As soon as the mini freeze finished in late December 2022, a sunny day on the 20th of the month brought some hardy butterflies out of hibernation and a late Peacock was seen flying at South Wingfield (Eric Easom) together with a Red Admiral which was seen sunning itself on a building outside Lubrizol HQ in Hazelwood (Dave Adams). Then surprisingly a Small White was seen flying in a Glapwell garden on the same day (per David Elliott) – presumably it must have pupated in a greenhouse or inside a cloche?
John Coupland kindly sent me a photo (see attached) of a Red Admiral which had spent the cold spell attached to the lining of a hanging basket in his garden at Allestree – on checking the insect on the 22nd of December 2022 it was still there at 10 am but had disappeared (presumably flown off) by lunch time on the same day despite it being somewhat overcast with light rain falling.
Meanwhile, Dominic Dean and his family visited the tramway trail in Calke Park last month and in one of the tunnels there they saw 2 Peacocks, 9 Herald Moths and 2 Brown Long Eared Bats in hibernation – see the attached photos of some of them. Alan Roe of the Derbyshire Bat Group kindly confirmed the I D of the bats for me.
The Met Office has confirmed that 2022 was the hottest year ever here in the UK with an average temperature of 10.2c ( previous record was 9.9c) but Mother Nature has a way of balancing the situation with the recent rainfalls contributing to an increase in the local reservoir levels from their low water marks of last summer – currently Howden is at 73% capacity, Derwent at 99% capacity and Ladybower (80 years since the Lancaster Bombers of 617 Squadron fame trained there) is at 67% capacity with Carsington Water up from 52% in late November 2022 to 65% as of now. So if the jet stream hurtling across the Atlantic manages to carry on bringing us low pressure systems then hopefully we might well have full reservoir levels by the start of the transect season on the 1st of April 2023! Overall Severn Trent Water state that their reservoirs are at 72% capacityl.
Finally Butterfly Conservation have recently issued 2 documents – one being the Winter 2022 Newsletter for the Butterflies for the New Millennium project (BNM) which contains an article by myself on the fact that Lathkill Dale NNR had more Silver Washed Fritillaries than Dark Green Fritillaries present on the transect there for the first time ever during 2022 – quite a contrast to what had occurred during the previous 43 years since the transect was first set up in 1979! (copy of the Newsletter is attached). The other document is the UKBMS Transect Report for 2020 – this is a fairly large document so if you would like a copy than please send me an email and I will respond accordingly.
Let’s hope for a good butterfly year when hopefully your continued support for carrying out transects together with casual sightings in the County will be maintained during 2023 – I trust that you will all have a Healthy and Happy New Year. Who will be the first person to get an outside sighting of a butterfly in the County this year?