Hertfordshire & Middlesex Branch
Saving butterflies, moths and our environment
Fairlands Valley Park, Stevenage. Early afternoon stroll in the park yielded my first butterflies of the year. Although only 10c there was brilliant sunshine and light winds prompting a male Brimstone to fly and a Comma to bask on the ground [Posted by Peter Clarke]
Brimstone braves the cold. Only 9? and the ice from the bird bath still frozen on the lawn: but the first male Brimstone of the year flew into our Harpenden garden this morning. Good numbers of honey and bumble bees - and a bee fly. [Posted by Alan Jackson]
Brimstone in my garden. Male Brimstone in my garden in St Albans at lunchtime for the second day running. On both occasions it carefully searched round the evergreen bushes near to the Purging Buckthorn, even flying into them, presumably searching for females. In contrast I walked 5 miles through countryside and didn't see any others. It would make sense for the overwintering sites to be fairly close to suitable foodplants. Also I have up loaded the video of last weeks hissing Peacock to the Herts & Middx BC YouTube channel [Posted by Malcolm Hull]
Sightings from Stanwell Moor. Following what was possibly an even colder night, the temperature rose to close to 14 degrees by the afternoon on my local patch. I found four butterflies on my usual walk, including an immaculate Brimstone, a Red Admiral that may well have been the one seen two days earlier, plus two Commas - my first of the season. [Posted by Dave Miller]
Peacock and Red Admiral. Sightings from Wareside Sunday 2nd March 2025 Peacock - 1 Red Admiral - 1 Disturbed from hibernation in ivy whilst clearing up a fallen tree. [Posted by Philip MacMurdie]
Sightings from Stanwell Moor. Another glorious day following another frosty night in the Heathrow area. I found a Peacock close to where the M25 spur road crosses the River Colne (the first butterfly I've seen in this particular area this year) and then back nearer home I found a Red Admiral circling a sheltered spot that the species often frequents in the summer. [Posted by Dave Miller]
Brimstone. Wareside - TL396156 Brimstone - 2 [Posted by Philip MacMurdie]
Prestwick Meadows Brown Hairsteak egg return. We were hoping that we could turn the egg rescue return into an official branch event at Prestwick Meadows but it wasn't to be. Rick and myself went out this sunny afternoon and tied in those stems with eggs on. Each stems were either left with the original markers and tied in but with the ones marked with plastic and a couple of the wool ones we decided to remove and remark. The plastic was removed to save removing later and environmental reasons. The yellow wool was also removed on a couple of the eggs returned. The reason for this was possible restrictions for a hairy caterpillar to cross. All eggs are marked and have GPS locations recorded. We shall look forward to relocating the returned eggs at Prestwick Meadows to find out how many hatched and hopefully discover if any actually make it to a bud. All the GPS locations will be sent to Liz Goodyear to log into the survey. A special thanks to Rohan Harris who located a good number of these rescued eggs in the first sweep at Prestwick Meadows. [Posted by Peter Fewell]
Sightings from Stanwell Moor. Another Brimstone today on my local patch, flying strongly in the midday sunshine after another chilly night. A little later, a Red Admiral made an appearance in a sheltered spot close to the River Colne. [Posted by Dave Miller]
Sightings from Stanwell Moor. Another male Brimstone seen today in the sunshine, despite lowish temperatures. [Posted by Dave Miller]
My first sighting this year. St Albans - Red Admiral on the Gorhambury Estate at lunchtime. Four Peacocks still hibernating in my shed. One waking up today, opening it’s wings and hissing at me [Posted by Malcolm Hull]
First Red Admiral of the year in Northaw. On cherry blossom [Posted by Sam fuller]
Sightings from Stanwell Moor. After the overnight rain, the sun shone strongly around lunchtime and on a walk around my local patch near to Stanwell Moor and the M25 I managed to find three Brimstones, a Red Admiral and a Peacock. [Posted by Dave Miller]
