The White Admiral Butterfly

 If I was pushed to name my favourite butterfly, it would most likely be the White Admiral (Limenitis camilla). It has an understated beauty and is surely one of our most elegant butterflies. It has an ethereal and nebulous quality as it flits and glides in and out of the canopy and I never tire of watching it and trying to get to know its habits.

I have spent many pleasurable hours observing stages of its life cycle in the wild but I had never before witnessed courtship behaviour leading to mating. In most years, I have tended to see only one or two individuals flying at any one time but this year camilla has emerged in very good numbers in my local woods and I have regularly watched up to five flying together.

 It seemed to be a good year to just stand, watch and wait.

White Admiral (Limenitis camilla)

Female

Males

On 24th. June, I was slowly walking along a ride watching patrolling White Admirals when I saw a female, closely followed by a male, drop into the bracken bed just metres away from me. I peered under the bracken canopy to see the female being courted by the male who was fanning his wings around her.

I dared to hope that I was about to see a mating occur. After about 20 seconds, the female flew out from the bracken and upwards, with the male in close pursuit and they settled about 30 feet up in a birch tree where coupling immediately occurred.

I managed to get a photograph (or two) at the full limit of my cameras capability and watched them for over an hour before aching knees sent me home for breakfast. I was absolutely thrilled.

Mating pair

Downy Emerald Dragonfly

     The Downy Emerald (Cordulia aenea) is a fairly localised species and can be quite tricky to get close to. On a lightly overcast day with sunny spells, I spotted this male settled in the bracken and as the sun came back out, it looked up to show its sparkling green eyes and preened itself before taking flight.

Downy Emerald (Cordulia aenea) (male)

Azure Damselfly (Coenagrion puella) (pair in tandem)

Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum) (teneral female)

Emerald Damselfly (Lestes sponsa) (teneral male)

Scabious Sawfly

When I am busy observing butterflies and dragonflies and trying to get close to them for photographs, I don't often have too much time to look closely at other insect groups.

During the early days of the covid pandemic, when we were restricted by lockdowns to our home areas, I started to take a closer interest in other groups, particularly sawflies.

In 2020, I happened upon an insect resting on a bracken frond, the like of which I had never noticed before. It turned out to be a Blotch-winged Honeysuckle Sawfly and from that day, a curiosity in sawflies was awakened.

Over the last few weeks, I have been seeking out the Scabious Sawfly, a common species that is associated mainly with Devil's-bit Scabious. I have regularly found its larvae feeding in late summer but had never knowingly seen the adult before. 

Scabious Sawfly (Abia sericea)

(males)

(females)

Blotched-winged Honeysuckle Sawfly (Abia fasciata) (female) (taken in 2020)

Tenthredo mesomela (Sawfly sp.)

Wealden Meadows and Roadside Verges

 Yesterday was a rather grey day with drizzly showers but I ventured out to a favourite Wealden meadow.

Chimney Sweeper (Odezia atrata)

Burnet Companion (Euclidia glyphica)

Mother Shipton (Callistege mi)

A few weeks ago, in a Wealden churchyard, I came across this pleasing little group.

Green-winged Orchid (Anacamptis morio)

The Spiked Rampion (Phyteuma spicatum) is a highly endangered plant in the UK and can only be found in a few sites in East Sussex, often in discrete roadside colonies.

Spiked Rampion (Phyteuma spicatum)