Butterfly Diary
- field notes by Adrian Hoskins
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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2010
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
January
Sunday 24th January
A
Red Admiral
was seen on 22nd by a conservation work party at Bevendean
Down in Sussex, and today the first
Peacock
of the year was seen, at Lewes. Amazingly a fresh Small White
was seen in Gosport, Hampshire on 21st, although the
very early date of this record suggests that it probably emerged in a nearby glasshouse rather than
in the wild. Appropriately an
Early moth
was caught at Aylesbury on 20th. More surprisingly a Spring
Usher was recorded the previous night at Finemere Wood, where an
impressive total of 273 moths of 9 species were trapped.
Sunday 17th January
The snow cover which had blanketed Britain for the past 2 weeks
has now thawed, at least here in southern England.
The long awaited return of sunshine today brought a pleasant
surprise to at least one observer who was lucky to spot a male
Brimstone at Alresford this morning. The first moths of the year
are also starting to appear, with December moth,
Winter
moth,
Mottled Umber, Satellite,
Pale Brindled Beauty and Chestnut, all recorded last night at
various sites in Hants, Dorset, Sussex and Surrey.
Friday 1st January
I hope you have all had an enjoyable Xmas, and like myself are
looking forward to the appearance of the first post-hibernation
butterflies, which should start to show themselves this month,
assuming we get some sunny and reasonably warm days !
During the Xmas break I finished writing the species articles to
accompany all the photos taken on the learnaboutbutterflies
tour of Malaysia last May - I
apologise for the delay - it's taken a while as the UK butterfly
season and the website redesign have kept me fully occupied
until recently. The articles can all be accessed from the
Butterflies of Malaysia
gallery, or from the
Species Index.
Please note that learnaboutbutterflies has now launched a
World Butterfly Identification Service,
so if you have any photographs of unidentified species from your
holidays, please forward them. There is a small fee payable
for the service, which goes towards the running costs of the
website.
Compton Down,
West Sussex, 18th December 2009
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