Nick Morgan

[Wurzel]

I'd give them a day or two to dry out and warm up and then hopefully their numbers will pick up - at least that's what I'm hoping WRT the menage a quatre cracking shot of some unusual behaviour is that down to them trying to catch up after the poor weather?

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[NickMorgan]

Thanks Wurzel. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[NickMorgan]

I took the day of work on Friday to look for kidney vetch along the Berwickshire Coast as part of a Small Blue survey that is being organised by Iain Cowe. I started off by visiting the established colony of Small Blue near Eyemouth, just to get my eye in. To get there involves a walk of over a kilometre along the coastal path, where I remember seeing a lot of butterflies in previous years. However, this time I didn't see one butterfly despite full sun and 17 degrees. When I arrived at the site, almost immediately I saw my first Small Blue. I had forgotten how small they are and initially I thought it was a fly that I had seen!
I spent about an hour and a half enjoying this little colony and I saw about 20 or 30 individuals in that time.

It took me a while to find any eggs, but once I got my eye in I found them on quite a number of flower heads.

These are magical little butterflies and I could have stayed for hours watching them. While I was there a Wall Brown briefly visited and I saw my first Small Heath of the season and on the walk back to the car a couple of Green-veined Whites and a Peacock flew past.
I spent the rest of the day visiting various sites along the coast to look for kidney vetch. I only found it at two sites and didn't see much more in the way of butterflies. One area close to Cove had a few Wall Browns and I saw a Speckled Wood on the way down to the harbour.

Cove Harbour

I have to admit to being a little disappointed with the lack of butterflies I saw.
As I drove back home I called in to Bilsdean to see if the East Lothian Wall Browns were out and about. I found six of them along their favourite section of the John Muir Way and an Orange Tip at Dunglass.

It was great to see that the number of Small Blues doesn't seem to have been affected by the poor spring weather. It seems that Wall Browns have also been reasonably unscathed by the weather. Numbers of Orange Tips and other whites are definitely a lot lower than normal and there doesn't seem to be resurgence now that we are having better weather.

[NickMorgan]

I was pleased that the number of butterflies seemed to have picked up yesterday when I did my transect. Good numbers of Green-veined Whites and Orange Tips, a single Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock and, at long last, my first Large White! I wonder if many of them had managed to delay emergence during the cold period we experienced. It was 21 degrees at lunch time when I did the transect and by the time I went home after five o'clock it had dropped to 14 degrees and cloudy. Hopefully the warm weather will return soon.

[NickMorgan]

What miserable weather! We have had no sunshine for a week now, maximum temperatures of 14 degrees and north winds. The poor old butterflies that appeared to be recovering in numbers last Monday will be finding life hard. There doesn't look to be much improvement on the horizon.
Last Thursday I met with the Access Officer from the Scottish Borders and we walked for 16 kilometres across the Lammermuir Hills checking out an estate where we have had a number of complaints of game keepers shouting at ramblers. We received nothing but friendly waves, so maybe they rumbled who we were! It was perfect weather for walking, but sadly too overcast for butterflies. Some new diversions had been cut through the heather to avoid a new wind farm development, so we were walking in relatively unexplored territory and potential habitats for uncommon butterflies. I will definitely have to go back if we get any sunshine.
The highlight of a short walk today was finding some Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars in a patch of nettles. I was delighted, but my wife thought they were disgusting - "a writhing black mass"! Some people have no taste!!

[Paul Harfield]

The highlight of a short walk today was finding some Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars in a patch of nettles. I was delighted, but my wife thought they were disgusting - "a writhing black mass"! Some people have no taste!!

Hi Nick
Great to see that Small Tortoiseshells are thriving somewhere I have not seen one at any stage down here for several years When I was growing up they were perhaps the most numerous of all butterflies for me. I have found Comma and Red Admiral larvae recently. We have huge amounts of Nettle around here as I am sure most people do, so I do not really understand why they are so elusive

[David M]

Great to see that Small Tortoiseshells are thriving somewhere I have not seen one at any stage down here for several years When I was growing up they were perhaps the most numerous of all butterflies for me. I have found Comma and Red Admiral larvae recently. We have huge amounts of Nettle around here as I am sure most people do, so I do not really understand why they are so elusive

Strange that (as well as worrying). Although Tortoiseshells are fewer in number than I remember as a child, they're still relatively common near where I live in south Wales. Must say though, apart from in spring, it's rare to see more than a handful on any given day. They tend to crop up in ones or twos like Brimstones.

[Neil Freeman]

I have only seen two Small Tortoiseshells this year and one of those was in Norfolk.
They are much more scarce around my part of the midlands than they used to be. I too remember them being one of the most common butterflies around in my childhood.

Neil F.

