Editorial & Editorial copy date

Editorial

Peter Maddison

The butterfly season wouldn’t be much fun if you weren’t an optimist. That’s not to say that we’ ve had a bad season! Far from it, in fact early sightings in the warmth of May and June were quite good and later on there were notable recordings of less common species. But there was a drought in which important nectar rich plants were desiccated and in high summer northerly winds brought cloud and rain. But no matter what the weather conditions, the naturalist – the optimist - goes out into the field to observe, to take notes and to learn. It was in being an optimist that I surveyed an apparently derelict piece of land, ripe for development and found a previously unrecorded colony of Grayling. Sitting on a sandy bank I watched a pair in courtship display: male facing the female raising his wings high above his body, antennae touching, scent glands aquiver. As an optimist I look to the success of the colony next season.

In this edition of the newsletter members record their observations of White Admirals, Brimstones and Hummingbird Hawkmoths. Rob Parker outlines the season of Silverstudded Blues, White-letter Hairstreaks and Silver-washed Fritillaries. There is a further selection of our summer event reports, and included are the SOBW events held by Trudie Willis at Priors Oak and the Hayter family at Scotland Place Farm. We are extremely grateful to them for welcoming our members and the public, and for the several hundred pounds raised for BC projects. Travellers’ tales are recorded from the Branch tour of the Kerkini district of Greece and Matt Berry describes a longweekend photographers’ tour in search of Swallowtails. Even optimists would be hard stretched in this abysmal, early October weather to hope for late butterfly sightings, but if, like I am, you are already looking forward to next season, and you enjoy upto-date information, you will be enticed to read the book reviews of recently published handbooks.

Matt Berry and Julian Dowding (Brimstone article) recently volunteered to work on the Branch committee and, you will be pleased to read, at the recent AGM they were appointed speedily. We welcome them and look forward to their knowledgeable participation.

We are grateful to NFU Mutual for funding the postage of this newsletter.

Editorial copy date

Contributions for the Spring edition of our newsletter are very welcome and should be sent to the Editor, Peter Maddison, no later than Saturday 8th January 2011.

Any piece of writing considered to be of interest will be published and we also welcome line drawings, prints and photographs.

Contributions (preferably electronic) can be sent to the address on the back page or by email to: prmaddison@yahoo.co.uk