Re swallowtails in Sussex. I may be one of the guilty "releasers" as I purchase 5 Painted Lady eggs each year from Insect Lore and we release them as butterflies each year about now. So do lots of local nurseries and primary schools. I imagined painted ladies were fairly native so it was OK. Are we doing wrong?
Julia Macfarlane -----Original Message----- From: Adastra [mailto:adastra-boun...@lists.sxbrc.org.uk] On Behalf Of adastra-requ...@lists.sxbrc.org.uk Sent: 31 May 2017 10:54 To: adastra@lists.sxbrc.org.uk Subject: Adastra Digest, Vol 129, Issue 22 Send Adastra mailing list submissions to adastra@lists.sxbrc.org.uk To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.sxbrc.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/adastra_lists.sxbrc.org.uk or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to adastra-requ...@lists.sxbrc.org.uk You can reach the person managing the list at adastra-ow...@lists.sxbrc.org.uk When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Adastra digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: Swallowtails in Sussex in 2017 (Sarah Patton) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 31 May 2017 09:49:04 +0000 (UTC) From: Sarah Patton <house.mo...@btopenworld.com> To: Adastra discussion group <adastra@lists.sxbrc.org.uk> Subject: Re: [Adastra] Swallowtails in Sussex in 2017 Message-ID: <1706266896.6556883.1496224144...@mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Hi Michael I have happy memories of rearing through Long-tailed Blues from mange tout (this vegetarianism is getting tougher...) but, needless to say, they didn't leave the house. Especially as it was winter ;)? There was a Map seen somewhere last week. Unfortunately it's very easy to obtain the early stages of a variety of exotic species and people may think that they are doing a good thing releasing them :( Then there are the people who are deliberately trying to establish populations of non native species. Pity they don't divert their efforts to something which would actually be helpful.? I remember the Monarchs well. I was shot down in flames for being a spoilsport by pointing out that they weren't wild. Oh well.? And it just goes to show that you get tainted by association - that giant Palm moth bruiser wasn't even mine ;) I got it from the finder via someone else! And that now resides safely in the Booth Museum.?There was also a tiger moth of some sort....that was poo pooed as a release.....until they started turning up elsewhere.... So there will always be new species arriving (a new tortrix moth this very week) but the problem with releases seems to be getting worse. I'm sure there's a paper in this....Dr Blencowe :) From: "Blencowe, Michael" <michaelblenc...@sussexwt.org.uk> To: Adastra discussion group <adastra@lists.sxbrc.org.uk> Sent: Wednesday, 31 May 2017, 10:36 Subject: Re: [Adastra] Swallowtails in Sussex in 2017 #yiv9641673179 #yiv9641673179 -- _filtered #yiv9641673179 {font-family:Helvetica;panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;} _filtered #yiv9641673179 {font-family:Helvetica;panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;} _filtered #yiv9641673179 {font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;} _filtered #yiv9641673179 {font-family:Tahoma;panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;} _filtered #yiv9641673179 {font-family:Lato;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 3;}#yiv9641673179 #yiv9641673179 p.yiv9641673179MsoNormal, #yiv9641673179 li.yiv9641673179MsoNormal, #yiv9641673179 div.yiv9641673179MsoNormal {margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;}#yiv9641673179 a:link, #yiv9641673179 span.yiv9641673179MsoHyperlink {color:blue;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv9641673179 a:visited, #yiv9641673179 span.yiv9641673179MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv9641673179 p {margin-right:0cm;margin-left:0cm;font-size:12.0pt;}#yiv9641673179 p.yiv9641673179MsoAcetate, #yiv9641673179 li.yiv9641673179MsoAcetate, # yiv9641673179 div.yiv9641673179MsoAcetate {margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:8.0pt;}#yiv9641673179 span.yiv9641673179bf {}#yiv9641673179 span.yiv9641673179BalloonTextChar {}#yiv9641673179 span.yiv9641673179EmailStyle21 {color:#1F497D;}#yiv9641673179 .yiv9641673179MsoChpDefault {font-size:10.0pt;} _filtered #yiv9641673179 {margin:72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt;}#yiv9641673179 div.yiv9641673179WordSection1 {}#yiv9641673179 Hi Sarah, ha - yeah, in her defence she was rather new to all of this natural history malarkey. I don?t think she considered it to be a biological record.? She was just amazed her caramelised onion polenta pie had turned into a Swallowtail. ? I did get the recipe for the pie by the way. ? I?m just interested in finding out more about some of the sources of our more exotic lepidoptera sightings. ? In recent years we?ve seen some Monarchs around Sussex which have been the result of the latest ill-informed craze of releasing these butterflies at Weddings and th is of course distorts our understanding of the genuine migration of this species. ? Last year we received records of the Florida Fern Moth ?Callopistria floridensis in Sussex. ? And then there was that dodgy record of that South American Palm Borer moth in Chichester years ago? (I would insert a smiley / winking face in here Sarah but I don?t know how). ? Michael x ? ? ? | ? | | | | | ? ? ?www.sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk | ?????????????????????????? | ??????From: Adastra [mailto:adastra-boun...