[NickMorgan]

Wow, it is worrying to hear about the decline in numbers further south. I wonder if it is something to do with the recent poor summers or paracitism from Sturmia bella? Maybe it is a bit of both and Sturmia doesn't do so well up here. We don't exactly get a lot of Small Tortoiseshells up here, but they are the one butterfly that I can usually rely on seeing on the odd occasion when the sun shines. Along the local nettle patch, which is about 100 metres along the side of a track I have regularly seen two or three adults since early March this year. Other than a decline in numbers about four years ago when everyone was concerned about their decline, they have remained as common today as they always have been here.

[Neil Freeman]

Hi Nick,

My apologies for the continued intrusion into your diary.

You may be interested in the linked article if you have not already seen it.

http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/a ... inues.html

cheers,

Neil F.

[Goldie M]

The Small Tortoiseshells are doing well here in Lancashire Nick. The nice week we had at the end of March my garden was full for a couple of days, then every time I went to my local haunt Hall-lee-Brook I'd always see them. I've put a couple of pic's in to cheer you up Goldie

[NickMorgan]

Hi Nick,

My apologies for the continued intrusion into your diary.

Happy to host the party!!

You may be interested in the linked article if you have not already seen it.

http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/a ... inues.html

cheers,

Neil F.

Interesting, but as they say it will be more interesting to see if the trend continues over the next few years. Given the weather so far, I guess we are looking at the numbers continuing to be low.
It sounds as though there is a north/south divide. As I have said in other posts we have had a few species expand their range into East Lothian over the last few years. Is this a sign of climate change? It's difficult to believe that is the case as we have had two very hard winters at the end of 2009 and 2010 and poor summers in 2010 and 2011. Other species (Ringlets, Orange Tips and Peacocks) arrived about 35 years ago.

Thanks for the pictures Goldie. I remember bright, sunny weather!! Today, despite it being overcast, I decided to go and look for Northern Brown Argus in the hope that the weather was meant to brighten up. All I found was a Small Heath cowering in the damp grass. Of course, as soon as I arrived back in the office the sun came out for a while!!

[NickMorgan]

The sun shone today, so I was able to do my transect. There weren't that many butterflies around, but still I saw eleven Green-veined Whites, seven Orange Tips, a very faded Small Tortoiseshell and my first Red Admiral of the year. Of course when I walked back I also saw two faded Peacocks. Where were they when I wanted them?!

I watched a female Orange Tip on a Dame's Violet Hesperis matronalis and at first I thought it was feeding. Then I noticed that it looked as though it was laying eggs.

When I had a look I saw that it had laid an egg on each flower head.

I have been searching Cuckoo Flowers and Garlic Mustard plants for eggs for weeks and been worried that I hadn't found any. I have never known Orange Tips to lay eggs on Dame's Violet before. I guess they must have been doing so in the past, but I just haven't noticed. It's strange, though that I haven't found any eggs on their more usual foodplants.

I was also pleased to see that there were a few Chimney Sweeper moths in the meadow. Ringlets are usually not far behind them!!

[NickMorgan]

I was in Dunbar this morning and, as the sun was shining, I thought I should visit John Muir Country Park to see if there were any Ringlets or Common Blue flying. No sign of any Ringlet yet, but there were a lot of Small Heaths along the main path. I gave up counting after 50. At one point there were six of them in front of me squabbling over a choice spot!

Unfortunately there was a strong easterly wind, but I thought it worth checking an area of grassland where I found Common Blue last year. It is in an area that used to be a hill, made of sand. It was quarried away many years ago and is now a grassy area surrounded by trees. There are a few undulations and last year I noticed that one slightly raised area was very popular with Common Blues. Sure enough, this was where I found Common Blue today -three males and a female. I really can't figure out what is so attractive about this particular area (about 10 feet in diameter) compared to all of the rest of the grassland. I remembered that there was another dip where I regularly saw a Common Blue last year, so I had a quick check there and there was another Common Blue. I find it intriguing that year after year particular species choose to live in exactly the same spot as their precedessors.

I had a meeting with an estate manager in the Lammermuir Hills this afternoon, and as I arrived a bit early I thought I would check a right of way to see if some new signs had been installed. Unfortunately it clouded over, so I only saw a Small Heath and a Green-veined White. However, I also saw what I thought were a couple of feathers in the heather. When I had a closer look it was an amazing moth, which was about three inches across its wings. I think I have since identified it from the UKmoths web site as a female Oak Eggar, Lasiocampa quercus.

