ernie f

[ernie f]

As this is my first entry let me tell you a bit about myself. My name is Ernie Frost. My stamping ground is north-east Hampshire which gives me a variety of habitats to explore. For example I live a 15 minute drive away from Noar Hill – a famous chalk-hill reserve near Selbourne known for its Dukes and Brown Hairstreaks. Also the Alice Holt Woodland, famed for its Purple Emperors is not far and neither is Broxhead Common, a heathland reserve which harbours quite large populations of Silver-studded Blues and Small Coppers. I am also not too distant from Odiham Common where there is a breeding colony of White-letter Hairstreaks.

I recently retired from work and so have been able to follow one of my passions, that of nature watching. I have an especial keeness for butterflies, birds and flowers but any wildlife will take my interest as I am sure it does for everyone else who has a diary on this website.

I have been pursuing butterflies for a few years now but still consider myself to be a novice. I constantly meet other people out watching butterflies who always seem to know far more than me about them and I am constantly learning from them. You never stop learning do you? If I ever write anything which you know to be incorrect, please do not hesitate to let me know (in a gentle way of course) and tell me what it is and why you know. There are already a lot of participants on this website and some of you have posted hundreds of entries. I cannot hope to read them all so if you wish to comment on anything I have said and can refer to someone’s post (either your own or someone else’s), please could you supply the page number of the relevent post so I can find it more easily. Thanks.

I have a scientific background and so like to research things and try to find out the answers to questions I have. If you decide to read any of my posts this will probably become very evident, very quickly!

Like all wildlife enthusiasts I have an obsession about taking photographs. I have been known to take over 100 photos of a single butterfly species in an hour and spend many more hours when back at home on my computer agonising over which ones to delete and which to keep. Mine is not a great camera though – its only a fairly cheap bridge camera so any photos I post will not be of exceptional quality. I shall leave that for the true wildlife photographers out there. Nevertheless I hope you like the ones I do choose to show – especially the ones showing interesting behaviours. When I read other people’s posts on this website – those are the ones I am mostly drawn to.

I am writing this on Sunday 15th April, 2018 which was a year when spring seeemed to come late (at least as far as butterflies are concerned), so I intend to start my entries with some recent historic experiences and musings of mine. I am sure once the butterfly season really gets going this year I shall swap to current stuff.

[Neil Freeman]

Hi Ernie,

Welcome aboard and looking forward to your posts. There are a number of us on here that use bridge cameras, in my case a Panasonic Lumix FZ200.

Cheers,

Neil.

[Wurzel]

Welcome Ernie Looking forward to your reports and if you ever want any ideas of other sites to visit then just send me a PM

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[trevor]

Welcome from me, Ernie. The more the merrier !.
You should find yourself among friends on here.
Sometimes you meet the face behind the name, when out and about.
You are located right in the middle of my sphere of operation,
East Sussex as far as Wiltshire.

Good luck,
Trevor.

[bugboy]

Welcome Ernie, looking forward to seeing what you've seen

[David M]

A warm welcome from me too, Ernie. I look forward to seeing what you have to share with us.

Don't worry about getting used to the forum....it takes a little while, and excuses will be made on your behalf!

[ernie f]

Thank you for your welcoming comments. I will try my best to keep up with the standard of some of your posts. I spent a few hours yesterday reading a few of them and I have to say I was repeatedly bowled over by some of the things I saw. So I spent some time last night thinking about how I was going to approach my first few posts. I started by thinking that because of the bad weather I would not have any new things to report and so would start by looking back on what I have seen in the recent past in my area but the weather is improving and it looks like I already have new stuff. So its my intention to splice together new stuff with the older, based upon each place I visit - at least in the first year I write on this forum.

So without further ado - I'll take the plunge.…

Over the weekend I went to Alice Holt Woodland. This is a fine mixed woodland that supports many species of butterfly, not least the Purple Emperor for which it is famed. But this is not the time for Purple Emperors so I satisfied myself with the antics of a male Comma. He had set up shop in a sunny patch of bracken and was busy defending it against all comers. I was only there for 30 minutes and in that time he successfully chased off two other male Commas and two male Brimstones. He even buzzed around me once. If I had been a butterfly I think I might have been intimidated by him.

[image]24815[/image]

He would perch mostly on the higher points of the bracken, presumably on the lookout for females to mate with and males to bully. I would judge the territory he defended was no more than about 30 paces across but it was a fine, sunny and sheltered little enclave.

Alice Holt Woodland is a fair size. The place where I saw this Comma was near the pond opposite Birdworld on the Farnham to Bordon road. The pond itself is very pretty. On this day a pair of Great Crested Grebes were swimming and feeding on it but alas no courtship display. Regularly in summer in recent years it has been the haunt of Common Tern who come here to fish.