Peacock at Park Farm, Enfield. 1 Peacock at Park Farm near Duncan's Wd/Enfield Chase [TQ286984] - seen in flight & settled from 1157 to 1200 GMT - my first butterfly of the year. [Posted by Robert Mark Callf]
Brown Hairstreak egg search South Oxhey. Following last years egg rescue at Prestwick Road Meadows, we (Pete Fewell and myself) went back yesterday to see what had been done and where we could return the eggs, there were plenty of viable places, and the ones we had left were still in place. Now we're just waiting for the go-ahead to put them back. After slopping through the mud there, we went to slop through some different mud at South Oxhey Playing Fields. After a while, as the light was getting worse Pete managed to find one egg at TQ10270 93844. Today we carried on, this time a look at Fishers Field, but we had no luck there. Next to it is a former Golf Course that has a good border of blackthorn, so we set to work searching. After a few moth eggs, I finally spotted one that we had missed last year, as It had a hole and had hatched. Then I came upon one that hadn't, after a couple of rubbish photos and looking through Petes extra magnifying lens, we concluded that it was actually a Brown hairstreak egg, though a little smoother than usual at TQ12654 97292. At least we found another at a new location, we carried on till we got fed up with the cold. Roll on Spring! [Posted by Rick vickers]
My moth journey - Liz Goodyear. Maybe a better description is 'My Moth Adventure' but our next free Zoom presentation is this Wednesday evening (5th) at 7.30 - Full details can be found here: https://www.hertsmiddx-butterflies.org.uk/winter-zoom.php. [Posted by Liz Goodyear]
Merry Hill Brown Hairstreak survey. It was fantastic to have a good crew to join us for the Brown Hairstreak egg hunt. Our egg search today started with a mini egg rescue. It is unheard of for Rick and myself to arrive as early as we did but for once there were no traffic issues to pick Rick up. We took a look at stems of Blackthorn that were snipped out but laid near by the area where I photographed the last seen adult on 1st September 2024. A single egg was found on these snipped out stems which was returned by Rick to living blackthorn. A few more eggs were found in this area not far from the entrance and meeting point. We then had a quick check on the grazed blackthorn where I was fortunate to see a female egg laying last year. We came to the conclusion that without any eggs found there that any were far from fortunate. We then moved into the area where we had sighted the males last summer and looked for the double egg found and marked Saturday. From there we managed to find the majority of the eggs. Curiously this area of Merry Hill's hedge boundaries has an uncanny resemblance to Prestwick Meadows if viewed on google maps in shape and direction? In total 22 Brown Hairstreak eggs were found including those originally located on Saturday and 8 Blue-bordered Carpet moth eggs.
After the event finished Rick and myself searched the path from our starting point down to Oxhey Lane we had no success in the grazed area. Just outside the grazed area we found some promising looking blackthorn. However despite our efforts only 1 more egg was found on the bottom field nearest Oxhey Lane [Posted by Peter Fewell & Rick Vickers]
Grove Farm Nature Reserve - London Borough of Ealing. I met with Anna and Mike, Trustees of Grove Farm Nature Reserve today to have look at the site and see whether we could find any Brown Hairstreak eggs! An adult was seen there last summer and I wanted to follow this up with a site visit. The site is lovely, and well worth a visit (just a short walk from Sudbury Hill Underground (Piccadilly line). There is not a vast quantity of blackthorn/prunus but every bush had eggs on - in total 42 (corrected) eggs were found in less than an hour (three of us were looking although this was Mike's first time) There were multiple eggs on single stems and at least one double. We started off in rain, which was hard work but then the sun came out and it was even harder so a very satisfactory result! [Posted by Liz Goodyear]
Brown Hairstreak. One Brown Hairstreak egg found at Leavesden Country Park. [Posted by Rohan Harris]
First Butterfly of the year for me.. Red Admiral through my High Wych garden lunchtime today. [Posted by Laurence Drummond]