During Wind And Rain - Watching Butterflies

To badly paraphrase that well known lepidopterist Jane Austen “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a Northern man in possession of a good guide book, must be in want of a butterfly.”

I read somewhere that the reason butterfly watching was so popular in the Victorian era was partly due to the lazy hot days of summer when the well clad gentleman in linen knickerbockers (or occasionally a lady in fetching taffeta) would roam the sweet vernal grass meadows near the homestead, swishing a butterfly net with abandon while dreaming of cricket, and a return home on the Penny Farthing to an afternoon tea on the terrace, maybe with the vicar. How things have changed.

July 2023 has arrived. I look out of the window. Strong winds and grey skies with rain so heavy you could launch a boat in the resulting flood. Not ideal weather for butterfly watching then? Well, yes it is, in some ways it is perfect. 

Hodder's Combe - where the sunlit butterflies begin

As I am that Northern man of Austen's  my target butterfly for this July has been the silver washed fritillary. Before dear reader you continue with this narrative I may as well confess to having failed spectacularly to see a single silver washed fritillary all year. Stop now if your only interest is polarised in Argynnis paphia. You will read no account here of this parfumier valentino of the woodland glade. However if I may entice you further, could a white admiral and maybe a large skipper pique your interest to continue?

I drove down the M5 in Somerset, en-route to Hodder's Combe in the Quantocks. The rain was so heavy that even on the fastest setting the deluge came down quicker than the windscreen wipers could wipe the rain away. Driving half blind we crawled along a flooded motorway where, as I passed by Sedgemoor Services at steady 30mph, I thought to myself "why on earth am I doing this?" The simple answer was the weather forecast suggested rain until noon followed by glorious sunshine for the rest of the day. Given butterflies have to feed and tend to fly only when it is sunny, my thought was they'll rest up in this rain but as soon as the sun emerges they'll be on the wing. I was right, and the butterflies came in good numbers.

Comma : Can you see me?

After a three quarters of an hour walk up the Combe, during which the rain finally stopped though it remained cloudy, I was now in position. I waited no longer than five minutes, not another living soul about, it was so peaceful. The sun emerged from behind the clouds and the butterflies began flying all around me. First the meadow browns who appeared as if by magic, ten maybe twenty of them flying haphazardly with their weak flappy flight. Followed then by a number of large white strongly flying in a purposeful way and then half a dozen comma, again out on the wing enjoying the sun. As the sun intensified out came half a dozen red admiral and gatekeeper, a trio of large skipper and a single common blue flitted and flapped between all this activity heading towards a large mound of bramble. I followed and noted this large bramble patch was a meeting place for the species. As happens when watching butterflies if the sun disappeared even for a short while all the activity would end and those butterflies I'd been watching seconds earlier would simply disappear as if by silent command. When the sun returned, this activity would resume. I became absorbed by this, a special moment to be in and amongst all this activity and behaviour by insects just getting on with their life while simply ignoring my presence. A wistful thought that if I were not there they'd be doing this activity anyway. The World revolves.

I did make an interesting observation though, the role bracken (Pteridium) played in all of this emergence and disappearance. Bracken is much maligned for its invasive and tick laden properties. My observations however showed how beneficial brackens' open domed growth habit is to butterflies, to species who would not normally be associated with this fern. Many individuals landed on the highest sunniest bracken fronds and rested, wings open, stationary, simultaneously warming up and drying out before heading off and out of sight. Every species I saw there on that visit used bracken as a resting site to a greater or lesser extent, often resting there with motionless wings for minutes at a time. There is a risk to all this of course as while they are so conspicuous butterflies are more visible to predation but the benefit of being out in the open while adjacent to dense vegetation they could quickly disappear into must outweigh the risk.  In all I spent two hours here exploring what this place had to offer. Sadly the silver washed fritillary did not show though they are here and I'd recently read that brown hairstreak have been discovered here. I'll leave these species for the next time, it was after 4pm now, activity was tailing off, time I headed home.

