3rd Brood Wall Brown.

 This year has not been a particularly good year for butterflies, with the cool and damp spring affecting most species. Locally, the Silver-spotted Skipper and Dark Green Fritillaries have been the species that have been affected the most, but Adonis Blue have also been well under par.

The species that I study the most, the Wall Brown, has done a little better, although even these have not been as numerous as most years. I have been hoping that the 3rd brood would do a little bit better, as the larval food plant is grass, and with there being no shortage of that this year, the butterflies should flourish. Certainly, as the 3rd brood started the numbers of Wall Brown in their traditional 3rd brood sites were looking promising, but numbers elsewhere were not so good, however, in the past week numbers have grown, and despite poor butterfly watching weather, I have seen well into double figures of the species several times now. I have also witnessed several butterflies egg laying, which is very encouraging.

On one walk locally, after already seeing a mating pair of Wall Brown, I saw a female Wall Brown fly out of a culvert that had been dug a couple of years ago to take away flood water from a footpath. This had left a scrape where sparse grasses grows and the roots are exposed. This is ideal for the Wall Brown as the female often lays her eggs on the exposed roots of grasses. I guessed when I saw her fly off that she was on an egg laying mission, and as soon as I looked through the close focussing binoculars I saw a Wall Brown egg. On closer inspection I saw another one.

Mating Wall Brown.

After finding the eggs, I have walked past the same spot twice more this week, and each time I have added more eggs to the count. In that same spot I have now found 9 Wall Brown eggs, which is by far the most I have seen in one spot. I also found 2 more in other locations.

The culvert where the eggs are.

Two Wall Brown eggs.

Surprisingly, I have also this week seen 3 aged Adonis Blue. Maybe they didn't have such a bad year after all and many emerged between my visits?

Another species that I now study is the Lace Border. A rare moth that now breeds locally, and I suspect has a 3rd brood, despite all the books saying it only has 2 broods. Each year I have seen evidence that my sites have 3rd broods, perhaps due to the 2 sites having been started by continental migration? After the 2nd brood fizzled out towards the middle of August, there was for the 3rd year running a sudden increase in numbers in late August to mid September, with 20 seen on one count at the beginning of last week.

Lace Border.

Sussex Delights.

 Over the past couple of weeks, I've had some good interesting walks with Lisa, and also on my own. Lisa and I do try to stick reasonably local when we can, so the car can be left at home. One of the delights of living just a couple of minutes walking distance away from the South Downs.

This week, which was towards the end of Lisa's summer break, she had work to get on with, in preparation for her dance classes, so I headed out on my own up to my local wildlife patch.

As I headed up the hill I was pleased to see a couple of Common Redstart, a species I sometimes see in the autumn as they migrate south. A definite sign of autumn!! Ivy Bees were also very evident along with good numbers of fresh Red Admiral.

After seeing a handful of tatty Wall Brown last week, I was expecting that I might see a 3rd brood one in great condition. Just as I reached the top of the hill, I had a fresh male Wall Brown flying around me, and then a few minutes later, around the other side of the hill, another one was also flying. I didn't see any of the tatty 2nd brood though.

I'm trying to find evidence that my colony of Lace Border here also have a 3rd brood. The past 2 seasons have given me reason to believe that this is the case, although all the books say that they only have 2 broods in the UK, but after a couple of blank searches in the latter part of August, a sudden increase in the moths, which has happened over the past 2 seasons in September, would point even more to this happening here. With 4 Lace Border seen on this day, I'm hoping that this is the start of a 3rd brood. But I really need a bigger increase than that, but time will tell. Last year I had a count of 30 moths in mid September, of this very rare and beautiful insect.

Lace Border.

Whilst I was searching, I was very surprised to find another rarity in the form of the micro moth Oncocera semirubella. Also known as Rosy Knot-horn and commonly as Rhubarb and Custard, for obvious reasons, given the colour of this little beauty. This was the first time I've found this species on the patch, although I have had a couple in the moth trap before, as well as seeing them in Transylvania before. I wonder if this moth has started to breed on the hillsides, as the larval foodplants are in the area.

Oncocera semirubella. (Rosy Knot-horn).

After getting a couple of quick photos I was about to start to concentrate on getting a better photo when it vanished. I was a little disappointed, but I need not have worried, as a few minutes later I found another one. This one was less camera shy, and I spent several minutes photographing it.

Oncocera semirubella. (Rosy Knot-horn).

Some years ago, Pete gave me a couple of potted Willow trees, which I keep on the garden patio. The idea is that I hope to get Hawk-moths laying eggs on the trees, as well as some other interesting moths. A couple of years ago I had 2 Poplar Hawk-moth larvae on the narrow leaved version, and also Grey Dagger larvae. This year though, it has come into its own as I've now had 3 Herald moth larvae. These have also all pupated among the leaves on the tree. One did actually hatch out 2 days ago on a very wet day, with such bad light I didn't actually photograph it. A few weeks ago, I also had a Pebble Prominent larva. This was a very bizarre looking larva. Hopefully it pupated somewhere nearby.

Pebble Prominent larva.

This week, when we were having breakfast, I spotted a green larva walking along the back of one of the garden chairs. When we finished breakfast, I went outside to investigate, thinking it was going to be an Angle Shades larva, which is the most common larva which is green and often found in gardens. I was surprised however, to see it was a young Poplar Hawk-moth larva. After calling Lisa out to see it, I thought the obvious thing would be to place it on the narrow leaved Willow so it could feed. As I was placing it on the tree, Lisa spotted another 2 of the larvae. We then looked a little harder at the tree and found 14 of them!! 

Young Poplar Hawk-moth larva.

When I had the 2 larvae of this species a couple of years ago I found that UV light really shows them up after dark, so that night we got the UV torch out and searched again. They were now much easier to see as they glowed in the dark, and a recount produced 17 of them. Since then, one has died, but the other 16 are, as of last night, surviving and growing quickly. I may have to move some on eventually as I doubt there are enough leaves on the small tree to support all of them!!

Last weekend Lisa and I went up to Ashdown Forest, hoping mainly to see Black Darter dragonflies, a species that has possibly vanished now from the area. I last saw them here in 2021, but sightings since then have been very poor, with only one apparently seen in 2023. We didn't get lucky unfortunately with Black Darter, or indeed, the Green Huntsman spiders, that I was also hoping to see. Lisa spotted a juvenile Raft Spider, and after continuously searching the extensive Heather, we were about to give up and come home, when I spotted the other creature I was hoping to show Lisa, the beautiful larva of the appropriately named Beautiful Yellow Underwing. This larva was only half grown, which was a surprise as I have found them earlier than this several times, almost fully grown. It did however, look sublime as it fed amongst the purple Heather.

Beautiful Yellow Underwing feeding on Heather.

The other species we saw several of was the Southern Hawker. We both wasted a lot of time trying to get flight photos of them, with very limited success!!

Male Southern Hawker in flight.

As autumn progresses, the camera is likely to be used less. However, long walks over the downs become more comfortable in the cooler conditions, as well as having lighter back packs without loads of camera gear!!