Dukes On The Wane

Sadly, the Duke of Burgundy season is now on the wane and my 2013 survey of all Sussex sites will probably be complete by the end of next week. However, there are still some highlights to be enjoyed, such as the count of 9 males at Harting Down this morning (31st May); none were seen here last year. This site is mountain goat territory, and very seldom visited by anyone else, so it's a great place to escape from the crowds and just melt into the landscape. The views across the West Sussex/Hampshire...

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Duke of Burgundy Reintroduced to Bradenham Valley

In the spring of 2011 the NT, in liaison with Butterfly Conservation and Natural England, carried out an officially-approved reintroduction of His Grace the Duke of Burgundy to two small and almost-adjacent chalk grassland sites in the Bradenham Valley, west of High Wycombe in the Chilterns.  The butterfly had died out there circa 2000.  Fortunately, the reasons behind the extinction have been identified and addressed, and habitat conditions have improved greatly.  The two...

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Hampshire Dukes

Got out really early today and didn't get home  until 7pm! Made the most of the weather.... First call was magdalen hill down and it was pretty quiet as I was early but saw good numbers of green hairstreaks  including six doing battle when two holly blues joined in - mayhem. Then went over to St Catherine's hill and was a bit disappointed  - no downland species at all but good counts of peacock brimstone and orange tip. I then visited an adjacent site I had been told about to check it  for dukes. At first it did not  seem very appealing with waste height nettles which caused some grief but I persevered and eventually found good numbers including a mating pair - this was a new site for me so very pleasing. This site is 'open access land' and there seems to...

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Counting Dukes

The last two days (25th & 26th May) have been pretty typical for me at this time of the year, involving a mad dash to try and survey all of the Sussex Duke of Burgundy sites as thoroughly as possible. Although numbers will take another season to recover, there does at least seem to be a viable population remaining in the areas I've visited so far; sometimes only just. That's quite a relief after last year's weather, but I do have doubts that the national tally will remain unaffected by the...

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Dukes Launch 'Save Our Butterflies Week' In Sussex

I'm pleased to say we were blessed with decent weather and a good turn-out of both people and butterflies for the BC 'Save Our Butterflies Week' launch event in Sussex, held at Heyshott Escarpment on Saturday 18th May. On the walk itself we saw 20 - 30 Duke of Burgundy without straying from the footpaths. I later returned to scour the site and counted 42, including 3 females. I estimate they are still a week to ten days from peak here. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the discovery...

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45 Years On, and counting...

In 1968, when the world was young and heady, the 19th of May fell on a Sunday, as has been the case this year.  Spring that year was slow, but sure, and gave the impression that sooner or later something mighty was going to erupt within the world of Nature.  It did, on May 19th.  But May 19th 1968 began with school chapel, which dragged on till 10am.  It was, of course, compulsory at boarding schools in that era – on pain of severe pain.   Between chapel, and the equally compulsory but utterly inedible Sunday lunch, was an opportunity of less than three hours to go butterflying.  Consequently, I ran, in heavy school shoes, dressed as a penguin in full school uniform, the two and a half miles to Marlpost Wood.  I entered the wood at the...

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I spent a pleasant afternoon in welcome sunshine walking across  the ' north face' of Butser Hill in Hampshire. From little Butser I could see Neil's domain in Sussex.  Despite there being some good habitat on Little Butser  and on Ramsdean down I did not locate any dukes but I will be back to check again. However the story was different at Rake Bottom where I came across at least sixteen individuals with at least a couple of females. This is much more like the numbers I would expect...

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His Grace Takes to the Air

The BBC Natural History Unit will be filming His Grace the Duke of Burgundy at Rodborough Common, Stroud, this Friday, May 17th, for a forthcoming Springwatch Special on British butterflies and moths.  We hope to be filming at Manor Combe and on Swellshill Bank.  Apologies in advance if we hog the place... .  Strangely, it looks as though this butterfly hasn't appeared on mainstream TV before. I particularly want the piece to cover the love life of this little butterfly (he doesn't even ask her name, let alone speak to her father, propose on bended knee and get the banns read out in church.  In fact, no one would want their daughter to associate with a bloke with the morals of a male Duke of Burgund...

