💾 Archived View for magda.cities.yesterweb.org › oblog › 2024-may.gmi captured on 2024-08-31 at 12:09:48. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2024-08-18)
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Single logs from this month:
Relatively short periods of stable weather conditions defined this month.
Species that already were seen in April and returned:
Species making their first appearances:
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Among the non-returners are Papilio machaon and Araschnia levana. At least the latter is somewhat surprising, as it is said that its spring generation is more common in May.
On a sad note, it appears that the widespread decline of Aglais urticae is continuing. This is the only species beginning its season in spring which I failed to observe entirely this year.
Additionally, last year's sudden decline among all butterfly species around mid-May was observable again this year, this time it began shortly after the 13th and appeared to last for more than a week. Both instances correlate with the drastic decline in dandelions and the parallel large amount of farmers spraying pesticides that started at the beginning of the month. Once again, other nectar plants were largely missing for roughly a week after said decline and during the week, where very few individuals were spotted, the very few individuals were observed to avoid other nectar plants beginning to bloom, namely sainfoin, firelily and white and red clover. While both clovers evenually managed to attract butterflies and other insects towards the end of the month, sainfoil and fire lily remain largely unpopular, hinting at the possibilty that most of the nectar they produce may be of low quality. Unfortunately, I cannot assess the nurients offered by each plant, soil and water sources (rain, streams and groundwater) and how many pesticides they may have absorbed (and, for that matter, how pesticides may influence the biochemistry of plants), however this phenomenon was witnessed across all study areas and beyond.
Despite this, the return of C. argiolus, which was last observed in Zone I in 2022, in its new main spot (Zone III) overall is a positive sign. V. cardui, which I observed in 2019 (three years before the start of my observation series), appearing in Zone II also is among the postive highlights of May, as this inidicates that not only has it not settled permanently over here, it still travels to my study areas when it feels like it, not avoiding it altogether.
G. rhamni, which seems to be the most dependent on dandelions, showed itself even after the dtrastic decline, albeit, yet unlike last year, in much lower numbers. This indicates that its population may be improving at a rather slow pace and may hint at this species actually being far more sensitive to relatively small environmental changes than it is usually claimed.
Speaking of possible bioindicators: After already having observed black-and-red froghoppers, I managed to discover a typical clutch of the lined spittlebug in Zone I. Bcause I never saw something like this before, despite its classification as "common", it became another highlight of mine.
In the end, May was quite a month and I probably could have conducted more observations if it weren't for the growing amount of tourists especially during the holidays. As more and more cyclicts pass through Zone I and parts of Zone II, insects are beginning to avoid the edges of the paths for longer periods of time, now maxing out at two minutes. The cyclists add an additional stress factor to those areas, as they already are being passed by large tractors and cars – still largely a locals-only thing but I already witnessed one family from the Trier area parking right on the junction in Zone II just to take their kids to an ideal skating area – on a regular basis. I generally hope that the amount of selfish tourists does not increase further.
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Addendum (27 July): This summary originally included A. agestis among the species making their first appearances. Upon re-evaluation, all apparent observations turned out to be females of P. bellargus and P. icarus, respectively.