My selection for 2024.

Great news on the Wall Brown action David is finding in Essex. A great winter activity is looking for the larvae in grass tussocks. With the quantity of butterflies found, it could be a bit easier than one would think. They can be found on sunnier days as they move up the grasses. Look for a little ...

Hi Trevor. It's still a bit early to say how good the 3rd brood of Wall Brown will be. I am quietly confident that it could be half decent with all the lush grasses around for the feeding larvae. But, since the 3rd brood started to fly, we have only had 2 or 3 days of decent weather, and even those ...

A cracking butterfly Trevor. They don't come much more special than that one.

This is the other image that Vince referred to in the previous post. This was taken by a panic stricken Badgerbob on the mobile phone when he realised what was happening as the camera was already in the car ready for the trip for Bearded Tits and the macro lens was upstairs in a cupboard. It was a c...

As everyone should know, it's a good idea to clean out your birdfeeders. Yesterday, 26th January, I was in the garden doing exactly that, when 2 Red Admirals were suddenly flying around my head. As I watched them, my first butterflies of the year, they landed next to each other on the wall of the ho...

My only sighting this year was from Abbots Wood on Good Friday. There was the Birling Gap LT showing, which was local to us, but Lisa and I decided to head out for Abbotts Wood, where I had seen one in 2021. Just as we were about to give up I came across this one resting on a tree trunk. After rumma...

My 3 efforts from Sussex.

With reference to the Silver-washed Fritillary that Bugboy found at Chiddingfold, I think it looks like a different individual to the one I had just over a fortnight earlier, as there is a part of the left hind-wing missing on mine that appears to be there on his. As an aside, there was also a suspe...

Good to see Dave (millerd) in Tugley. After seeing him we did see a few more Wood White, probably 4 or 5. However, the biggest surprise was the discovery of a female Silver-washed Fritillary flying along the ride just up from the bridge over the stream. What it was doing there at this time of year i...

Good to see you too Trevor. I must confess it got a little too busy for me after showing you the mating pair of Dukes. I had a feeling someone would move them. It was a bit of a shame as they did actually look extremely good where they were, and they were so content, but such is life!!

My annual frustrations at searching for Wall Brown pupa continued over the weekend. I thought I had found one, amazingly in the first tussock I checked, but after thinking at the time that it looked a little different, on looking at the 'Life Cycles' book when I got home it turned into my first ever...

Graham Hubbard had one visit his garden in Woodingdean, East Sussex, on Good Friday 7/4/2023. Quite a worn specimen. Details and photos on the Sussex sightings page.

The Large Tortoiseshell from Abbotts Wood in East Sussex on Good Friday 7/4/2023.

The BBC weather says it is only 5 degrees out there today in north Seaford, and it does indeed feel very cold, so it was a bit of a surprise to spot a Peacock flying around the garden. Needless to say, the poor butterfly soon found a place in the vegetation to go back to sleep. 5/3/2023.

A bit late to the party but big congrats for the fabulous Brimstone shot Dave.

Also a Long-tailed Blue at Beachy Head on Sunday 23rd. Seen and photographed by my son. Found by Laurance Pitcher.

Going back to the 'Chocolate' scented scent scales, I picked this info up a few years ago from the brilliant Butterflies of Britain and Ireland by Jeremy Thomas and Richard Lewington. It's mentioned in that book so when I saw the courtship one day, and there was nobody else around, I got down on my ...

Morning Trevor. It's certainly a case of the male trying to seduce the female with his scent scales, which have a slight whiff of chocolate believe it or not!! The male will try to circle around the female flapping like mad sending his scent scales over her, so I guess in the course of all this he g...

I was lucky to come across a near perfect female Wall Brown late in the 1st brood on my local patch on 10th June. A mating pair during the 2nd brood was also good to see, also on my patch.