| 01/07/2006
One of our rarest and most spectacular butterflies, the Purple Emperor, is likely to make an appearance in this hot weather and we were lucky enough to catch a pair of them this morning (1st July) in the Rockingham Forest.
 The Purple Emperor is one of the largest species of butterfly likely to be seen in the UK. It's mostly difficult to spot as it spends most of its time on the forest canopy and only usually decend to drink from puddles or feed on dung.
A powerful flier, they glide effortlessly over the canopy of large ancient woodlands such as Rockingham Forest, flying throughout July and August. A single colony of the Purple Emperor will breed over a wide area, often encompassing a complex of several woods and copses. Neither sex visits flowers, but instead drink aphid honeydew, a sticky sugar solution that is secreted onto leaves, high in the canopy.
The Purple Emperor is now a very scarce butterfly, only usually seen in a few Southern Counties. We're lucky, however, to have one of the few isolated colonies surviving outside that area in the Rockingham Forest.
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