For the record

The gardens at Ash Lock Cottage attract a fair number of butterflies, at this time of year they include Meadow Browns, Ringlets, Common Blues and Commas to name just a few. The site itself offers a number of different habitats (meadow, hedgerows, woodland) so we do get an interesting selection, but just recently we have sighted a few rarities - well they’re certainly rarities to Ash Lock.

On Wednesday 22nd June 2011 we saw a Marbled White in the front garden.  This species is usally found on chalk grassland so it was a pleasure to see it nectaring in our mini meadow.

The following day, spotted fluttering around the hedgerow was a White Admiral. We only managed to get one picture of it (see right) but it was enough to formally identify it. What’s more it’s the very first sighting of this particular species at Ash Lock.

If that wasn’t enough excitement just one
 week later, on Wednesday 29th June, a
rather large butterfly was seen inside Ash Lock Cottage fluttering against the window. Surprised at the size of it we took a closer look and were pleasantly surprised to discover that it was a Purple Emperor (pictured right and below). 

Now it’s not that often that you get to even see a Purple Emperor let alone get an opportunity to get up close to one, so we got out our cameras and clicked away taking as many pictures as we could. Fortunately our visitor did not appear to be at all camera shy and posed elegantly for us for some considerable time, before we finally opened the door and let it fly away. 

There are some reports that Purple Emperors have been seen at Ash Lock before, but if that is true - and we’re not certain it is - it was many years ago. The site is surrounded by some pretty mature Oaks so it may be  possible that they have been fluttering around the tops of the trees for years. 

And again...

After the excitement of seeing a Purple Emperor yesterday we couldn’t believe that lighting would strike in the same place twice, so to speak, but this morning (Thursday 30th June) at around 9.45am a Purple Emperor was spotted in our office on exactly the same window. It was not as large or as elegant as the one we saw yesterday, but it was definitely an Emperor. Our cameras came out again and this butterfly actually walked onto one of the cameras and remained there for some time (see picture below left). It was gradually coaxed off the camera onto the back of a hand and seemed to be feeding off of it (see picture below right). This enabled us to go out side and take more pictures before it eventually flew off.

Following the sightings of the Purple Emperor at Ash Lock we’ve been getting reports from other people who have seen one them.  Connie one of our butterfly recorders saw one on the compost heap in her back garden in Farnborough and then Bernard (chairman of the Camberlely Natural History Society) also reported seeing one in his garden. So they are definitely out there.

As well as the Purple Emperor we’ve heard from several people who believe they’vre seen a Silver-washed Fritillary, another rarity for the Valley. To date it’s been seen at the southern end of Shepherd Meadows and also at Grant’s Moor, a small site adjacent to the A331 near to Farnborough Gate. Then there’s the Brown Argus... another butterfly ‘first’ for the Valley seen at Moor Green Lakes, not just once but several times.

It would appear that this year has been a good year for some of the ‘rarer’ species but not so good for the more common ones.  The buddleia in the garden here at Ash Lock is normally covered with Peacocks and Red Admirals but we’ve hardly seen any this year and we’re still waiting to see our first Small Tortoiseshell - where have they all gone?

Please email us if you see any of the above species with details - if possible - of where you saw them, what time of day and how many. Many thanks