[image]24816[/image]

In autumn, the stretch of wood between the main road and the pond harbours some interesting fungi, not least the Yellow Fan.

[image]24817[/image]

Generally, Alice Holt woods are full to bursting with fungi in Autumn. I once counted over 100 species in a two-hour walk in one of its enclosures. I will come back to that in future posts no doubt.

Well that's it for now folks - first post is short and sweet. The weather is going to hot up this week so hopefully great things are brewing for us.

[ernie f]

OK so the photos come out small when you use [img]

Here is the Comma again as an attachment.

[Goldie M]

Hi! Ernie, welcome from me too You live in a beautiful part of England rich in Butterflies so once you get started it will be great to see your shots
I like you knew nothing much when I started being interested in Butterflies but with the help of this site I've learned so much, I live in the North and if you come North, like Wurzel, I can give you some spots that are good for Scotch Argus, High Brown's, etc if you send pm, all the best Goldie

[Wurzel]

Great Comma shot Ernie

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Andrew555]

And a warm welcome from me Ernie.
You got that Comma from a great angle.

Cheers

[ernie f]

Its a dreary morning so I thought since I saw my first comma of the year the other day and posted about it I would write another showing some of my past pics of this species. I also did a survey last year and would like to share that too.

backlit comma

from above - basking in sun

comma with berries in summer

comma showing why it is called a comma

And here is one sunbathing on sand. Its not on a beach at the seaside though (no parasol or ice cream in evidence!), its at Broxhead Common, a sandy lowland heath near where I live.

comma on sand

Here is my 2017 survey of the Comma in my part of Hampshire.

2017 Comma Survey.xlsx

(6.47 KiB) Downloaded 269 times

Little should be read into the profile of sightings in this survey. You can see Commas in low numbers nearly everywhere in Hampshire and the fact most were seen by me on Odiham Common and Alice Holt in early summer whereas most on Noar Hill were in late summer is entirely due to more visits I paid to those locations at those times for other butterfly species. For example all the ones I saw at Odiham Common, I saw incidentally as a result of repeatedly going there looking for White Letter Hairstreaks. Indeed this survey is entirely built from incidental sightings, I did not make a concerted effort to go anywhere where Commas might be more common – I do not actually know of such a location although in this particular year The Straits Enclosure at Alice Holt Woods on June 26th looked as though it could be a contender. 2017 was in fact a record count for Commas for me to date, so the fact I did not make a concerted effort to find them suggests they are on an upward trend around here generally speaking. Also the fact that the first non-Brimstone I saw this year was also a Comma kind of supports this.

I am going to try and split all my posts into two if I can. The first part always focussing on Butterflies (and moths to a lesser extent) and a second which gives a snapshot of non-butterfly wildlife in the same place as my visit (but not necessarily the same day). So for this post...

Non-Butterflies at Alice Holt Woods

As I mentioned in an earlier post these woods are wonderful for Autumn fungi. I used to live in the New Forest in Southern Hampshire (for about five years) and there is quite a lot of fungi of interest there (its where I first got my interest in them) but by comparison, this single woodland in North East Hampshire never ceases to amaze me. There are well over a hundred visible species of fungi fruiting here. In November 2013 for example I counted 102 species all fruiting simultaneously on a single 2-hour long walk. The best location within the woodland for fungi I believe is the Willows Green Enclosure. So my non-butterfly snapshot of the day is of a mushroom. The quite beautiful Dappled Webcap.

Dappled Webcap - Cortinarius bolaris

[millerd]

A warm welcome from me too, Ernie - a great selection of Comma shots. The recent backlit underside one is particularly good. Waiting for more whn the summer sunshine arrives tomorrow!

Dave

[David M]

Interesting Comma stats there, Ernie. Numbers are scant except for that one day in Alice Holt straits but the species seems to crop up regularly enough. Feel free to keep posting your non-butterfly observations. Sometimes these are a wake up call to those of us who might otherwise walk past such sights.

[ernie f]

Site visit: Kingsley Common - 18th April 2018

Kingsley Common is only a mile away from the Alice Holt woods mentioned in my last post.

I saw a female Orange Tip there today. My first of the year.

Also two Brimstone and a Comma and also my first and second Holly Blue of the year (both males).

This gives me the excuse to talk about the Holly Blues of Kingsley Common...

There is a spring “tribe” of Holly Blues that inhabit the holly bushes and trees of Kingsley Common near the pond, there being none later in the year here.

