Forests From Farms

Speckled wood

Speckled wood - Pararge Aegeria

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More information about this butterfly on these sites:

https://butterfly-conservation.org/butterflies/speckled-wood

During 2022 we monitored the presence of butterflies on the land of Forests From Farms. We continued this project in 2023 and in 2024.

Our observations regarding the Speckled wood:

The first time we photographed the Speckled wood was on 29 March 2022. It was abundently present during the summer until early autumn (10 October). Only the best photographs will be published here.
The Speckled wood is very territorial. The same butterfly was almost always in the same place. When another butterfly intruded its' territory there was a lot of flying around and fighting.
They come very close to humans, they fly around you, settle down somewhere close on a plant and observe you.
In spring you could see them mostly on the ground or on flowers .
June was mating season. We got some very nice photographs of it.
Later in summer (we had a heatwave in June 2022 in France) you would see them mainly in shady, woody area's, high in trees.
They prefer to be in sort of corridors in a woody area.
We've been following several individual butterflies daily. It is such a pity to know that the lifespan of the Speckled wood is only between 7-20 days. Considering the fact that their lifspan is so short and the fact that we have plenty of Speckled wood butterflies on our 3,5 hectare property, show that our environment and our conditions for them to breed and to stay here are favorable for this species.
In 2023 we saw the very first Speckled wood butterfly on 21 March and the very last in the end of October.
And in 2024 the very first Speckled wood butterfly appeared on the 3rd of March....This is almost 3 weeks earlier than in 2022 and more than 1 week earlier than in 2023. Climate change has its consequences for these butterflies https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.1999.0763
We believe that the very first Speckled wood butterflies we see in March could have been hibernating. This is an observation not a fact. The reason is that quite some butterflies we saw early sping 2024 had their wings damaged and so could not be newly hatched butterflies. Or they could have migrated.... this is just an assumption.

28 March 2022