[NickMorgan]

I've been thinking of taking up ornithology recently, instead of forlornly looking for butterflies. Each time I go on my transect I see a kingfisher, some herons, dippers, goosanders along with mallards and buzzards. Certainly at the moment I am seeing a lot more birds than butterflies. Strangely, despite the dreadful weather there has been one good day each week to allow me to complete my transect. Sadly the remaining days of the week have been very overcast, wet and windy, so not much chance of seeing much else.
Today we actually had a bit of sun between the showers and as I was passing Blindwells, I thought I should pop in to see if there were any Graylings around yet. This is an old open-cast coal mine that has been filled in and is now waiting to be turned into a new town. One of the few places that Graylings are found in East Lothian is on the old railway siding on this site.
Today my luck was in and I saw my first Grayling of the year in exactly the spot where I saw them last year. The wind was really strong, so I was surprised to see anything flying. It flew up from in front of me and landed in the grass just long enough for a quick record shot. Then it flew up and disappeared into some longer grass.

The forecast looks terrible for the next week, but I am away on holiday to Spain, so hopefully I will be seeing a few more butterflies there!

[Wurzel]

Have a great holiday Nick, looking forward to the photos on your return

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[NickMorgan]

We arrived back from our Spanish holiday last Sunday to hear stories of torrential rain and flooding while we were away. Despite that, a colleague managed do my transect the previous week and the weather was bright, but cloudy on Monday so I was able to do one again this week. It was alarming to see that almost all of my transect route had been under water two weeks earlier.The grass and flowers were all flattened and covered in a film of silt. All of the areas where I had seen Orange Tip eggs before I went away had been submerged and I could find no signs of caterpillars. Even worse, the area where I had been watching the Sand Martins had completely eroded away and there was no sign of the birds at all.
Despite all of the devastation I still counted 15 Ringlets, a Meadow Brown and a Small Tortoiseshell. This is about a third of the number that I would normally expect to see at this time of year, but hardly surprising!
The next three days returned to heavy rain and slight flooding, but Friday was brighter and the sun actually came out at lunchtime. I headed straight for Meadowmill, where there is a re-landscaped coal bing. Last year some Grayling were discovered here and it is not farm from the other site in East Lothian where the occur. I was delighted to see probably about 40 of them, six Meadow Browns and a Common Blue around the main pyramid.

In the afternoon I walked down the River Tyne to check for damage to the new path. Over three kilometres and back I only saw a couple of Ringlets, a Meadow Brown and a very disheveled Red Admiral. Then I briefly saw a Green-veined White - the first white I have seen in a few weeks now.

This morning I woke to a beautiful sunny day and took my camera with me when I took the dog for his morning walk. I saw 11 Meadow Browns, 22 Ringlets and a lovely Small Tortoiseshell. Great to see them, but again much lower numbers than I would expect to see.

The forecast is looking a little better for next week and I will be interested to see if butterfly numbers pick up a bit.

[NickMorgan]

We have been having some rather frustrating internet problems this week and this is my third attempt to post this, so forgive me if it is a bit short!!
Our summer holidays this year were spent in the hills about 50 kilometres north-west of Malaga. A lovely area of Spain, but they have been experiencing a very hot and dry spring and summer. We noticed that much of Spain looked parched from the plane and it was certainly very dry around the area where we had rented a villa.
I have to admit to being a little disappointed with the number of species I saw, which I think was partly caused by the heat, but also partly because of my ignorance! Having posted some pictures of skippers in the "Identification" section of this forum Guy and Roger kindly identified them for me. What I had thought were probably two different species turned out to be five.

This one I got right - it is a Sage Skipper.

And this one was the other one I got right - a Mallow Skipper.

That was where my expertise stopped! I found the underside views of the skippers particularly difficult to identify. Some species seem to be quite variable, but so many species look quite similar to other species! I noticed from my pictures that even the same butterfly looked quite different depending on how the light hit it. I suppose there are advantages to living somwhere where there are only 15 species of butterflies!

This one was identified as a Southern Marbled Skipper.

And this one was identified as a Southern Grizzled Skipper.

And this was identified as a Red-underwing Skipper.

I am very grateful to Guy and Roger for their opinions on these butterflies. I would never have managed to identify them and even now looking at my butterfly books and Guy's European Butterfly app, I am still baffled!

[NickMorgan]

It has been a bit of a frustrating week. While much of the UK has enjoyed a belated sunny spell, we have had a front sitting over us, dropping various amounts of rain. On Wednesday we had a bit of sun and I tried to do my transect, but it clouded over just before I started and by the end of section 5 I had seen no butterflies. When I arrived at the burn that I cross it was swollen with brown water and I couldn't find a way across, which gave me a good excuse to abort the mission.
A friend had more luck seeing good numbers of butterflies at the coast, but she commented that the dark clouds came over and switched off the butterflies like a theatre curtain!
On Thursday I did manage to do my transect, but it clouded over towards the end. I don't think it made much difference to the butterfly numbers, as they were much lower than expected. I think due to the flooding three weeks earlier. I saw eleven Ringlets and two Small Tortoiseshells!
Today was much better. At lunch time I went to Linn Dean, a Scottish Wildlife Trust reserve consisting of a small, steep sided glen, rich in wild flowers.

