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Aerial maps of areas in this study
Butterfly Survey 1976-2015
Peacock
wingspan: 65 mm varies female larger
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Habit: This dark velvety butterfly is found almost everywhere in our area and inhabits rough areas of land where nettles are allowed to grow - in open rides and lanes, on rough land and in parks and large gardens. The butterfly has the unusual habit of disappearing, and reappearing which it does with a sudden and noisy flick of the wings when disturbed or under threat. The peacock, like most of our colourful Nymphalidae species shows the same decline in overall population as many other butterfly species.
Double brooded - the peacock emerges from hibernation in early very early spring, then mating and giving rise to the summer generation that then hibernates. Aestivation is a feature of the butterfly in very hot summers. Not as early as the red admiral.
Larval Foodplant: nettles. Colonial masses of dark spiny larvae can often be seen webbed on nettle heads in spring where rough areas are left untended and not cut indescriminately or at innapropriate times in the butterfly life cycle.
Status: - fluctuating, but dinminished overall from the start of the study, never as numerous as the small tortoiseshell originally. Probably a victim of tidying of gardens and old structures.
WH - White Hill Shoreham, BC - Bromley Common, Ha Hayes --BN Bromley North - Ey Eynsford - Orp Orpington - Bic Bickley, HE-High Elms, Rux-Ruxley
© Rodney Compton, Howard Walmsley