This holly habitat runs along the edge of a patch of lowland heath which is actually one of the best places near me for later brood Small Coppers when the heather starts to bloom. I have seen more Holly Blues here in spring than almost anywhere else.

The book says that the female of the summer brood usually has more black on it than the spring examples because they are different subspecies, but this is not always the case. Apparently there are 34 recorded main types of aberration. These include the degree of blackness on any of the wings or the degree the colour is washed out or the degree of depth and length of the black spots of the underside of the wings. The first of these pictures which follow was taken at Kingsley on April 10th 2017 and is obviously a typical spring brood Celastrina argiolus.

But this second picture shows another with a greater resemblance to a summer brood individual, but this was taken on April 17th 2017 at Noar Hill. It's a slightly abberant form of the usual Celastrina argiolus showing slightly larger bands on the upper forewings although I prefer to think of it as natural variation rather than aberration.

The book also says Holly Blues are often nomadic, but they can live in tribes or leks, fairly stable communities in a reasonably tight range.

However in the first week of April 2017 in my back garden I saw one male repeatedly for days. He would fly through or sometimes drop down to rest or nectar for a short while and then he was off again. In that same week I visited one spot at Noar Hill regularly because each day I saw a single male do exactly the same thing there. So it is clear to me that whilst it may be true that some Holly Blues are nomadic and others are tribal, there are also those males mid-way that lead a solitary existence in a fixed patch. My estimate of the size of the territory of the one I saw at Noar Hill in early April 2017 was about a 500 metre diameter circle. The females do wander though. I spent nearly an hour with one last year. She flitted about a holly tree at Alice Holt woodland for about 15 minutes, stopping to take nectar, to lay a few eggs and to bask in the sun, before setting off a little way to another holly tree nearby where she did the same thing. Then again and again until she finally flew over a tree to a place where I could not follow. I do not think she had any intention of returning along her route and I never saw her again.

Many holly locations appear to be devoid of them. Either because of shade or perhaps also lack of aphids from which Holly Blues feast on the honeydew. I found that the best locations are mixed hedgerow that include holly. They do love old churchyards though because these are the location of many a mature holly or ivy. Kingsley Old Church has a yew grove in the centre of the graveyard that more or less surrounds a huge mature holly tree. A number of males battle it out on the sunny side of these yews. I think their territories must overlap quite substantially here.

When nectaring their wings are almost always held together upright, however I did once see a nectaring female with her wings slightly apart. When basking they will mostly be half open, however I have discovered this is not an absolute rule. This one pictured at Kingsley had its wings open in full sun at around 1.30pm. That is why it is shining silver so much.

On the other hand I followed a group of four for ages hoping to take a picture of one with its wings open but all of them were busy nectaring all that time and kept their wings tightly shut.

They don't fly about in low temperatures even on sunny days and northerly winds are a problem for them. I did see one flying about on a cool but sunny April morning around 10 degrees with a gentle northerly breeze but on that occasion this individual was well protected by a thick, mature and very high laurel hedge and was on its sunny southern side so was in a microclimate.

The book says they have a lifespan of between 2 and 3 weeks. During that time the males seek females by patrolling and will confront other rival males on occasion. I found three males at Kingsley all having a jousting match together before they each went their separate ways. In fact three different points of the compass! I followed one male patrolling a hedgerow for about 500 metres until it veered off to one side and up over a tree. Their speed while patrolling is often faster than normal human walking pace so I had to be quick on my feet to follow it in full spate.

They tend to siesta in mid-afternoon and become almost invisible when sitting on a leaf with their wings closed even in full sunlight and they won't spook unless you get very close to them. The shininess of their wings is a camouflage when resting on the shiny surface of a holly leaf! This one, again at Kingsley has almost “lit-up” in the sun but I had to have my camera on full zoom to capture it. I only noticed it because I saw it fly to this perch otherwise I would have walked right by completely oblivious to it.

As with many butterflies the mating process can take some while. I saw this pair connected for 40 minutes before I walked away.

I don't know how true it is but one enthusiast I met said Holly Blues have been known to stay connected overnight but I cannot personally vouch for this story which may be apocryphal. Do any of you know the truth of this at all? The female in this shot is on the left. You can just about see her black wing edge. It is also evident from this picture that the underneath of the male is slightly bluer than the female, although he was more raggedy than her and probably a little older, so age may have had an effect on his scales. I know how he feels!

In the next picture you can see the abdomen of a female curling beneath her to deposit an egg below on a clump of holly buds.

Egglaying can carry on for some while. One female I found egglaying was quite old and faded in colour.

