Lightthiscandle
David Bryant
Garden tick on the Heath today!
A Large Skipper this am: lots of Large Whites and Red Admirals, too!
A Large Skipper this am: lots of Large Whites and Red Admirals, too!
Dad , any ideas as to the origins of these SW Frittilaries. I know we had an influx from Suffolk last year , could these be offspring from those frits or is this a second influx , or release ?
I'm fairly convinced they are immigrants - one of the first sightings was of two at sheringham seen flying together with a large number of large whites that were coming in off the sea.
Conventional wisdom is that the frits died out in east anglia because of changes in woodland management, but I'm not convinced - mainly because the same changes were happening in the western parts of britain, where they survived. I suspect that the real cause was agricultural pesticides - more prevalent in the arable east than the sheep farming west - and in particular ddt.
Yes, I saw lots of above there yesterday, with the exception of the Purple Hairstreak. There were also several Commas and Speckled Woods, one rather tired looking Small Tortoiseshell and a few Blues which wouldn't settle and which I couldn't identify. There was also a report of a Swallowtail on the board but I didn't see that!At Strumpshaw today there were scores of Gatekeepers, Red Admirals, Peacocks and Meadow Browns as well as countless whites of all three common species.
On the back road to Buckenham the same again, plus a Purple Hairstreak.
It hasn’t rained recently, so it would’ve been a tumble dry.
A foray to Wiveton Downs and Blakeney Esker gave a few Purple Hairstreaks (their imperial glory much faded) and the gatekeeper depicted (RH photo).
Total guess but Pine Hawk-Moth?