millerd

[millerd]

Thanks, Andrew - I have no idea why the Holly Blues keep popping up. No incantations, potions or wands involved!

Yes, Buggy - it amazed even me, and I'm used to seeing them. Not in the second half of November though...

Thank you, Goldie - you would certainly think that it was a different time of year.

Friday 17th November: my 2017 season started exactly nine months ago, on 17th February: it still hasn't finished...

There was quite a heavy frost this morning and the car needed a fair amount of scraping. The sun soon got to work and there was no wind, so despite low air temperatures (in single figures certainly), I had a look around the nearer part of my local patch before heading away for the weekend. I didn't see the Holly Blue again, but quickly counted four Red Admirals - here are a couple of them (the last one is the one I photographed yesterday).

Dave

[Wurzel]

I think you're getting a bit too good at this Holly Blue whispering Dave - a pristine specimen in mid November You're not just getting them to open their wings but now you're getting them to leave their Chrysalis

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[trevor]

HI Dave,
With such a pristine, very late female Holly Blue, I am sure you will be showered with mrgreens .
But I think we have a contest on our hands, for the most unusual end of season species.
Is it your Holly Blue or my Meadow Brown ?.
That last image is stunning.

It's been a great season with lots of surprises !
Trevor.

[Neil Freeman]

Your next mission should you choose to accept it is to photograph one on some frost encrusted Holly berries on Christmas Day Dave

Now there's a challenge

It does make you wonder though, what else is out there. I have seen a number of recent reports of various moth species coming to traps well outside of their normal flight times. I had a Shoulder-striped Wainscot in my trap a couple of weeks ago, this being a species that normally flies from late May to Late July.
It has certainly been a strange season.

Cheers,

Neil.

[David M]

Your next mission should you choose to accept it is to photograph one on some frost encrusted Holly berries on Christmas Day Dave

I've made some joking remarks about Dave's ability to conjure up late season Holly Blues from the ether lately, but given this latest sighting I can't be 100% sure that he won't pull off the very image you suggest, Bugboy.

[millerd]

I am mystified, Wurzel, as to why a Holly Blue chrysalis that has suffered several very chilly nights has not gone into blissful winter sleep, and instead hatches out on a mid-November day. I hope there are one or two left for next spring!

To be honest, Trevor, both seem baffling to me: how could a spring Meadow Brown caterpillar not emerge as a butterfly until November? And as for the Holly Blue, see my comment above. I wonder what the experts make of all this?

That's quite a challenge, Neil and David (and thank you once again Bugboy ). However, unless the whole spring brood go completely awry and emerge one by one every week until the end of the year, I don't think I'll succeed!

I was down in Somerset over the weekend for a school reunion, and saw no butterflies during the trip. However, I was shown a piece of mobile phone video footage of a stretch of ivy-festooned wall in Wellington which was entertaining over 50 Red Admirals (taken in October). Goodness knows how many there must have been in the UK this year.

I returned home around lunchtime on Sunday 19th November. The sun was out (which it hadn't been for most of the drive), the temperature was 9 degrees at best, and over on the nearest part of my local patch a Red Admiral was flying.

Good to be home!

Dave

[Goldie M]

Hi! Dave it's a treat to keep seeing Butterflies in your posts It's certainly making the year stretch out I hope you see some more. Goldie

[Andrew555]

Nice RA Dave. What's the record for your latest sighting of the year ?

[millerd]

Thanks, both! It's good to still be seeing things. Eight days out of twenty this month so far, and ten months out of twelve in the year.

I think that nationally Red Admirals have been seen on every day of the year - but I would check that to be certain. It doesn't seem unlikely to be honest.

My latest ever around here to date, Andrew, was 30th November 2014 when on an unusually sunny and warm day I saw six Red Admirals and three Commas. I had also seen a Red Admiral and a Peacock the previous day down in Hampshire just before the winter social got underway. A little way to go yet to break that record, but you never know.

