There are two recent reports that show the extremes of the UK’s conservation efforts. The first, this year’s Big Butterfly Count, reflects the decline in our insect populations, while the second, from the RSPB, shows how rapidly the situation can be turned around if we create the right circumstances.
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As its name implies, the speckled wood (Pararge aegeriais) is a woodland species.
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Only eleven of our fifty seven native species of butterfly overwinter as a chrysalis and we have six of them on our species lists.
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Small coppers (Lycaena phlaeas) are one of the reserve’s late summer regulars. They favour ragwort and creeping thistles, of which we have plenty: keep an eye open for this bright and colourful butterfly.
Header image taken in the reserve by Clive Knight
The clouded yellow (Colias croceus) is an infrequent visitor to the reserve, seen only twice in the last decade.
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Cinnabar moth
Have you found striped yellow and black caterpillars feeding on ragwort? These are the larvae of a cinnabar moth (Tyria jacobaeae), and their striped football jerseys are a danger signal.
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We are already a week into 2024’s Big Butterfly Count, Butterfly Conservation‘s annual call for citizen scientists to help them survey the UK’s butterflies.
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The distinctive marbled white (Melanargia galathea) is common and widespread in southern England. At this time of year it chooses unimproved meadow grassland, showing a preference for purple flowers such as wild marjoram, thistles, knapweeds and red clover. The caterpillars feed on grasses particularly red fescue.
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Each year, more meadow browns are spotted in the reserve than any other species of butterfly.
Continue reading “Meadow brown”
There are always drinker moth caterpillars (Euthrix potatoria) somewhere in the reserve at this time of year. You just have to know where to look.
Continue reading “Drinker moth caterpillar”
You might see all these butterflies on your buddleia this summer but they all need other, less garden-friendly, sometimes undesirable, plants if they are to complete their life cycles.
There are 59 species of butterfly resident in the British Isles and our native grasses are the major or sole foodstuffs of the larvae of around a fifth of them.
Continue reading “Grass”
The reds, yellows and browns in this picture of a butterfly’s wing are the result of pigments in the scales on the wing’s surface – but not the blue.
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Ashley Wicks, a regular visitor to the reserve, has sent us a picture of a very early red admiral.
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Ian has sent us a picture of a Jersey tiger moth caterpillar with a message:
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According to the National Trust, gardens in the south and west of England are coming into flower up to four weeks ahead of schedule. The warm weather and such an early source of nectar will bring our butterflies out of hibernation; one of the earliest reported in the reserve, nearly every year, is the brimstone.
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We already know how damaging light pollution can be and we know that noise pollution impacts birdsong and is linked to whale strandings – but what about other sensory pollutants? A study conducted at the University of Washington in Seattle has concluded that air pollution is making it more difficult for some insects to detect the fragrances of flowers, important mediators in the relationship between plants and pollinators, insects and food sources.
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This year, 2023, was a good year for our species lists, particularly the invertebrates list.
Continue reading “The year’s finds”
The Winter moth (Operophtera brumata) is one of the few Lepidopterans that can cope with winter’s freezing temperatures in its adult stage. They are endothermic which means that they can produce heat internally by biochemical processes, just as warm-blooded creatures do.
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by Ian Bushell
After the article on Sunday about the Small Copper, I have noticed at the reserve that there are many Red Admirals flying around. I can guarantee seeing some almost every time I visit but I was stunned over this weekend to see so many. There is Ivy now in flower and the most I have seen around a flowering Ivy bush are at least a dozen.
I don’t know whether these are the latest hatchings [from the nettle beds] that will migrate or possibly over winter here, or if they are the latest wave of immigrants from mainland Europe. I suspect that they are hatchlings because they are all absolutely pristine and beautiful.
One of the delights of September is a pristine, newly hatched, late brood small copper butterfly.
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by Simon Knight
I have recently enjoyed a couple of early mornings in the reserve with my macro lens, and as I have said before, I really enjoy macro photography and hunting for the smaller in habitants of the reserve, especially on dewy, bright mornings.
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Message from Emma Kilroy-Grant to FoSCP 22/08/2023:
Walking in Southwick Country Park nature reserve this morning, I came across this mammoth caterpillar on the path. I re-located it into the hedge and Googled it to find it is an African Death’s Head Hawkmoth!!
A walk in the park
by Ian Bushell
Just some thoughts and pictures on a pleasant Sunday afternoon walk in the reserve.
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Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 