Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Sleepers Awake!

His Imperial Majesty, The Emperor of the Woods, The Monarch of all the Butterflies (etc.) awoke from hibernation yesterday afternoon, March 28th, and aligned himself up against an unfurling sallow leaf bud.  

The larvae are likely to start feeding very soon, which is early...  

Watch this space...

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Apatura iris on Dennis's Patch...

Delighted to announce the accidental discovery of Apatura iris in the Bradenham Valley (NT) just west of High Wycombe, Bucks, on the edge of Park Wood. 

Today I paid a quick visit to the site in the valley where we've successfully reintroduced His Grace The Duke of Burgundy, casually looked at a spray of a nice-looking caprea-type coppiced sallow and instantly found His Imperial Majesty hibernating there. I've never done that before and very much doubt I'll ever do it again. It was pure serendipity. Here's the 'pillar - 


And here's the NT's Neil Harris pointing at the 'pillar's location, 2m up on the north side of a 4m tall coppiced bush on the wood edge - 


This is, of course, bang in the middle of Dennis's Patch...

 Party time!