@lists.sxbrc.org.uk]On Behalf Of Sarah Patton Sent: 31 May 2017 10:09 To: Adastra discussion group Subject: Re: [Adastra] Swallowtails in Sussex in 2017 ? Pretty weird, but then am I the only one who thinks it's a little bit questionable to be reporting a Swallowtail when you know you've just released it??!! ? S ? From: RALPH HOBBS <ralph.ho...@tesco.net> To: Adastra discussion group <adastra@lists.sxbrc.org.uk> Sent: Wednesday, 31 May 2017, 9:02 Subject: Re: [Adastra] Swallowtails in Sussex in 2017 ? Very interesting Michael, but what I can't understand is how a female Swallowtail can have emerged to lay fertile eggs in France, even in the south, in late March! Just last week in the south of France first brood Swallowtails were out in force near the Med, and just starting to emerge at higher altitude. That egg must have been laid either in south Spain or Morocco(?!) or else both parents emerged artificially early within a glasshouse (these things happen) where the parsley plants were raised. Not only that they managed to avoid death from insecticide,?find one other to mate,?and presumably find enough nectar to keep them going long enough to start laying eggs.?Curiouser and curiouser!? Ralph From:"Michael Blencowe" <michaelblenc...@sussexwt.org.uk> To: "Adastra discussion group" <adastra@lists.sxbrc.org.uk> Sent: Tuesday, 30 May, 2017 11:59:50 PM Subject: [Adastra] Swallowtails in Sussex in 2017 ? Dear Adastrans, ? First off a quick thank you to all of you who have purchased a copy of 'The Butterflies of Sussex' - and for all the lovely comments Neil Hulme?and I have received. It seems like we got it right. ? I'm interested in receiving any sightings of Swallowtail butterflies in the county this year. Recent years have seen Continental Swallowtails migrating across The Channel into Sussex and in 2013 some individuals were seen egg-laying which subsequently led to Sussex-born adults emerging in 2014. There were some sightings at the end of last year and I am interested to find out if any of their offspring emerge in 2017. ? At 06:30 this morning I received an interesting message from Mary Murphy in Shoreham. Mary reported that she had aSwallowtail on her balcony. Last week?s warm weather has resulted in a modest influx of Painted Ladies and migrant moths into Sussex from the Continent and I wondered if thisSwallowtail had been part of the migration or had possibly even survived the winter here. I called her straight away to get the full story and things were not as I expected. Instead of flapping its way across The Channel this butterfly had hitched a lift on a Parsley plant. About 8 weeks ago Mary had bought the potted Parsley at Brighton?s Infinity Foods. The plant had been imported from France and unknown to Mary contained aSwallowtail egg. The Swallowtail was destined to be an unintentional ingredient in Mary?s caramelised onion polenta pie. The Parsley plant was left on a windowsill and luckily (for all involved) Mary spotted the small caterpillar before it (and the Parsley) headed for the pot. With the caramelised onion polenta pie now on the metaphorical back burner Mary had the consolation of watching aSwallowtail caterpillar develop, pupate and emerge (an experience which she had to fuel by purchasing more Parsley plants). The adult butterfly emerged on 29th May and understandably wanted to get as far away from the oven as possible so Mary released it onto her sunny Shoreham balcony and the missing ingredient from her pie flew off today.? Not exactly the sort of sighting I'm after but it does give us more information on how some of our Swallowtails are entering Sussex. ? ? Please send any sightings (whether in?the wild or in?a supermarket)?to me at my Sussex Wildlife Trust addressmichaelblenc...@sussexwt.org.uk ? Michael Blencowe (Henfield) ? ? ? ? ? ? | ? | | | | | ? ? ?www.sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk | ?????????????????????????? | ? ? ? ? ? ? Sussex Wildlife Trust is a company limited by guarantee under the Companies Act. Registered in England, Company No. 698851. Registered Charity No. 207005. VAT Registration No. 191 305969. Registered Office: Woods Mill, Henfield, West Sussex BN5 9SD. Telephone 01273 492630 ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.sxbrc.org.uk/pipermail/adastra_lists.sxbrc.org.uk/attachments/ 20170531/32b6c641/attachment.html> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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