Purple emperors
They are the royal family of Europe. They have emperors, pashas, admirals, peacocks, gliders, and beauties all closely related. They are the Nymphalidae, a clan of cousins that live across the northern hemisphere as far away as China, and 18 per cent of them live here in Britain. I guess the two-tailed pasha sits on the throne of thrones. I see it down in deepest Portugal where some of my family live in the Alentejo, between Lisbon and the Algarve, where the cork oaks grow and the cistus bushes bloom radiant greeting to the sun.
The pasha sits on the strawberry tree, laying its eggs on the leaves, or bounces among the garden flowers, or gorges fractured figs the azure-winged magpies have wantonly binged. Shrikes chase them hoping to stick them on their gibbets together with lizards and shrews. But the pasha shuts its wings and vanishes into its confusing cryptic cloak. Neither is it an easy life for the British members of the monarchy. Monarch here is the purple emperor, showing itself for just another week in Sussex woodlands to adoring crowds of lepidopterists. My photo taken in the garden shows a female. Like all royalty they wave to the crowds, then busy themselves in high places getting on with the affairs of status. High places are the tops of old oak trees.
The emperor sits there on his ancient throne which the family could have occupied for a hundred years or more. In this garden one oak outside the back door has since 1972 at least, been the one tree where the purple emperors gather every year to breed. The males, whose cloaks engage the deepest end of the spectrum with their sudden purple flashes, guard this tree every year to attract the females. Here both sip honeydew exuded by the leaves, having first come down into the garden to drink at the flesh-pots. Imbibing chemical nutrients from whatever is at hand seems to be essential. They will sit on your hand and drink your sweat, or traces of the sodium stearate from the soap you have been using. One year a queen dipped her tongue into Morris Minor sump oil I had briefly left unguarded in a tray. They might slip in through the bathroom window and drink the water drops around the sink. If your dog has done a poo behind the bushes without you knowing the purple emperor will find it and get a quick fix of potassium to build up its strength for the fortnight of regal life ahead.
These shady habits are mostly forgotten when they’re on their thrones, sipping honeydew as if butter would not melt in their mouths. Then they float out on their enormous wings with phenomenal assurance, chasing invaders out of their kingdoms. They have been seen to chase a heron for instance. One here chased a chaffinch. The bird probably hardly realised. Last year at Knepp Estate, all being beautifully re-wilded, the purple emperor responded with a mass gathering of the family which astounded admirers. One of the requirements for the dynasty is the willow tree, in all its stages of age range, for that is the cradle and the food for the infants in their precarious first nine months of royal life.