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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2017 18:21:13 GMT
It will be interesting to see who gets their face on the TV most next year, Packham or Mr purple emperor Oates,loving their own reflections
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Post by nomad on Jul 25, 2017 18:38:48 GMT
Well I think Mr Packham but look forward to Mr Oates on Channel Five, he finally got his wish and got a cherry picker along a woodland ride to film the Purple Emperor up in the canopy.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2017 8:07:03 GMT
Oh just look at all those do gooder, self important self righteous faces bless em,back to bird watching in a couple of months.
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Post by nomad on Jul 26, 2017 8:07:44 GMT
Yes, that's it, you often get organized crowds and in their search of photographs on nature reserves, they trample much vegetation (including foodplants of butterflies) underfoot, including one must suspect, caterpillars of various species, none I have observed seem to be bothered about this, is this respecting nature? Yet, often you get the butterflyers (I like this term) complain they have seen people with nets on nature reserves, they do not even realize that many entomologists study other insects, all the most well known, Dipterists and Hymenopterists use nets and form collections and others carry a sweep net for Coleoptera and other insects. If they are in nature reserves they will have permits. Then there are those, perhaps, a few photographers who in their desire to get a butterfly with a plain background, catch them with a net, even on nature reserves, give them a half an hour in a cold box, then place them on a flower head. You will notice that certain photographers images are always presented this way, their butterflies always have their wings folded, as if at rest and sometimes the legs are not firmly attached. In a few instances, If the butterfly is basking, they will have waited until the comatose insect has been warmed by the sun. This is not the study of entomology but photography. Recently, I have heard a comment, " well he had the net behind his back", well here is an " Entomologist " thus presented. He is photographing smaller insects, in a nature reserve and the net at his back is for sweeping Orthoptera. I met him on a nature reserve, his knowledge of natural history and entomology was impressive.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2017 8:13:13 GMT
Why is it so hard to get them to understand that responsible collecting does no harm at all, it's not rocket science, there are so few collectors left in Britain nowadays that even if they swung a net at everything they saw it would be hard for them to make a dent on populations.
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Post by nomad on Jul 26, 2017 15:17:23 GMT
Recently I went on a field trip with my brother to photograph butterflies in a large Northants woodland. We hoped to see the glorious Purple Emperor but although it was only the 13th July, they had peaked ridiculously early and those that we saw, including a large female were worn, having been on the wing for at least a couple of weeks. Strolling down a ride, my brother was delighted to find several White-letter hairstreaks, Satyrium w-album feeding on a patch of creeping thistles ( they are rather tall thistles with narrow light blue heads, the English name relates to their root system).
Soon afterwards, a rather elderly man appeared and patiently waited with his camera, until we had finished. He was a nice chap and a beginner to the delightful world of these dazzlingly creatures. He told us that he was a local and had missed the Purple Emperor because he had been to Scotland to photograph butterflies and told us he had seen Small Mountain Ringlet (Erebia epiphron) Large Heath (Coenonympha tullia) and Northern Brown Argus (Aricia artaxerxes). I remarked that was an excellent list and he was lucky because the weather can be very fickle there, here was a man who knew how to find butterflies. Then he confessed he had joined one of those expensive highland butterfly safaris, led by an expert. He was happy and I was happy for him.
After a circuit of the rides, we saw that the elderly man had gone and he was replaced at the thistles by a much larger well dressed man and his wife from Norfolk, who had stopped off for a bit of photography on their way to an air tattoo. The man, had a very large paparazzi type lens, idea for birds and mammals. He was delighted with his expensive lens and told me it was very smooth!! He asked me what we were using and seemed genuinely puzzled by our choice of short macro lenses, but he had the exact model as ours in his study at home. As, far as he was concerned, the bigger the lens the better. After out chat, we noticed his attractive wife was becoming bored and had taken to a bit of sun bathing in the grass.
Another hour later, we passed the thistles for the last time, and we again saw the elderly man who we had previously met. He seemed rather annoyed and not a little upset, he told us that the large man with the large lens, whom had just left here, had insisted the White-letter Hairstreak visting the thistles was a Black Hairstreak, which was lifer for him and had become so excited in his effort to get a good image, had destroyed by trampling, most of the creeping thistles and teasels that Red Admirals, Peacocks and Commas had been visiting, the latter are really abundant this year. The White-letter hairstreaks have returned up into the canopy.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2017 20:43:24 GMT
Not being able to tell the difference between w album and pruni tells you all you need to know
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Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2017 20:33:19 GMT
Well I will continue to conform to old school entomology for the rest of my life, I have no interest whatsoever in the new breed of click clackers, pictures while nice are not and never will be a substitute for actual specimens nor will the back slapping conservation societies ever feel the pure joy that can only come from assembling an entomological collection of self caught material properly curated with field notes to look back at over the years.
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Post by nomad on Jul 28, 2017 7:21:20 GMT
I can't imagine there is much fun or science left in collecting British wild butterflies today. All the rarer ones because of their decline by habitat loss, are protected either by legislation or occur in nature reserves. That leaves you with the common fry, and it would not take a collector worth his salt, to have a series of these and surely he will have bred a series, not only in the hope of an aberration but so he could have intimate knowledge of the early stages. There is always the hope of an aberration out in the field but where can you collect. Not on National nature reserves, in local nature reserves, in National Parks, on National Trust Land, on any Forestry Commission land (they own nearly all of the British woodlands). Recently I was told you can obtain permits from the F.C. but they will not give it for Lepidoptera and in spite of what a collector told me, you will not get one for the whole of the New Forest because of the rarities which occur there. The lists continues, you cannot collect on private land without the permission of the owner and who in today's conservation world is not going to give that, so where does that leave you to collect. I am afraid that the collector of butterflies is a thing of the past in blighty today.
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Post by wollastoni on Jul 28, 2017 7:41:01 GMT
That's why British collectors come to France. I met 2 of them yesterday in the Luberon enjoying the numerous butterflies !
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2017 9:44:23 GMT
I'm planning to visit the Dordogne next June for that exact reason. I hear what you are saying, places are getting fewer to collect by the year but if you put in the leg work you can still find butterflies in unexpected places where you won't be bothered by anybody, that's where local knowledge comes in, and then there are moths, which are just as interesting anyway and are far more numerous and diverse.
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