Thursday 27 June 2013

STERF Butterfly Atlas Project June 2013

We chose today to do the butterfly survey for June as the weather was favourable to see butterflies in flight. The difference between this year's count for June and last year's was soon pretty obvious. To take an example:
June 2012  -  Marbled White (Melanargia galathea)  -  94
June 2013  -  Marbled White (Melanargia galathea)  -  10

The pattern was repeated with other species, though not quite so dramatically....
June 2012  -  Ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus)  -  42
June 2013  -  Ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus)  -  21

The only species which bucked this trend was the Meadow Brown with 14 counted last year and over 40 today.

All in all the butterflies were outnumbered by a selection of dragonflies, damsel flies and demoiselles..

They may not have been what we set out to spot but they certainly make for some colourful photographs!

5 comments:

Susan said...

I haven't seen a Marbled White at all this year so far, but today was proper butterfly weather, so I have no doubt they will be here soon. Plenty of Meadow Browns.

My impression is that dragonflies are having a surprisingly good year, and the Beautiful Demoiselles especially. I had expected a lot of nymphs to be lost by being washed away, but it seems they have weathered the flow very well.

Tim said...

I saw a Marbled White here today, Susan...
and we've got a lot of Meadow Browns here... more than I've noticed before!

Elizabeth, did you do a survey towards the end of May last year...
if so, how do the numbers compare then?

Change in habits of Kestrel... chasing a baby Wren past our front door...
baby Wren jinked right, glanced of the door and hit the stone door "frame" head on...
it will get a burial under a squash, poor thing...
probably the Crown Prince.

Everything seems to be looking further afield for food...
we had a Black Kite hunting/scavenging here today!

Tim said...

That should read...
how do last May's figures compare with this June's?

Colin and Elizabeth said...

Last May's count (25/05/12) was very low numerically, though species-wise there was a wider variety in 2012 than 2013.

In May 2012, we recorded 15 varieties, whereas today we found 8.

The only butterflies which we recorded both in May 2012 and June 2013 are Small and Large White and Speckled Wood.

Colin and Elizabeth said...

Tim ps. An email just received from Luc Manil, president ot Association des Lépidoptéristes de France (ALF), bears this out. It reads:
"juin a été clairement catastrophique, avec un retard de 2 à 4 semaines, une très faible abondance et une diversité très basse."
So there we have it from the horses mouth; not good!