Sometimes they come down very low to lay eggs and can be slow to spook when they are thus engrossed. I spent over 15 minutes taking photos of this female. At one point she was only about a foot off the ground on a holly bush. I took this picture while sitting on the ground beside her! It is even possible at times to gently move the holly bough while the butterfly is still on it in order to get a better close-up.

The book says their numbers increase and decrease quite dramatically in cycles. Counts creep up year on year to max for a couple of years and then quite often are decimated, only to then start back up again. For example the official record for Noar Hill in the following years was:

1989 75
1990 270
1991 207
1992 5
1993 1
1994 1
1995 11
1996 74
1997 77

My surveys for 2015 and 2017 follow:

2017 & 15 Holly Blue Survey.xlsx

(11.21 KiB) Downloaded 265 times

I did my 2015 survey before I found the tribe at Kingsley, but I did a comparison survey in 2017 and that did include Kingsley.

In my survey the Kingsley annual count was only bettered by Noar Hill but what makes Kingsley special is that all these individuals were found in just one area around the pond whereas at Noar Hill you more or less had to cover the whole reserve to get the numbers. Note, I always take care to try and not double count across different days. So consecutive records at Kingsley for example were done in different locations at least 500 metes apart. Of course there will always be some double-counting but I always think this is balanced out by the ones I completely miss.

My annual count of 16 in 2015 at Noar Hill was low but on the up side. Up to April 19th 2017 I saw 11 at Noar Hill rather than just 2 as of 2015 by the same date so it looks like they might be rising there It is thought the reason the numbers crash rather than merely decline is due to the cycle of the parasitic ichneumon wasp (Listrodomus nycthemerus). When the wasp has a good year the Holly Blue has a bad one, when the wasp has a bad year, the Holly Blue population eventually bounces back over time. This see-saw between the two species is normal it is said.

By the end of 2017 it was clear that numbers were good for the spring brood but not so great for the summer brood. We did have rather a wet August with a few very windy days that year which might have accounted for it. After a promising ramp-up in June and July - there were for example six along the zig-zag path at Selborne on July 30th, I only saw three in total in August 2017, two at Noar Hill and one at Broxhead. I have seen just such a population crash amongst Duke of Burgundy numbers after a spell of bad weather too and this year the early spring was so bad I am only just now seeing my first Holly Blues on 18th April. It seems our smaller butterfly species are very susceptible to unseasonal, inclement weather.

Non-butterfly Snapshot

The pond at Kingsley is a haven for Dragonflies and Damseflies. The Downy Emerald Dragonfly is right at the start of its emergence right now. It is scarce nationally but commonplace where it can be found, so many of the heathland ponds around here can harbour them. If you see one on a sunny day it shines brilliant emerald green. This picture does not do it justice but I consider myself lucky to be able to have got it at all because this dragonfly hardly ever seems to stop and perch. It just flits back and forth, back and forth searching for prey and females constantly. This one is a male as it has a much narrower waist than the female. (Obviously all that exercise it does is paying dividends).

[Wurzel]

Very interesting report/survey Ernie with some lovely shots. I've really struggled to get open wing shots of males over the years and I've had more luck with females. Holly Blues to me are the most Hairstreak-esque of the Blues in terms of their behaviour.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[ernie f]

Wurzel

I agree. One year recently I got my first shot of a male Holly Blue with its wings open and I was over the moon. Then my computer crashed and I was unable to get the picture back because I had not backed it up. A warning to us all! It took me two years to get another picture that was its equal.

[ernie f]

Site visit: Noar Hill - 18&19/April/2018

I am sure you know about this location because of its Dukes and Brown Hairstreaks but since it is one of my closest nature reserves I thought I’d give an overview.

Noar Hill is near Selborne, an area famous for the very first British book on wildlife, “The Natural History of Selborne” written by the vicar of Selborne Parish who lived in the old house known as “The Wakes” in the centre of the village which is now open to the public. Even today the area around Selborne is a wildlife haven, from its grass downland, arable fields, tall hedgerows, miniature gorges and its Beech Hangers to its pristine chalk stream and small lakes.

Noar Hill in particular is one of the best places in the country for butterflies and orchids found together. This site, within the western-most enclave of the North and South Downs near Selborne village itself was once a Medieval Chalk quarry, long ago abandoned. The habitat now is one of chalk grassland dotted with juniper and edged by beech hanger. The hill commands extensive views in most directions over neighbouring farmland and woods. The reserve is grazed in summertime by a small herd of cattle. Although it is owned by a local farmer it is managed as a nature reserve and they have an awkward job striking a balance between conserving the habitat for the orchids while at the same time conserving the environment for the butterflies.

