Hello Everyone, There have been some huge numbers of butterflies seen on transects (and also casually) during the last week so it begs the question – have they peaked too soon? Pleasingly there have been 3 more sightings of the Purple Emperor in the County recently with records received from Creswell Crags on the 30th of June 2025 (Fraser Grocock), in Aston village on the 26th of June 2025 (Mike Smalley) and from Pleasley Park on the 5th of July 2025 ( Andrew Woodhouse) – it could be that both the Creswell Crags and the Pleasley Park sightings were probably interlopers from Notts whereas the Aston sighting was probably a natural movement north from the colony in Cloud Wood in N W Leics – this is where Rob Waldron visited in early July 2025 to look for Iris only to find a couple of them in cop on the top of his car (see attached photo) after he didn’t see them in the wood!
The highest count on a transect this week was a massive 748 butterflies seen on the 3rd of July 2025 at Ferneydale, Buxton ( by Lindsey & Rowan Wakefield) including 524 Ringlets! Whilst the most number of species seen on a transect in a day was 19 no at Tansley/Cressbrookdale on the 2nd of July 2025 (Gordon & Alison Rooke) A quick look at the total number of butterflies recorded in the Region on transects up to and including Week 13 – the half way point of the transect season, shows that in 2025 almost 49,000 butterflies have been recorded compared to only 20,000 in 2024 and 40,000 in 2023.
Pleasingly the Marbled White is still making erratic progress through Derbyshire with recent sightings from Mickleover Meadows (Max & Christine Maughan), Drakelow NR (Michael Williams), Loscoe Fields (Lucy Benniston), the Forge, Ironville (Sally Fisher et al) and at his private NR in Belper (Nigel Davidson) – also the summer hairstreaks have taken advantage of the fine weather recently with the Purple Hairstreak noted at 10 sites in the County including 50 seen on oaks at Wessington (Eric Easom) and 40 on oaks at Kedleston Park (Kevin Morris). Meanwhile the White Letter Hairstreak has been noted at another 12 sites with 11 noted on the 30th of June 2025 on elms at Chatsworth Saw Mill (Andrew Woodhouse)
It looks like the Silver Washed Fritillary has now moved north into the Peak District with sightings from 12 locations including Hillbridge Wood, Furness Vale (Jeffrey Willis) and in the Upper Derwent Valley at Fairholmes (Stuart Davies) with just 1 seen in the South of the County at Derwent Meadows, Alvaston on the 25th of June 2025 (Iain McGowan). Another feature of the last week has been the abundance of whites on the wing, especially the Large White, which appears to have been reinforced by several migrants from the near Continent, with 84 noted at Creswell Crags on the 2nd of July 2025 – Carol Ann Campbell. The Painted Lady has showed up at 21 sites across Derbyshire recently, mainly ones and twos, with 3 seen on the 28th of June 2025 at Rowland (Steve Webster) – similarly the migrant Humming Bird Hawk moth has been seen at 16 locations, mostly singletons taking nectar from red valerian, one of its favourite plants.
It needed more than a couple of hours of rain to put off visitors to the Open Day at Hoe Grange Quarry on Sunday the 6th of July 2025 – over 200 visitors attended the Annual Event courtesy of Longcliffe Quarries with help from Emily Howes of the DWT, who did a sterling job with pond dipping at the main pond, together with members of Butterfly Conservation East Midlands who were on hand to meet and greet and do guided walks for the visitors – as the weather improved in the afternoon a total of 18 butterfly species were noted on site including a new site species – a Marbled White was seen by John Green et al. which takes the site total to 32 species! Also in attendance was Ian Middlebrook, Programme Lead at UKBMS, and his wife, who had travelled up from Weymouth to attend and meet up with some of the transect walkers who carry out their surveys in other parts of Derbyshire.
Finally if you know a recorder who uses Hotmail as their broadband provider, it looks like my Updates aren’t reaching them due to Plusnet emails being returned as spam – it would be useful if they could set up a Gmail account (or similar) to overcome this situation and then let me know their new email address.
