 2
Commas ( one basking high on a pine trunk, the other
nectaring at ivy blossom ). Today at Old Winchester Hill in
similar weather conditions I saw 1 Speckled Wood, 3 fairly
fresh Small Heaths, 2 very worn male Meadow Browns, 2 Large Whites, 2 male
Brimstones and 4 faded Red Admirals. I also disturbed a Peacock
which flew out from beneath fallen tree trunks in the deep
shade of the valley bottom woodland.
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Wednesday
1st October
I arrived back in the UK
yesterday after an extremely successful
butterfly watching trip to Peru. The diversity and abundance
of butterflies seen in the Andes and Amazon was stunning,
and a provisional trip report will be published within the next
days. During the next 2 or 3 months there will be several
new species accounts published in the Amazonia and Andes
sections of the website, together with masses of new
photographs. A provisional species list should be published
by late October, and this will be updated as further species
are identified and catalogued - this takes time because I
need to contact several taxonomists in Peru, Brazil and the
USA, as I like my lists to be accurate !
It seems that Britain has
enjoyed a spell of fine weather while I was away, with
reports received of Small Coppers, Commas, Meadow Browns,
Speckled Woods, Large Whites, Small Whites and Red Admirals
seen at the weekend in Hampshire and Sussex.
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