Subject: UK butterflies

From: Michael Healy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 13:37:45 -0400

Apart from the mass of immigrants, where are they?  On country walks round
here (Hertfordshire, 25-30 miles NW of London) I am lucky at present to see
more than 2-3 per hour.  Things have come to a pretty pass when sighting a
white Pierid causes comment.
Michael Healy

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From: Andrew Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1996 13:50:05 EDT

Michael Healey comments on the dearth of butterflies in Hertfordshire and
certainly in the last few weeks there have been few apart from C. cardui.
However I hope that in the main this is a function of the cold winter/cool
spring which has most events in the natural world 2-3 weeks behind.  On a
transect walk in Balls wood nr Hertford today I saw over 60 butterflies in 40
minutes, admiitedly mainly Ochlodes venata (large Skippers), Maniola Jurtina
(meadow browns) and Pararge aegeria (Speckled Wood) but these are emerging in
numbers now as are the summer brood of Aglais Urticae (Small tortoishell) and I
would expect more offspring from what to me were reasonable numbers of
overwintering adults to be well in evidence soon.  Numbers of  Anthocharis
cardamines (Orange Tip) and  Celestrina argiolus (holly Blue)  seem to have been
reasonable and I have seen  Lycaena phlaeas (Small copper), Coenonympha
pamphilus (small heath) and  Lasiommata megera (wall)  in small numbers, but I
would expect that. So hopefully things are not too bleak.

However what does concern me, and it seems ridiculous to have to say this, where
are the Pieris brassicae ( Large Whites)? I have seen very few this year, more
P. rapae(small whites)  but the only pierids in real numbers has been P. napi
(Green veined white).  What has been the experience elsewhere?

Cheers

Andrew Wood

Bengeo
Hertford
Hertfordshire

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From: Rob Souter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 15:04:35 BST

Dear LEPS,

In response to Andrew Wood's comments on Pieridae, so far this year I have
not seen Large White (Pieris brassicae) at all, and only a couple of Small
White (P. rapae) but there was another healthy brood of Green-veins (P.
napi) both during a transect walk at Bayfordbury nr Hertford (about 2km
>from  Balls Wood incidently) and generally across the region.

Orange Tip (Anthocharis cardamines), Holly Blue (Celestrina argiolus) and
Peacock (Inachis io) have all done better than last year whilst everything
else is slow to get going relative to the exceptional season last year.

As an aside it is interesting to see that there are now at least 4 Herts
and Middx Butterfly Conservation members writing to this newsgroup which is
otherwise dominated by American correspondence.

And we don't even have that many interesting butterflies in our region!

For more information see the Herts and Middx Branch web pages at the
following location:

 http://147.197.152.100/Psydocs/Psy_web_public/R.Souter/H&M-Branch.html

Rob Souter.
Department of Psychology,
University of Hertfordshire,
College Lane,
Hatfield,
Herts.
England.
AL10 9AB.

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From: Dave Chesmore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 17:15:07 +000

So far this year, I have seen slowly increasing numbers of Small
White (Pieris rapae) and 1 Large White (p. brassicae) in my part of
Yorkshire (E. Yorks).

Dave Chesmore
Dept. of Electronic Engineering
University of Hull, Hull, HU6 7RX
Tel: +482 465062;  Fax: +482 466664

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From: Dave Howson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 08:29:58 +0100

>(Green veined white).  What has been the experience elsewhere?
On a recent trip to Dorset and back home in Ilkley West Yorkshire the
exprience has been the same, namely quite good numbers of Orange Tips,
reasonable numbers of Green Veined Whites, a few Small Whites, and few if
any Large Whites.Dave Howson