My last Holly Blue of 2014 was 9th November, so that particular record has now tumbled...

Dave

[Wurzel]

And still the Red Admirals come! I reckon you'll be able to muster one up this weekend on the way to the Social Dave

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[bugboy]

And still the Red Admirals come! I reckon you'll be able to muster one up this weekend on the way to the Social Dave

Have a goodun

Wurzel

You might be right there, the forecast (for what it's worth) is for a lovely sunny day. Keep your camera handy just in case

[David M]

Interesting to see the Red Admiral was pottering around nettles. I wonder whether it was looking to lay?

[Andrew555]

Thanks, both! It's good to still be seeing things. Eight days out of twenty this month so far, and ten months out of twelve in the year.

I think that nationally Red Admirals have been seen on every day of the year - but I would check that to be certain. It doesn't seem unlikely to be honest.

My latest ever around here to date, Andrew, was 30th November 2014 when on an unusually sunny and warm day I saw six Red Admirals and three Commas. I had also seen a Red Admiral and a Peacock the previous day down in Hampshire just before the winter social got underway. A little way to go yet to break that record, but you never know.

My last Holly Blue of 2014 was 9th November, so that particular record has now tumbled...

Dave

Thanks Dave, interesting. I will be in Weymouth at Christmas, I will have a scout around there and Portland, you never know!

[millerd]

Thanks to you all for the comments. Unfortunately that was the last sighting of anything around here. The sunny days recently have been too windy, or just plain cold. I've checked the various nettle beds, but have not been able to re-find the Red Admiral eggs I spotted earlier in the month, nor any signs of larval activity. On the other hand, the nettles have not yet succumbed to any of the frosts either. I shall continue to keep an eye out.

All I have to report is this curious moth, found inside a few days back.

Dave

[Wurzel]

I'm not surprised the the Heathrow micro bubble has succumbed to the chill - it's bloomy nippy all over Your moth is a Plume moth, probably a Brown Plume, but I think 'stick' moths would have been a better group name for them
Good catching up at the Social - if you fancy trying Daneways for Large Blue next year PM me and we might be able to sort a group trip - it'll have to be a weekend though as I'm sill a wage slave

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[millerd]

Despite quite a few sunny days recently, I have yet to see a butterfly. All the nettles upon which Red Admirals were enthusiastically laying back in November have succumbed to frost - I think there have been more in February than in December and January added together, and the forecast now is for at least a week of very chilly weather.

On my local walks, I have spotted the odd bird, but I rarely get a camera on anything interesting - it's just the usual fare that I manage to get the odd snap of:

Ring-necked Parakeets, which are already setting up home in holes in the trees and becoming very noisy.

Red Kites are increasingly to be seen circling in twos and threes, having comprehensively moved down from the M40 corridor.

Little Egrets - seen every winter and beyond, they have become less timid and more suburbanised, fishing in the stream running through our estate.

Dave

[Wurzel]

All the usual fare...used to be those three species you got shots of were rarities Dave If only butterflies followed suit and we had a few more additions to the British breeding list Great set of shots BTW

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

What an array of avian exotica, Dave, although I'm aware those ring-necks can be a pest. I wonder if we'll get any more unusual species turning up with these Siberian winds forecast to sweep in from tomorrow?

[Neil Freeman]

Hi Dave,

Ring-necked Parakeets have reached my neck of the woods now with a roost of 50+ being observed recently by some local birders in a south Birmingham park, I even had a small flock of half a dozen or so pass through my garden a couple of weeks ago but they were gone before I could grab my camera.
Red Kites are working their way slowly closer along the M40 corridor too so maybe not long before they join the Buzzards that are usually somewhere overhead on my wanders around my local patch. Not seen a Little Egret around here yet but you never know.

Cheers,

Neil.

[Andrew555]

Love the suburban Little Egret Dave.

Cheers