The Ravensthorpe Reservoir Small Copper Extravaganza!
Anyone with a passing interest in butterflies will have noticed that the season this year has been a very poor one indeed. The seemingly endless poor weather during the bulk of the spring and summer certainly took its toll on many of our species, including the Small Copper. I have learned in the past that in even the bleakest of seasons, surprises can happen, but even so, the amazing (albeit brief) sudden abundance of Small Coppers on the dam at Ravensthorpe Reservoir this year provided a very welcome sight to those lucky enough to witness it. At this time of year, it is tricky to do any data analysis as at the time of writing I haven’t received all of our county records yet. However, with the records we do have, I can see that just 280 Small Coppers have been recorded so far this year in Northamptonshire. The late summer emergence is often the biggest and this is reflected in the records as out of those 280 Small Coppers, 254 of them were recorded in September. Now, to put what happened at Ravensthorpe into perspective, out of the 254 Small Coppers recorded around the county in September, 191 of them were recorded along the dam wall at the reservoir. That is of course not to say that there were nearly 200 Small Coppers there, as this figure was achieved over several days and will no doubt involve people recording the same butterflies, but the story is really told through the daily peak totals. I first visited on the 14th of September after seeing a few records coming in on iRecord. Despite being very careful not to double count I was amazed to reach a total count of 37 along the dam wall. After such a poor season it was an absolute joy to be in an area surrounded by lots of butterflies. I took a lot of photos and it’s no exaggeration to say at times it was difficult to decide which direction to point the lens.
Small Copper
Small Copper
On the 16th I popped back and this time I reached a total count of 36. This was a rather conservative figure as I was only counting the ones I knew I hadn’t counted before. In fact there must have been quite a lot more than this figure but there were so many it was impossible to count them all. Once again they were everywhere and there was lots of interaction between the butterflies including mating, I also found a Small Copper egg on some sorrel halfway up the bank.
Small Coppers
Small Coppers Mating
Small Copper Egg
The peak count came on the 18th of September when Judith Barnard and Alan Neale achieved a total of 49 which is a fantastic amount considering the year we have had. Judith used her excellent filmmaking skills to produce the video below while she was there!
Amazingly, this story doesn’t end here as something else rather remarkable happened. Small Coppers, especially late summer ones, can sometimes produce aberrations. The commonest aberration by far is the ab. caeruleopunctata which has a row of blue scales above the orange band at the bottom edge of the upper hindwing. I took a photo of this one below on the 14th of September at Ravensthorpe.
Small Copper ab. caeruleopunctata
Even more excitingly on the 14th of September, I spotted something that looked like something even rarer. Through my binoculars, I observed a Small Copper with a significantly reduced orange band on the bottom edge of the upper hindwing. During my brief glimpse, it looked like the ab. radiata! Unfortunately, as I raised my camera it shot off, and despite a very thorough search, I couldn’t find it again. Small Copper ab. radiatas have been recorded in the county but normally it’s one every few years or so. Consequently, when I visited again on the 16th I was very keen to re-find it so I was keeping a close eye on any of the Small Coppers I saw! Then on the dam wall, I struck gold (or should that be copper)! There nectaring on a flower was a stunning Small Copper ab. radiata!
Small Copper ab. radiata
However, this looked like a different butterfly to the one I saw on my previous visit. “Surely there can’t be two,” I said to myself. Then over the next few days, Chris Walpole and Jonathan Pitt visited the site and both of them reported seeing unusual Small Coppers and they kindly sent me the photos. It has taken me a while to examine them all and compare the butterflies to find out how many there were but here are the results.
On the 17th of September, J Pitt found this Small Copper ab. radiata below.
On the same day, Chris Walpole found these two separate Small Copper ab radiatas as well. Both are pictured below.
Then on the 20th of September J Pitt returned and found yet another Small Copper ab. radiata pictured below.
On the same day J Pitt also saw the Small Copper ab. radiata that I had found on the 16th and that is pictured below.
In total, this amazing site had at least 5 individual Small Copper ab. radiata which is incredible when you think that in the last ten years, I can only remember a very small handful of them being recorded in the whole of the county. Unfortunately, this amazing extravaganza was short-lived as over the next few days incredibly heavy and persistent rain rolled in over the county and reduced the butterfly numbers significantly. However, it just goes to show that even in the bleakest of butterfly seasons, there are still surprises to be found.
Many thanks to Judith Barnard, Chris Walpole and Jonathan Pitt for allowing me to use their photos and video in this post.