Comma

Gatekeeper

Normal meadow brown above and a dark form male with sex bands visible below

Female large white. A little like woodpigeons which because they are common and deemed a pest are very much overlooked, though both bird and butterfly I think are stunning.

Large skipper

Red admiral above and below.

Female small white on a nettle above and on herb robert below.

That was during the week and so following my failure to see silver washed fritillary on the following Saturday I headed into the woodland area of Shapwick Heath NNR after recent reports of silver washed fritillary flying. 

This time I was taking a real punt given the weather had turned decidedly autumnal in feel, cool, torrential rain showers but now accompanied by 40-50 mph gusting winds. This weather was so out of season the Saturday Market in the nearby city of Wells, where I'd gone to first thing, had  been cancelled. Undeterred my revised plan was to venture into the most sheltered rides of the oak woodland at Shapwick and just observe what if anything appeared as and when the frequent rain showers were replaced with sunshine. 

Shapwick Heath NNR - white admiral country.

I could not have had a better afternoon. In a similar way to Hodder's Combe if the sun disappeared then the butterflies disappeared. But, when the sun did emerge the rides erupted with life. Not just butterflies but tens or even hundreds of dragonflies and damselflies, hover flies and a myriad of insects I couldn't identify. I could identify unfortunately the hundreds of mosquitoes that also flew in the sunshine, I was covered in them and their bites. A real downside here, not pleasant at all and I still bear the scars.

While frequently distracted by other insects I kept focussed on butterflies whose abundance was enhanced by energetic activity by the many species now on the wing in the strong sunlight, before it all fell quiet again as the rain returned as it often did. I was getting used to this weather related cycle. 

A very obliging brimstone which despite its bright colour blended beautifully into these oak leaves.

A beautiful but pestilent deer-fly Chrysops spp. but not sure of the exact species.

Beautifully marked gatekeeper underside (above) and a different but equally lovely gatekeeper upper wings (below). The gatekeepers were everywhere, more plentiful than meadow brown.

Peacocks were everywhere too, such oddly out of place markings in the English countryside, almost tropical in looks.

Ruddy Darter (first thought common darter but I dismissed this or maybe it is)

This southern hawker clung motionless to this honeysuckle branch for fifteen minutes or more. At first I thought it might have been dead but then on my last visit it wasn't there. There were a lot of hawker species about, a few did that spectacular thing of flying right up very close to my face and then after hovering for a while looking at me, decided I wasn't any threat - nor prey - and buzzed off.  Fascinating behaviour and I'd love to know what they see and are observing.

I'm not seeing many speckled woods at the moment. This one was one of the few found resting on a fern.

Now we're getting to the white admirals. In this cooler weather they were flying really well but unsurprisingly a slower flight and much less fidgety than when I'd last seen them a couple of weeks earlier. I'm not sure whether it was just the weather but they were also much lower down perching around head height or gliding for short distances low along the track which is a behaviour many lepidopterists look for. The image below was more typical on this visit, horizontally straight wings on a bramble looking inconspicuous. Despite the quite wild wind in the high canopy down at ground level it was almost motionless. I'd made the correct choice to come here today, the butterflies were within easy sight and once again I had the site all to myself due presumably to the weather. During one of the more prolonged wet spells I stood quietly listening to the pitter-patter of raindrops. It's a sound I've loved since childhood.

All in all what these two visits to observe butterflies in poor weather has taught me is don't remain indoors bemoaning the inclement summer, head out and see what happens. I'd do that when winter birdwatching, so why not in the summer?  Would I have noticed the butterfly species using bracken as a sunning and drying perch if the weather had not been so changeable? Would the eruption of species simultaneously timing their flights with the sun's emergence have been witnessed if I'd stayed at home? I suspect not and it made for a fantastic immersive experience on both occasions. But I'll leave you with this female blackbird.

