WILLIAMSON'S WEEKLY NATURE NOTES
While his depraved majesty ate his fill my wife crept into the house for my Pentax and so I was able to click away to my heart's content.
You don't get much closer to royalty than that: having them lick your feet. This is mere preamble to this year's amazing story, which has turned the books on butterflies on their heads.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdYou see, purple emperors always emerge in flight in July. For years and years in these woods the date has been July 4 or even a week later.
There was a very special year when I saw a single butterfly on June 30.
That was reported in the newsletter Iris News (the latin name for the purple emperor is Apatura iris) as a remarkable and almost unique early date. The year was 1976, the year of the great drought.
It was a one-off, the butterfly then emerging as usual in the first week of July.
For full feature see West Sussex Gazette July 4