Mild winter butterflies (Uk)

[Chris Raper]

On Tue, 17 Feb 1998 16:30:14 -0500, Andrew Wood
<AndrewGWood at COMPUSERVE.COM> wrote:

[snip]

>Pleasurable though all these early sitings are one has to wonder what
>effect it may have on populations later in this year as nectar and larval
>foodplant sources are still pretty scarce as the reaction of plants to mild
>weather is that much slower than animals.

Mmm - I'm not too worried by the early butterfly sightings. The
species we have been seeing over the last few days tend to emerge on
warm days in winter anyway and then re-hibernate/roost when the
weather becomes colder. I suppose the worst problem would be if the
weather remained warm and dry with no nectar sources. This would cause
them to burn off body fat and dehydrate before they had a chance to
reproduce.

The real problems start when you get species emerging that don't
hibernate as adults - such as Grizzled Skipper etc. Last year there
many of these species fluttering around with little or no foodplant in
sight.

Cheers
Chris R.