The reserve is meant to be a good site for Northern Brown Argus and that was why I went there. Almost as soon as I arrived I saw one chasing a Common Blue.

As I looked around I noticed several of them. Many of them were a little faded, but they were very active.

There were hundreds of Ringlets at that site and I had to be really careful not to stand on them! Naturally, it clouded over while I was there and almost immediately all of the butterflies went to ground. When the sun came out ten or fifteen minutes later the activity was frantic as if the butterflies wanted to make the most of any available sunlight.

To complete the brown butterfly theme, there were also a lot of Meadow Browns around.

The brownness was broken up by the odd Common Blue, Small Tortoiseshell and Dark Green Fritillaries.

There was also a brief fly-past from a Green-veined White and a Small Copper. All together a fantastic hour and a half and by far the most butterflies I have seen all year.

[NickMorgan]

I have managed to sort out my pictures of butterflies from Spain. I didn't see as many species as I had hoped and I think this was because of the exceptionally hot and dry year they have experienced in the south of Spain. While we were there the temperature reached 38 or 39 degrees most days.
The garden of the villa we rented was well irrigated, but the surrounding countryside was very dry. There was very little in flower, other than the odd more shaded patch of thyme, however it was obvious that earlier in the year the place must be covered in wild flowers.
I tried searching for butterflies at various times of the day and found that the best time was early morning. I generally left the house at sunrise and searched the surrounding hills until about 9am. By then the temperature had risen to such a degree that the butterflies were taking shelter from the sun and I was struggling in the heat.
Why is it that the first butterfly I see on our Mediterranean holidays is almost always a Geranium Bronze? I only saw these in the garden of the villa checking out the geraniums, but there was no sign of any eggs of evidence of caterpillars. Despite the irrigation the plants were quite dry and tough.

The other butterfly that was regularly in the garden was Lang's Short-tailed Blue.

The only place I saw them in the garden was around a plumbago plant, which seems to be their favoured plant to lay eggs on. The flower heads were covered in eggs. I tried to take pictures of the eggs, but they were very small. When I checked the pictures I saw that I had also managed to photograph a caterpillar. I returned to the plant and could barely see the caterpillar, it being about 2mm long.

My daughter and I spent hours searching for larger caterpillars without any luck. They are just so well camouflaged amongst the buds.

The other regular visitor to the garden were Southern Brown Argus.

Not far from the villa a track had been cut in the hillside up to an olive grove. This offered a bit of shade to the plants on the track meaning that the thyme was still in flower. This was the area where I saw the most butterflies in the area and was the regular spot that I walked to most days. The first morning I looked there I was really excited to see some small butterflies. When I managed to get close enough to have a good look they turned out to be Common Blues. They were considerably smaller than the Common Blues back home. I wonder if this is because of their food plants being less lush than those in Scotland.

Probably the most common butterfly in the area was the Dusky Heath. I had only previously and very briefly seen one of these, so I was pleased to be able to get a better look at them. Many of them were quite faded and damaged, but there were a few in better condition. They tended to settle in the shade amongst coarse vegetation and fly up when I walked past knocking their wings against the stems, which probably explained the condition that many of them were in. I love the silver edging to their wings.

The other butterfly that was fairly common was the Southern Gatekeeper. Again, they would tend to spend most of the day hidden in the shade and seemed to fly out occasionally for a bit of sun. When they landed they would occasionally flap open their wings, but spent most of the time with their wings closed. The first one I saw flew past me and landed in the shade under the roots of a fig tree in a bit of a ravine. I thought this rather unusual behaviour, but a few days later I walked up a narrow gorge of a dried out stream where there were hundreds of them hiding in the shade. As I walked up the stream bed I would have 20 or 30 Southern Gatekeepers and Dusky Heaths flying up in front of me. Had I been a few feet away from the stream I would have seen nothing!

Those were the main butterflies that I saw during my time in Alora. One day I got up early and walked up to the top of the highest local hill. The only butterflies that I saw on this walk were Wall Browns. The males seemed to have taken up territories at regular intervals along the path. The hills were totally parched and even the rosemary plants were dried out. So much so that they didn't smell at all when I walked on them. I was hoping that a different habitat would have resulted in more butterflies.

I thought that I should try somewhere a little cooler and damper, so took a look along the Guadalhorce River. The river obviously contains a lot more water in the wet season, but there was a reasonable flow of water between the shingle banks. The were also quite a lot of wild flowers still in flower. There were a lot more Small White butterflies here than elsewhere.
A couple of days earlier I had seen a Southern Brown Argus chasing a small grey butterfly and managed to catch a picture, which suggested it had been an African Grass Blue. I was pleased to see a lot of African Grass Blues down by the river enjoying the flowers.

There were also a few more Small Coppers than in the drier areas I had previously searched.