Dung roaming

The Purple Emperor needs no introduction here, so much has been written about our largest British butterfly. Suffice to say that such is its celebrity that it has its own folklore and even fan-club, who worship at an online shrine to the beast, The Purple Empire blogsite.

A male Purple Emperor's wing catches the light

Same individual, slightly different angle

Last Sunday morning saw me with time on my hands so I made the journey to Bentley Wood in neighbouring Wiltshire, one of the most reliable sites for this species. Emperors occasionally make morning forays to ground level to probe for salts and moisture, and in view of the heat-wave I reasoned that an early start might be required to witness this spectacle. By 0700 I was already in the wood checking out the rides and treetops.

The stunning underside of a Purple Emperor

Note the long tongue which was constantly probing for salts

Almost immediately a shimmer of purple caught my eye, but it was only the upper-wing of the Emperor's courtier, the Purple Hairstreak. I say 'only' but while it can not compete with the Emperor on size, this is still a pretty spectacular insect in its own right, especially when seen at eye level. The early start had not paid off, however, in terms of finding an Emperor on the deck. By about 0900 I had seen just the one blatting around the canopy of a clearing either side of the main ride.

When an admirer cast a shadow over the Emperor it flattened the light but required a high ISO rating to capture the purple sheen on both wings

I had not seen the orange rings and details on the hindwing this well before

Bentley Wood is a popular place with Emperor-seekers and speaking to a few of the later arrivals, it seemed that with the hard surfaces of the rides being baked in the heat, ground-level sightings had been hard to come by in the preceding days. Fortunately, animal droppings provide a convenient source of moisture and while by the standards of most beauty spots in southern England Bentley Wood was remarkably free of dog mess, there was plenty of fresh horse dung around.

An impressive beast

Deeper into Bently Wood this Purple Emperor has forsaken dog mess for horse dung. Classy.

A few familiar faces with big lenses arrived from Weymouth around this time and after a bit more patient but unrewarding waiting around, one of them, John Wall, returned to the car park for a bottle of water. Minutes later we could see him frantically beckoning us in his direction where, we could only assume, a Purple Emperor was at his feet.

A watchful male Purple Emperor in mid-canopy

A fresh Purple Hairstreak at eye level

It transpired that a dog walker had alerted him to the presence of 'a large butterfly' on the path which has subsequently moved into a patch of vegetation where her canine charges appeared to have just parked their breakfasts. A small group of admirers was soon gathered around the insect, delighted to see the purple sheen of refracted light identifying it as a male. It was an assault to the senses: for the eyes, a splash of uncommonly beautiful colour; for the ears, a cacophony of whirring motor drives; and for the nose, well, let's just say the butterfly's chosen source of nourishment could not have been more foul.

Male Purple Hairstreak

A rare view of the open upperwing

I suppressed the gag reflex and concentrated on finding the right exposure to capture the Emperor at its best - not easy as it was sitting in strongly dappled light with vegetation casting shadows over all or part of its body.  For such a large butterfly holding its wings at angles it was also necessary to experiment with wider apertures, thus reducing the shutter speed and pushing the auto-ISO rating higher. All in all a delicate balance of factors which I am not sure I managed to pull off as well as I might, but I was happy with the results, and delighted to have enjoyed such a close encounter.

Female Purple Hairstreak

Another female - note the less extensive but more iridescent purple patch compared to the male

Amid widespread concern about the fate of our insect populations it was a comfort to be able to sit in the shade at Bentley Wood and watch the rides hum with good numbers of Whites, Skippers, Meadow Browns, Ringlets, Gatekeepers and Silver-Washed Fritillaries.

A fresh Ringlet basking in the early morning sunshine

A mating pair of Ringlet - the one on the left being of the rare aberration arete

A meander further along the rides produced a couple of further sightings of more discerning Purple Emperors feeding on horse manure. By noon they had retreated to the more familiar treetops and I had returned to my own familiar habitat in Dorset.

Male Silver-washed Fritillary

Female Silver-washed Fritillary underwing

Female Silver-washed Fritillary

White Admiral in the east car park at Bentley Wood

Filthy imperialists

My friend Steve thinks that deferential hagiography written by butterfly enthusiasts about Purple Emperors on the internet just shows how Britain is a country still riven by a class divide. A visit to Hampshire for my nephew's 21st birthday recently put me within striking distance of the Alice Holt forest complex, a stronghold for the Purple Emperor. A few pictures below with some quotes attributed (wrongly, in some cases) to Karl Marx, just for Steve.

His Imperial Majesty, the Purple Emperor, may be master of all he surveys, but he's not above grovelling in the dirt with the lumpenproletariat to feast on dog mess. Except on this visit, when he stayed stubbornly in the treetops.

White Russians resisted the communists after the revolution in 1917. Fitting then that the White Admiral - running dog of the Emperor himself - is often found in the same habitat

This White Admiral was doing what I had hoped the Purple Emperor would do - taking salts from the path...

...as was his arch enemy, the altogether more revolutionary Red Admiral

Marx on debt-driven banking crises: 'Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks which will have to be nationalized'. Oh Karl, you're so dramatic, like that's going to happen!

A more proletarian species, the Comma, feeding on the dog dirt arraigned for the Emperor - at least this commoner got the crumbs from the imperialists table

Another prole: the Meadow Brown

Ringlets of the world unite: you have nothing to lose but your chains

Small Skipper. Yet another oppressed victim of false consciousness.

Marx on X-boxes: 'The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.' Mark those words, kids.

Female Silver-washed Fritillary: the gilded bourgeoisie of the butterfly world

Silver-washed Fritillary: female underside

Male Silver-washed Fritillary

Male Silver-washed Fritillary

'Let us not flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. The people who, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor, and elsewhere, destroyed the forests to obtain cultivable land, never dreamed that they were laying the basis for the present devastated condition of these countries, by removing along with the forests the collecting centres and reservoirs of moisture. When, on the southern slopes of the mountains, the Italians of the Alps used up the pine forests so carefully cherished on the northern slopes, they had no inkling that by doing so they were cutting at the roots of the dairy industry in their region; they had still less inkling that they were thereby depriving their mountain springs of water for the greater part of the year, with the effect that these would be able to pour still more furious flood torrents on the plains during the rainy seasons...At every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature – but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly'. This was written by Karl's mate Engels, in fact, not Marx. Apart from the final word, I'd say he wasn't far off being right.

Breaking news

Tired of the rolling news coverage of the royal bairn already? Then check out these for alternative royalty. In reverse order of succession:

Monarch: non-specific, but still royalty. This one was on the Isles of Scilly in 2006.

 Glanville Fritillary: named after Lady Glanville, whose will was challenged by disgruntled relatives under the Acts of Lunacy on the grounds that 'none but those who were deprived of their senses, would go in pursuit of butterflies'. Oops. I spent the best part of a decade looking for all the British ones. Hordle Cliff, Dorset, 2005.

White Admiral: OK, not strictly royalty, but top of the Naval foodchain at least. Fermyn Woods, Northants, 2007.

Duke of Burgundy: a Duke is second in line to the throne, so that must be pretty high up. Cerne Abbas, Dorset, 2013.

 Purple Emperor: never mind the third in line to the throne, it doesn't get any higher than Emperor. Fermyn Woods, Northants, 2007.

On the subject of succession to the throne, apparently, Zara Phillips if 15th in line. So really we're just an unfortunate mini-bus incident away from having Mike Tindall as King. Fancy that, Gloucester fans.