Friday, July 7, 2017

Working Late Season Emperors

Males have largely stopped sallow searching(for virgin females) and tend to now take the mornings off. They become active in  territories after 12.30, though in very hot weather they may quieten down for an hour around 4pm, before kicking off again in the evening (usually till around 7.30pm). Much depends on whether there is a rival male around, for males in single occupancy territories can become very quiet on hot weather.  

Today, I counted 22 males on territories on the Knepp PE transect (+ 3 females). This compares to a peak season count of 36. Last year's peak count was a mere 18.

Here's Herself being elusive on a minor sap bleed, from yesterday - 




3 comments:

dennis said...

22 in what period of time, please, Matthew?

dennis said...

and that is a delightful photo of her antennae just visible above the branch!

Matthew Oates said...

The Knepp PE transect takes about 2 hours...