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Doings during the 2009 Purple Emperor Season Moved to the home page, so go to here:
-Why don't you just blog off!That's right. Last years' log of iris related activity was so successful, that we've enabled a weblog site where respondents can upload their comments and photographs directly, rather than have to wait for the webmaster to get out of bed and do it. Jump on here and catch up on the very latest iris news. And if you'd like to be a blogger yourself, just email me with your details, and I'll get you logged on.
Doings during the 2009 Purple Emperor Season National One Sock Day will be staged on Wed 1st July. On this day those of Purple Persuasion are obliged to spend time in an Iris wood wearing only a single sock – to commemorate Brother Neil’s famous self-disrobing on 1st July 2008. The sock may be of any size or colour, though if it covers the entire body the wearer is obliged to hop. This is the most important event in the Purple calendar. Invasion of Fermyn Woods. This will take place between 4th-11th July. The Emperor’s Breakfast will be filmed by the BBC in Fermyn Wood on Sunday 5th July. The piece will be presented by the Hon. Mike Dilger, who has been made an Honorary Member of our loose association. The Breakfast is being staged as a contemporary art event, and will consist of several artistically decorated trestle tables containing platters offering a variety of substances, legal and otherwise, to the Emperor of the Woods. The Beeb should also filming Purple Emperors in Alice Holt Forest, for a major programme on British butterflies. Oates’s Sabbatical. Oates is on sabbatical this summer, by kind permission of the National Trust, doing a variety of doings relating to Our Sovereign Insect. These include mark & recapture on males (or mark & never see again) in Alice Holt Forest, in order to determine longevity, frequency of territory occupancy, and perhaps mobility; work seeking to classify the types of sallows favoured by the butterfly; various engagement events - and a whole load of Silly things. Please do not attempt to extract common sense from him during this period. Captain of School. Neil Hulme is Captain of School for this term.
Prospects for the 2009 Iris season
Gentlemen, Ladies: The Sukebind is coming into bloom! Camilla and Paphia are upon us, and as you may know, His Imperial Majesty, the Monarch of all the Butterflies, the High Spirit of the Midsummer Trees, takes to the air when Camilla males are well out. In mathematical terms the equation is Camilla + Paphia + Quercus = Iris. The Empress, though, usually appears in synchrony with the humble Gatekeeper, Tithonus . So, in the southern woods, it will be worth scanning the trees from 25th June onwards, though the first Iris males may not appear until the 28th, perhaps even the 30th. Further north the insect may not start until 1st or 2nd July. Much, though, depends on the weather over the next ten days or so - and a big anticyclone is about to come over from the Azores, which could well speed up these emergence estimates. The start of The Season is always difficult to predict. The commencement of The Season will be announced in the usual manner on this website… . It is unlikely that iris will be particularly plentiful this year, for two reasons. First, although the butterfly emerged in good numbers in 2008, it got decimated (in sensu hodie) by an autumnal gale on 5th / 6th July and therefore did not lay a great many eggs. Secondly, pupation may have been hindered by cold and intermittently wet weather between 6th to 10th June this year (though hopefully many had pupated before that period). However, much depends on the weather from now on. As with White Admiral, there is a strong correlation between short pupal periods, caused by hot June weather, and a high emergence. Above all, enjoy the forthcoming Season, and report all notable doings to this website… IRP Oates. 18th June 2009.
Friday 9th May 2009 Beginner's Luck! Martin Warren found this larva on the first
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