Saluting the White Admiral

I nearly didn't head off to go butterfly watching. After spending a whole day birdwatching at Slimbridge on the previous day I had planned for a leisurely Sunday to reflect,  recover and watch a little cricket.

However the one thing that is a certainty is that nature happens when nature wants it to happen. And so it is with butterflies. They are on the wing when they want to be on the wing not when I am at leisure to observe them. Following a leisurely morning then I roused myself, got into the car and arrived at Shapwick Heath just before 2pm. My quest today the white admiral (Limenitis camilla) butterfly. 

I visit the Avalon Marshes regularly although oddly I've not been down there for a few months. However eighteen months or so ago I took part in a Butterfly Conservation training day here. It was a chance conversation during that with one of the leaders in which she said Shapwick has a good colony of white admirals. White admirals are not common in Somerset as this is the western edge of their British range and so having never seen one before I made a mental note to return later that summer and fulfil that wish. Family and work commitments prevented my visiting last year and as I have weekends planned through to mid August this year, despite my desiring a quiet Sunday at home, I had just this one day available to visit the area in the hope of seeing white admiral on the wing before they stop flying.

From that conversation last year I had a vague idea where they could be found and my target search was therefore to be within this known area, slowly searching open sunny tracks where honeysuckle and bramble are plentiful - the former for egg laying and the caterpillar stages and the latter for the adults to feed. I set off and after nearly an hour of scanning every bramble and honeysuckle I could see nothing. I did find plenty of other interesting invertebrates to divert me but no white admiral. I had to stay focussed. I did though have time on my side as I'd been informed last year that here the white admiral is most active mid to late afternoon, though that is dependent on strong sunshine. Previous surveys had happened in the morning and for a long while it wasn't recorded until that is, as the story went, a butterfly surveyor was out just for a walk one late afternoon an spotted one

Having drawn a blank, I eventually came to a cross-path and while deliberating which way to go I saw a red admiral on some bramble flowers and then a comma. Not what I was looking for but nice nonetheless. I stopped to take some photographs. It was while taking these I noticed a large white butterfly being chased by something which looked sooty grey. Despite never having seen a white admiral before I knew this was it, though I couldn't be sure from this one sighting alone. They both flew very fast and it was the briefest of moments before they spiralled high up into the tree canopy and out of sight. I then spent a good while scanning the trees with my binoculars to no avail, it was nowhere to be seen. But success at last, I was in the right place at least. 

I stood scanning the brambles and trees for another ten minutes, nothing happened. By now the various bitey things had found me and the mosquitoes were really starting to have a good nibble. I was about to move off when a large white butterfly flew low left to right being chased by, yes, my first ever confirmed white admiral. I got a good look at it this time as it spiralled around the large white  before as in the previous sighting they disappeared off into the canopy. I have to say I didn't know white admirals were so aggressive or flew so fast, quite a contrast to the red admiral and comma quietly feeding on the brambles, I'd forgotten about them.

Once more I scanned the trees for activity - nothing. Had I imagined this? Well of course not, but two brief glimpses in twenty or more minutes was a little frustrating, exciting and frustrating in equal measure. Two visitors walked by asking what I was looking for and we had a chat but while we did the admiral didn't appear. Eventually (possibly thinking I'd made all this up) they left and I stood for another fifteen minutes being devoured by mosquitoes while absolutely nothing happened. I did note however on both times I'd briefly seen the admiral the sun had come out, it was one of those days of light cloud and sunshine.  Time to move on, I turned left onto a wide pathway.

As I'm trying to increase my knowledge of butterflies this year I'd read up a little before coming out. White admiral prefer sheltered sunny glades and trackways. They need bramble and honeysuckle as mentioned but also tall trees as they are used for resting away from predators, and presumably a good vantage point to watch me down below while inwardly laughing at my failed endeavours. I scanned yet more bramble. Even though this is early July many of the flowers had gone over with new fruit developing. I'm assuming this prolonged dry spell has brought forward flowering. Using my binoculars I looked down the ride, up into the trees, back where I'd come; nothing.

I'd been looking for over an hour and a half and by now I was beginning to think of moving somewhere else when at that moment the sun came out and right on cue a large white flew into vision, followed by, yes indeed a sooty grey looking butterfly in hot pursuit - but this time after chasing the large white away the white admiral flew in a wide circle before landing on some honeysuckle in front of me. I grabbed a quick photo before I then spent some time observing it with my binoculars. What a stunning butterfly and my first ever proper view, looking quite chocolate brown at this angle. They are also big, as big as the books say - and why wouldn't they be? Luckily this individual remained in view for a minute or so allowing me time to really take it in. Then as quickly it had arrived it was off, leaving me to inwardly digest what I'd seen.

I'd have been perfectly happy with this. Yes a brief view but I'd managed to achieve what I had set out to do. Yet there was more to come. 

The ride I was now on looked pretty nondescript, to our eyes at least, but obviously for a white admiral it is perfect. As I loitered hoping for another sighting a party of four visitors ambled towards me, it turned out they were on holiday from Scotland.  The two ladies wandered off but their menfolk were chatty and wanted to know what I was doing. I showed them the image I'd just taken and they were quite impressed, even more so when as we chatted a white admiral made a lovely 5 second loop-the-loop flypast right next to us, almost as if it was saying 'Ahhahh you're not looking now so I'm going to show off, bye'. 

By now the clouds were breaking a little more and the sunny spells were longer and more frequent. The two men ambled off and I was on my own again thinking of the behaviour I'd witnessed so far. There was a distinct pattern - the sun comes out - a few moments later a large white appears - and not every time but regularly the large white is then pursued by a white admiral and the whole performance ends with a flight into the trees and the admiral disappears. I'd now seen this charade a number of times. On one occasion when flying into the canopy twenty feet above me the white admiral settled on a leaf in full view. I managed to get some lovely views of this individual through the binoculars, and a handful of clear images, not bad considering  I was a good 30-40 feet away looking up. The markings are stunning. 

What I struggled to comprehend though was how many individual butterflies I had actually seen. I was now on my third area where I'd seen a white admiral flying, but was it the same one? I guess not as it was a few minutes walk between each of them. But they do fly over a large area.  

Eventually this individual in the tree was buzzed by a dragonfly and off it went. I wandered off further down the track and through my binoculars could see a white admiral low on a bramble. It took me a minute or so to get there just as it flew off and yes, into the tree canopy. Was this the same one as I'd just seen in the tree? I really don't know, though my inward thought is I'd seen possibly four individuals over five sites (one site was close to another therefore it is likely to be the same individual) during my time there.

I'd been here well over two hours and my poor arms were peppered with mosquito bites. Time to call it a day. Retracing my route I was stopped in my tracks by yet another white admiral happily feeding on a bramble in yet another area. I'd looked at this area a few times already, each time however nothing was showing. But now around 4pm the heat really was building, the sun was strong, and this lovely condition individual was very obliging.

I could have watched it for hours, fascinated too that a meadow brown which was feeding next to it. Not a threat then compared to the large white? I need to read up why white admiral and large white have these territorial scraps. Do white admirals squabble with other species? Does size play a part?

It really was time to go but this wasn't the last of it. Retracing my steps along the Sweet Track I'd been walking for ten minutes and had almost reached the end when a white admiral flew past me and landed only an arms length away on a bramble, giving me yet another wonderful view and this stunning image. That conversation eighteen months ago was spot on - mid to late afternoon is the best time for views in this part of the world. I'm also really getting into this butterfly watching, not least as I can have a lie in, saunter out after lunch and be rewarded in warm weather with stunning natural history encounters like this.