James CBR

Sooo happy you got to see one. They're having a fantastic year. Once a decade we have a bumper season and this is one of those years.

Lovely sunshine and a few butterflies still fluttering about at Ilketshall St Andrew common and field edges @savebutterflies.bsky.social @bc-suffolk.bsky.social

Press briefing today at IUCN Global Biodiversity Conference, giving results of the new Red List of European butterflies. It’s not good. Full details will be published tomorrow. Watch this space @europebutterfly.bsky.social

Clouded Yellow at Aldeburgh Town Marshes today. @bc-suffolk.bsky.social

Sat 11th Oct 2025 2.15 pm
Suffolk Branch Members' Afternoon 2025
at Earl Stonham Village Hall, IP14 5HJ

Pete Eeles will be our guest speaker. He runs the UK Butterflies website & has recently published British and Irish Butterfly Rarities

See suffolkbutterflies.org.uk

Welcome to Bluesky, it's great to have another hoverator onboard.

Let's hear it for Ivy!

An often misunderstood plant, but one which has incredible benefits for wildlife. 🦋🐝🐦

Bit of a Clouded Yellow day at Landguard this p.m. with a walk around the Butts area only producing 19 individuals including 2 Helice females, a single Hummingbird Hawkmoth and 5 Stonechats at the nw end.

Butterfly Conservation's Butterflies and Moths to see in October: Speckled Wood, Brimstone moth, Comma, Frosted Orange, Peacock, Angle Shades, Red Admiral, Light Emerald, and Wall.

Hello October! Or should that be Moth-tober? 🎃🦋

With autumn well underway, keep an eye out for these butterflies and moths in your gardens and local green spaces.

I suspect it's a male. Drones have longer antennae and abdomens (more segments) than workers or queens. Hard for a non-expert like me to tell with a photo. They're usually very docile if left alone. They even recognise individual people which means you can get even closer once they accept you.

The Painted Lady (distelvlinder, V cardui) was only seen in low numbers on Dutch Butterfly Monitoring transects this year. It is a migrant species, and the graphs show that 1996, 2003, 2009 and 2019 had large invasions, the other years just a few managed their way to NL.

#Southernsmallwhite - Pieris mannii - is still active in my area E of #Ghent, Belgium. This one was in the garden yesterday. It is a typical autumn female; lots of dusting between discal and apical spot, discal spot not confined by the veins and a vague discal spot on hindwing.
#urbanbiodiversity

....and thats a wrap!

Today is the last day to carry out a survey for the 'core' UKBMS survey weeks. 🤞 the weather has been good enough to fit in your final survey.

Don't forget to get all your data entered by the END OF OCT, otherwise it may not be included in the analysis 📋 📊 Thank you!

I haven't seen many at all this year since early summer. Surprising, since it has been a good year for migrants - more Clouded Yellow than Painted Lady since July in my experience in east Suffolk.

Painted Lady - a large butterfly with orange, brown and white markings. Butterfly is on a Creeping Thistle flower

Painted Lady in #Bath #Somerset #UK. These butterflies make the incredible 9000 mile journey from tropical Africa to the Arctic Circle & back each year in around 6 successive generations
#nature #wildlife #wildlifephotography #naturephotography #ukwildlife #bathnature #butterfly

Seven of nine planetary boundaries now breached – ocean acidification joins the danger zone," says PIK director Johan Rockström presenting the key findings of the Planetary Health Check 2025 today. #PlanetaryBoundaries
➡️ www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/late...

Bird Cherry? #WildFlowerID

Its week 26, the final week of our 50th survey season! 🎺 🎉 🦋 🥳

A HUGE thank you to all the fantastic volunteers for walking transects, recording butterflies and entering data this year.

Your efforts greatly contribute to our understanding of butterfly populations and helps us conserve them ❤️

Hard to be certain about the Holly Blue because broods can overlap but, given the early season, it's quite possibly a third generation individual.

Recently, I read about moth caterpillars which tuck their head and necks into their forelegs to reduce pain. People measured nerve activity in the ganglia (mini brains) to confirm this pain sensation exists. Modern micro tech meets biology...🐛

Six-legged suffering Are insects sentient?

A growing number of biologists believe that insects could be sentient, and that we must do more to minimise any pain or stress we cause them....

thebiologist.rsb.org.uk/biologist-fe...

It looks like A. scotica to me (non-expert) and it has been a warm year. So, it could be second generation, especially if you are down south or if it has been disturbed by gardening etc. Second gen are usually darker but as you point out, stylopised bees can differ too.

It does look stylopised which can cause problems for identifying the bee since it can alter their body chemistry and affect colour/appearance etc.

Convolvulus Hawk-moth @Bawdsey_Hall last night. @BC_Suffolk @MigrantMothUK

Seems like a good choice, especially with existing lenses.
I have the OM system (changed a couple of seasons ago from Nikon) and it's just right for me and my mostly butterfly-sized photography subjects, with its fab IBIS, autofocus and focus stacking.

This graph from @metoffice.gov.uk says it all about this summer's weather. Every month was at least a degree warmer than the average 20 years ago. Butterflies mostly did well but how will the drought have affected them? @savebutterflies.bsky.social

It's fascinating to read your research and monitoring posts about Dutch butterflies. Many of our (UK) east coast migrants come from Belgium and Netherlands, coinciding with the flight seasons there. The issues facing Dutch butterflies are very similar to those facing British butterflies too.

Positive impact of agri-environment schemes on butterflies UKCEH-led research, using professional surveys and data from citizen scientists, highlights the positive impact of agri-environment schemes (AES) on butterflies. This shows the importance of agri-envi...

See also our recent press release: www.ceh.ac.uk/press/positi...

And the full paper in @jappliedecology.bsky.social
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#butterflies #NatureFriendlyFarming

@lepimann.bsky.social @epollard.bsky.social
I'm not as familiar with Essex sites as you are but the Wall sighting seems to be the first confirmed in this site for a few years. Exciting stuff.

That looks very promising!