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Hampshire doings

I paid a visit to several areas around Butser Hill near Petersfield today and butterflies were very few and far between. Having explored some new areas that look very promising and found no dukes, it was very windy, I walked over the hill  to rake bottom where I had bumped into Matthew last week. The weather was deteriorating but I manged to track down just one male in a shetered hollow. Taking the opportunity to sit and watch with my binoculars for the next two hours i picked up some details...

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There is always hope...

Delighted to read that the slightly crippled male first noted in the main territory on Rodborough Common on Sat May 4th managed to find a mate and thoroughly express himself as a male Burgundy (see Simon Primrose's post of May 6th).  When he first appeared on Sat 4th he could hardly fly, his wings were too soft.  He had probably been unable to expand his wings properly as he emerged on a windy day and probably got buffeted whilst drying his wings, having...

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First Sussex Duchess

Yesterday (11th May) I met up with Charlie Elder, author of 'While Flocks Last' (2009), an account of his quest to see all of Britain's endangered (Red List) birds. Charlie had travelled up from Devon, specifically to see the Duke of Burgundy, despite a highly dodgy weather forecast. When I set off from Worthing it was still raining, but by the time I approached Heyshott Escarpment via the familiar country lanes, the sun had appeared and it seemed a little less windy than of late. We spend a...

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Duking In A Gale

Today (9th May) I started off at Rewell Wood, where I hoped to confirm that the Pearl-bordered Fritillary has finally started to emerge, particularly as I'm running a guided walk here this coming Sunday (12th May). I was mightily relieved to spot a freshly emerged male quite quickly. I then received a phone call from Mark Colvin, who had found a male Duke of Burgundy in a nearby woodland on the Norfolk Estate. It wasn't keen on flying in the strong, cool breeze, so it kindly waited for 30 minutes...

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Mating Pair at Rodborough - Mon 6th May

Just a very quick note to say that I saw a mating pair of Dukes at the main colony site on Rodborough Common yesterday. The male had slightly deformed hind wings, that hadn't developed properly, and had apparently been first seen there 3 or 4 days previously. No other Duke sightings, just those two. Masses of other butterfly activity though, but mainly restricted to this same small, sheltered, area in which the Duke colony is centred. As well as the usual common spring species I saw a Speckled Wood, about 8 or 9 Dingy Skippers and, if I said I had 40 sightings of Green Hairstreaks, I think that would be a gross UNDER-estimate!! Looks like they're going to have a great seas...

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Mon May 6th

Here's my diary entry for today.  Please note than on this day in 1990 I counted 96 Duke of Burgundies along the Noar Hill transect route (1 hr 15 mins), and only failed to get the century up because a butterfly photographer had displaced most of them from the best area (23 years on, and I'm still cross)...  The pit names will mean nothing to you - suffice it that they all have names, some of them two or three. Mon May 6th             ...

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His Grace at Rodborough Common, Cotswolds

Two males were seen in the main territory at Rodborough Common, near Stroud, yesterday, May 3rd.  These were the first sightings there this year, and I think the first in the Cotswolds.  Today was a little too windy there and only a single male was seen.  I checked two other Rodborough colonies without success. I have an accurate set of records of His Grace's appearance at the main Rodborough site (Manor Spur) since 1993 (earliest and latest dates are in italics): 1993                     1994                     1995                    1996                    ...

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First of the year

I have been keeping an eye on the weather and paying short visits to Butser Hill over the last couple of weeks to search for Grizzled skippers. The south facing slopes here warm up very quickly and normally produce at this time of the year once we have had a couple of days of reasonable weather . I have found that Dukes normally appear here about 5/7 days after the first grizzly. However it would seem that the earliest site in Hampshire is normally Noar Hill. So having seen a solitary...

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