{"id":408,"date":"2015-07-23T21:51:47","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T21:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/?p=408"},"modified":"2015-07-27T13:52:51","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T13:52:51","slug":"quest-for-the-purple-emperor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/?p=408","title":{"rendered":"Quest for the purple emperor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Accompanied by Isi, Josi and granddad, I visited King&#8217;s Wood in Bedfordshire today (a few miles from our house) in search of a purple emperor. I would have been satisfied with a purple hairstreak or a white admiral instead. Here are some of us having a rest after five-hundred metres.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/isi-and-josi.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-409\" src=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/isi-and-josi-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"isi-and-josi\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/isi-and-josi-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/isi-and-josi-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/isi-and-josi.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The first butterfly we saw was a green-veined white. It remained still for a photo.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/green-veined.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-410\" src=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/green-veined-300x237.jpg\" alt=\"green-veined\" width=\"300\" height=\"237\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/green-veined-300x237.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/green-veined-1024x811.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/green-veined.jpg 1359w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Nearby was a spider in a funnel-shaped web.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/spider.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-413\" src=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/spider-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"spider\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/spider-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/spider-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/spider.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Isi and Josi weren&#8217;t getting into the spirit of the adventure (&#8220;can we go home?&#8221;). We loaded them into backpacks and Josi fell asleep. Then we saw the highlight of the trip, a silver-washed fritillary.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/fritillary.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-411\" src=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/fritillary-300x231.jpg\" alt=\"fritillary\" width=\"300\" height=\"231\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/fritillary-300x231.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/fritillary-1024x791.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/fritillary.jpg 1393w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After that the wind dropped, the sun came out a little, and butterflies seemed to appear in abundance; mostly gatekeepers, ringlets, meadow browns, large whites and small skippers. Here&#8217;s a small skipper.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/skipper.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-412\" src=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/skipper-300x223.jpg\" alt=\"skipper\" width=\"300\" height=\"223\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/skipper-300x223.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/skipper-1024x764.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/skipper.jpg 1057w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>All in all a success, even without a purple emperor. King&#8217;s Wood has beautiful oak trees; we&#8217;ll return in the near future. On the journey home Isi fell asleep. When she awoke later she told me that a butterfly had flown past the window of her car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Accompanied by Isi, Josi and granddad, I visited King&#8217;s Wood in Bedfordshire today (a few miles from our house) in search of a purple emperor. I would have been satisfied with a purple hairstreak or a white admiral instead. Here are some of us having a rest after five-hundred metres. &nbsp; The first butterfly we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions\/415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}