Today has been another lovely late summer day - sadly I think the last for a while. One delight it served up for me was the sight of two speckled wood butterflies engaging in combat. These are very territorial insects, or the males are at least - they will fiercely defend a patch of sunlit space within, or on the edge of, a wood or overgrown hedgerow. Such a warm spot will provide the best chance of mating.
When an interloper arrives, a fight ensues, and that's what I witnessed today. The two butterflies circle rapidly around each other; and, looking closely, I could see that every so often one would dart towards the other and be repulsed. I supposed the duel I witnessed went on for ten or fifteen minutes, though I'm told that they have been known to last for an hour or more. The two butterflies covered a fair amount of ground even in that time, though! In the end one flew disconsolately away.
One tends not to think of insects as territorial but in fact quite a number of butterflies seem to be. Where we used to live we tended to find our drive claimed each year by a red admiral butterfly - obviously a different one each year, though as the behaviour was identical you might easily imagine it to be the same individual as last year. Any invasion of the space, for example by me parking my car, would result in a sort of dive bombing enterprise by the butterfly. Possibly it was responding to its own reflection in the windows or mirror, rather as some birds will.
Related butterflies, such as peacocks and small tortoiseshells, also behave in this way. A male will select a perch and simply sit there and bask a bit; but they are very watchful, and will quickly act to chase away any (male) intruders, their strategy being to sit in a good and obvious place and wait for the female to find them.
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