I was walking along a boardwalk back to my car when this female appeared. I stopped and she stopped then, after checking me over, she ignored me and hopped a few feet at a time towards me. I stood motionless watching her for what seemed an age. Then when she was around 12 feet from me she dived into the trackside and speared the fattest slug I've seen for a while, a slug much too heavy for her to fly away with.  Transfixed I watched her kill and repeatedly peck the slug for some time until having eaten a large part of it she finally managed to lift the slug remains and fly off, albeit under some difficulty. Whereto she went I have no idea as the torrential rain returned as she flew off, so I the happy wildlife watcher of these two days simply shrugged, pulled my coat a little tighter around me and walked off accompanied by the roar of thousands of raindrops crashing against leaves in the tree canopy. I was alone with my thoughts surrounded by nature at its finest.

Saluting the White Admiral

I nearly didn't head off to go butterfly watching. After spending a whole day birdwatching at Slimbridge on the previous day I had planned for a leisurely Sunday to reflect,  recover and watch a little cricket.

However the one thing that is a certainty is that nature happens when nature wants it to happen. And so it is with butterflies. They are on the wing when they want to be on the wing not when I am at leisure to observe them. Following a leisurely morning then I roused myself, got into the car and arrived at Shapwick Heath just before 2pm. My quest today the white admiral (Limenitis camilla) butterfly. 

I visit the Avalon Marshes regularly although oddly I've not been down there for a few months. However eighteen months or so ago I took part in a Butterfly Conservation training day here. It was a chance conversation during that with one of the leaders in which she said Shapwick has a good colony of white admirals. White admirals are not common in Somerset as this is the western edge of their British range and so having never seen one before I made a mental note to return later that summer and fulfil that wish. Family and work commitments prevented my visiting last year and as I have weekends planned through to mid August this year, despite my desiring a quiet Sunday at home, I had just this one day available to visit the area in the hope of seeing white admiral on the wing before they stop flying.

From that conversation last year I had a vague idea where they could be found and my target search was therefore to be within this known area, slowly searching open sunny tracks where honeysuckle and bramble are plentiful - the former for egg laying and the caterpillar stages and the latter for the adults to feed. I set off and after nearly an hour of scanning every bramble and honeysuckle I could see nothing. I did find plenty of other interesting invertebrates to divert me but no white admiral. I had to stay focussed. I did though have time on my side as I'd been informed last year that here the white admiral is most active mid to late afternoon, though that is dependent on strong sunshine. Previous surveys had happened in the morning and for a long while it wasn't recorded until that is, as the story went, a butterfly surveyor was out just for a walk one late afternoon an spotted one

Having drawn a blank, I eventually came to a cross-path and while deliberating which way to go I saw a red admiral on some bramble flowers and then a comma. Not what I was looking for but nice nonetheless. I stopped to take some photographs. It was while taking these I noticed a large white butterfly being chased by something which looked sooty grey. Despite never having seen a white admiral before I knew this was it, though I couldn't be sure from this one sighting alone. They both flew very fast and it was the briefest of moments before they spiralled high up into the tree canopy and out of sight. I then spent a good while scanning the trees with my binoculars to no avail, it was nowhere to be seen. But success at last, I was in the right place at least. 

I stood scanning the brambles and trees for another ten minutes, nothing happened. By now the various bitey things had found me and the mosquitoes were really starting to have a good nibble. I was about to move off when a large white butterfly flew low left to right being chased by, yes, my first ever confirmed white admiral. I got a good look at it this time as it spiralled around the large white  before as in the previous sighting they disappeared off into the canopy. I have to say I didn't know white admirals were so aggressive or flew so fast, quite a contrast to the red admiral and comma quietly feeding on the brambles, I'd forgotten about them.

Once more I scanned the trees for activity - nothing. Had I imagined this? Well of course not, but two brief glimpses in twenty or more minutes was a little frustrating, exciting and frustrating in equal measure. Two visitors walked by asking what I was looking for and we had a chat but while we did the admiral didn't appear. Eventually (possibly thinking I'd made all this up) they left and I stood for another fifteen minutes being devoured by mosquitoes while absolutely nothing happened. I did note however on both times I'd briefly seen the admiral the sun had come out, it was one of those days of light cloud and sunshine.  Time to move on, I turned left onto a wide pathway.