For its size it is perhaps one of the most rewarding wildlife reserves in Hampshire. I have seen 36 species of butterfly here (and am aware of at least two others on record I have not seen) and 13 species of Orchid (with at least one other on record I have not seen) as well as plentiful birds, moths and other flowers, some of them quite rare.

Looking toward Noar Hill from a neighbouring hill

Dukes are regularly seen here in spring and indeed I have seen them here much earlier in the year than this, but the recent bad weather had put me off coming here until now. I met Pauline while I was there today and up until the point where we parted neither of had seen any. I bet as soon as my back was turned she saw one!

Did see 6 Brimstone, 2 Comma, 3 Small Tortoiseshell and a male Orange Tip. The next pic was taken last year.

Small Tortoiseshells getting friendly

Male Orange Tip posing on a blossom

Non-butterfly Snapshot

But really it was the birdlife that was the feature today and yesterday. We had Yellowhammer, Blackcap, Bullfinch, Goldfinch, Goldcrest, Skylark, Chaffinch, Green Woodpecker, House Martin, Buzzard and Red Kite. Nothing rare but all very welcome. There were two pair of Red Kite and three Buzzards in the sky all at once. One Kite came down to head height and circled again and again low over the ploughed field next to the reserve. He had obviously found potential prey but it must have eluded him because he did not land. As he started to ascend once more one of the Buzzards came down and "mobbed" him repeatedly. What a sight.

Red Kite

[trevor]

That is a beautiful Orange Tip shot.
Also enjoyed your Holly Blue post.

Keep up the good work,
Trevor.

[ernie f]

Site Visit: Noar Hill - 20th April 2018

Still no Dukes.

New since yesterday…

Numbers of Brimstone increasing nicely. Interestingly of the 9 I saw on the reserve itself only 2 were male and one of those was in a pair doing their spiral aerobatic dance. There were many more on the road leading up to the reserve and throughout Selborne village.

Three Small Tortoiseshell males were patrolling their own part of a long hedgerow.

One Red Admiral.

Last year I witnessed an interesting behaviour of Red Admirals.

A peculiar event on Thursley Common (MOD section). Two Red Admirals were circling a Birch Tree again and again. I went up to them and they didn't care about me, they were more interested in the tree. They stopped on the tree. One of them held its wings together and appeared to be searching for something. It fluttered its wings open then lurched forward. It did this repeatedly until it got to the base of the tree. Then two Hornets came up and settled in exactly the same place. Both butterflies flew away but one returned even though one of the hornets made a lunge for it. Finally the hornets left and this one Red Admiral remained. It appeared to be nectaring from Birch sap seeping out from a damaged patch at the base of the trunk and it risked its life to get at it. I have seen a Red Admiral take Birch sap subsequently but without the hoo-ha with hornets.

Red Admiral nectaring from Birch Sap

Another one

While I’m on the subject of Red Admirals I may as well add my historic survey of them here.

2016 Red Admiral Survey.xlsx

(9.63 KiB) Downloaded 267 times

Although I saw a total of 40 Red Admirals at Noar Hill over the year in 2016, that was across 9 visits. I only visited St Catherine's hill once in 2016 and in two hours found a total of 28 individuals.

Red Admirals sharing something tasty at St Cat's Hill

The reason why 2016 was such a bumper year is probably because of the mild winter we had then and the winds coming from the south for a couple of weeks in summer which probably boosted the number of continental migrants. The book says that most of the Red Admirals we get in our country are the offspring of these migrants.

Red Admiral on Vipers Bugloss

The 2016/17 winter was relatively mild in Hampshire, with no snow but quite a lot of rain. The Spring was dry and mild. The northerly winds of early May 2017 switched around by mid May and started to come in from the south. I was up on Old Winchester Hill when I saw three individuals coming in on the breeze. It was obvious to me that they were exhausted from their migration journey. One of them literally crashed into a shrub, but its compulsion to continue meant that this did not deter it. It merely took off again unperturbed.

Although I did not do a proper survey in 2017, there did appear to be good numbers of them right from the get-go. There were times when Red Admirals were perched on the ground at regular intervals all along many of the sunnier paths at Alice Holt. Obviously each one was quite literally standing it's ground inside its territory.

Non-butterfly Snapshot of the day

The Tawny Mining Bees are back in my garden. They are solitary bees and make separate nest holes in the ground, but for some reason we get rather a lot of them. The nests are dug by the females who create their own miniature “volcanos” and then sit inside them. The males are drab little grey jobbies but the ladies are very pretty, being the ones that are tawny-coloured.

Female Tawny Mining Bee

Female Tawny Mining Bee digging its "volcano" nest