Wildlife Diary
Click here for archived entries.
29th July 2010
Purple patch......
The last ten days have turned distinctly purple.........
Last Monday we obtained tantalising views of purple hairstreak butterflies high up in the crown of an old oak in Kedleston Park. The next day we travelled down to Fermyn Woods in Northants to seek a decidedly more ‘noble fly' as one Victorian collector called the object of our visit.
En route, you may be puzzled (even aghast) to know that we stopped briefly to ‘collect' some fresh horse droppings from a road nearby..... wrapping it very carefully in several plastic bags before placing it in the rucksack! (Naturalists - who'd be seen out with one!)
Once in the wood we set off down a broad track. Before long, a tiny movement was seen on the track surface. Could it be the object of our search? Could we really be in the presence of a purple emperor so quickly?
This very special butterfly has long been one of the most sought after in Britain. Victorian collectors went to great lengths to get specimens for their collections. Like hairstreaks, emperors can be hard to see at close quarters, living up in their lofty empires in the crowns of woodland oaks. Unless that is, they can be lured down....
Males crave mineral salts and they get them mainly from mammal droppings.....hence the horse dung.
As luck would have it, the insect on the track was indeed a male emperor, probing tiny cracks in the track surface with his green proboscis.
We approached but he took no notice of us. Now was the time to play our trump card....so out came the horse dung and a small amount was carefully placed near our ‘noble fly'.
Slowly he approached it and before long his proboscis was deeply embedded in the moist dung (as shown right). He remained firmly locked onto our little present for over an hour, admired by several other enthusiasts who came to see.
Emperors only show the intense colour when the incident light is just at the right angle to refract light from the scales on their wings. Otherwise they appear blackish.
Eventually, we very gently eased our emperor onto a finger as you may be able to see.
Last summer in the same woods, a band of emperor enthusiasts laid out tables on a ride and set them with various smelly concoctions - Pimms, rotten banana skins, Stinking Bishop cheese, horse manure and shrimp paste in an attempt to determine what odour might best attract a male. Annoyingly they failed to report which proved the best! My bet's on horse manure......
The emperor's under wings are also a delight.....beautifully marked but surprisingly hard to see on a rubble track......much easier on a finger!
Emperors don't reach Derbyshire but a near relative does - more next week.
Purple herons breed
A pair of purple herons has reared young in Kent this year - a first time for the UK.
Purple garden flowers draw insects
The purple flowers of buddleia, knapweed, Verbena bonarensis and bellflowers are now drawing butterflies, hoverflies and bees to gardens. Butterfly Conservation is currently running a garden survey which you need to complete by this Sunday (1st August).... www.bigbutterflycount.org We've had ten species in our garden recently but perhaps you can beat that? Let me know.... Also watch for hummingbird hawk-moths .... there are a few about.
Text by Nick Brown
Please send any interesting wildlife reports, wildlife enquiries or comments to