As I'm trying to increase my knowledge of butterflies this year I'd read up a little before coming out. White admiral prefer sheltered sunny glades and trackways. They need bramble and honeysuckle as mentioned but also tall trees as they are used for resting away from predators, and presumably a good vantage point to watch me down below while inwardly laughing at my failed endeavours. I scanned yet more bramble. Even though this is early July many of the flowers had gone over with new fruit developing. I'm assuming this prolonged dry spell has brought forward flowering. Using my binoculars I looked down the ride, up into the trees, back where I'd come; nothing.

I'd been looking for over an hour and a half and by now I was beginning to think of moving somewhere else when at that moment the sun came out and right on cue a large white flew into vision, followed by, yes indeed a sooty grey looking butterfly in hot pursuit - but this time after chasing the large white away the white admiral flew in a wide circle before landing on some honeysuckle in front of me. I grabbed a quick photo before I then spent some time observing it with my binoculars. What a stunning butterfly and my first ever proper view, looking quite chocolate brown at this angle. They are also big, as big as the books say - and why wouldn't they be? Luckily this individual remained in view for a minute or so allowing me time to really take it in. Then as quickly it had arrived it was off, leaving me to inwardly digest what I'd seen.

I'd have been perfectly happy with this. Yes a brief view but I'd managed to achieve what I had set out to do. Yet there was more to come. 

The ride I was now on looked pretty nondescript, to our eyes at least, but obviously for a white admiral it is perfect. As I loitered hoping for another sighting a party of four visitors ambled towards me, it turned out they were on holiday from Scotland.  The two ladies wandered off but their menfolk were chatty and wanted to know what I was doing. I showed them the image I'd just taken and they were quite impressed, even more so when as we chatted a white admiral made a lovely 5 second loop-the-loop flypast right next to us, almost as if it was saying 'Ahhahh you're not looking now so I'm going to show off, bye'. 

By now the clouds were breaking a little more and the sunny spells were longer and more frequent. The two men ambled off and I was on my own again thinking of the behaviour I'd witnessed so far. There was a distinct pattern - the sun comes out - a few moments later a large white appears - and not every time but regularly the large white is then pursued by a white admiral and the whole performance ends with a flight into the trees and the admiral disappears. I'd now seen this charade a number of times. On one occasion when flying into the canopy twenty feet above me the white admiral settled on a leaf in full view. I managed to get some lovely views of this individual through the binoculars, and a handful of clear images, not bad considering  I was a good 30-40 feet away looking up. The markings are stunning. 

What I struggled to comprehend though was how many individual butterflies I had actually seen. I was now on my third area where I'd seen a white admiral flying, but was it the same one? I guess not as it was a few minutes walk between each of them. But they do fly over a large area.  

Eventually this individual in the tree was buzzed by a dragonfly and off it went. I wandered off further down the track and through my binoculars could see a white admiral low on a bramble. It took me a minute or so to get there just as it flew off and yes, into the tree canopy. Was this the same one as I'd just seen in the tree? I really don't know, though my inward thought is I'd seen possibly four individuals over five sites (one site was close to another therefore it is likely to be the same individual) during my time there.

I'd been here well over two hours and my poor arms were peppered with mosquito bites. Time to call it a day. Retracing my route I was stopped in my tracks by yet another white admiral happily feeding on a bramble in yet another area. I'd looked at this area a few times already, each time however nothing was showing. But now around 4pm the heat really was building, the sun was strong, and this lovely condition individual was very obliging.

I could have watched it for hours, fascinated too that a meadow brown which was feeding next to it. Not a threat then compared to the large white? I need to read up why white admiral and large white have these territorial scraps. Do white admirals squabble with other species? Does size play a part?

It really was time to go but this wasn't the last of it. Retracing my steps along the Sweet Track I'd been walking for ten minutes and had almost reached the end when a white admiral flew past me and landed only an arms length away on a bramble, giving me yet another wonderful view and this stunning image. That conversation eighteen months ago was spot on - mid to late afternoon is the best time for views in this part of the world. I'm also really getting into this butterfly watching, not least as I can have a lie in, saunter out after lunch and be rewarded in warm weather with stunning natural history encounters like this.