Fresh cow pat sure tastes good... male Adonis Blues, today, Marlborough Downs, Wilts.
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Matthew Oates
18.3K posts
Matthew Oates
@MatthewOates76
Nature First! The Times Nature Notebook writer. Poetry & Lit. Insects esp. Emperors & fritillaries. South Country. Retired, to lose myself in Nature. Rewilded.
Tetbury, S Glos, UK
Joined February 2011
- Fantastic time on the Marlborough Downs, Wiltshire, today. This photo says it all...
- Not quite what one expects to see when out blackberrying - a Hummingbird Hawkmoth resting on berries. Have been seeing 2-4 per tour of my garden this month. Mega.
- Just when I thought the 2022 #Knepp Purple Emperor season couldn't get any better, we discover that Large Tortoiseshell has bred there: 1 fresh male yesterday, this female today and I've found the larval damage (on Wych Elm)! @KneppWilding
- Why does frogspawn always make you feel ten years old again???
- Starting very soon, probably tomorrow afternoon somewhere in E Hants, W Sussex or Surrey, possibly Oxon or Kent, the 2025 Purple Emperor season - and they could be extremely good this year, & the males even more violent than usual. Don't miss out!
- Adonis Blues having a fantastic time feeding on cow pats. Today. Nr Calne, Wilts.
00:00 - My entry for Green Hairstreak of the Week. One with a full row of white hairstreak spots for once... Stroud Commons, Cotswolds.
- Yay! Amazing hatch of Purple Emperors at #Knepp today. Looks like the best year for it since 2018. At least 16 seen feeding on the tracks here today. Numbers looking promising at other sites too.
- There's going to be a mass hatch of Purple Emperors this week. Perhaps they'll swarm and force both carriageways of the SW sector of the M25 to close...
- Breaking News! First Purple Emperor of 2023 seen this afternoon at @KneppWilding, a couple of days earlier than anticipated, behaving very badly... Great Emperor seasons start memorably and spectacularly... @RichardFoxBC
- Go Purple Emperoring this weekend! They've come out with a bang, in excellent numbers.
- I have now see Purple Emperors in the wild for 28 consecutive days, so I'm going for 30 Days Purple - someone has to, I suppose... Incredibly, there are still fresh males around, 4 weeks into their flight season...
- I don't want a monarchy, or a republic: I want an Empire, with loads of Emperors and Empresses... I want this butterfly to be common, everywhere, in countryside & in town...
