Event details:

Sussex has long been a stronghold for the iconic Purple Emperor. We will spend the morning exploring the semi-ancient woodlands of Southwater, made famous by Matthew Oates, Britain’s foremost Purple Emperor expert, in his book, ‘His Imperial Majesty: A Natural history of the Purple Emperor’, where he first found and fell in love with this charismatic species as a boy. We will be scanning the treetops for ‘His Imperial Majesty’ and, if we are lucky, catching sight of HIM coming to ground to feed on minerals. We will also search the woodland rides for White Admiral and Silver-washed Fritillary, and hopefully find Marbled Whites and a host of other species in the glades, and several dragonflies and damselflies too.

We will then head south, following the trail of the Purple Emperor to where they have colonised spectacularly successfully in recent years: the world famous Knepp Wildland project, now home to Britain’s largest population of Purple Emperor. We will spend the afternoon here, to explore some of this magnificent species’ prime breeding sites, including the location of the fabulous BBC David Attenborough series ‘Wild Isles’ footage of fighting Purple Emperor males. We might also see some of the large free-roaming mammals that ‘manage’ the vegetation here, such as Fallow and Red Deer, Old English Longhorn cattle and Tamworth pigs.

Event itinerary:

This day starts with meeting up at Burgess Hill Train Station, on the London to Brighton line. From here we will travel by minibus to the semi-ancient woodlands of Southwater, made famous by Matthew Oates, Britain’s foremost Purple Emperor expert, in his book, ‘His Imperial Majesty: A Natural history of the Purple Emperor’, where he first found and fell in love with this charismatic species as a boy. We will be scanning the treetops for ‘His Imperial Majesty’ and, if we are lucky, catching sight of HIM coming to ground to feed on minerals. We will also search the woodland rides for White Admiral and Silver-washed Fritillary, and hopefully find Marbled Whites and a host of other species in the glades, and several dragonflies and damselflies too.

We will then drive south, stopping to use facilities and purchase lunch and drinks.

We will then continue south, following the trail of the Purple Emperor to where they have colonised spectacularly successfully in recent years: the world famous Knepp Wildland project, now home to Britain’s largest population of Purple Emperor. We will spend the afternoon here, to explore some of this magnificent species’ prime breeding sites, including the location of the fabulous BBC David Attenborough series ‘Wild Isles’ footage of fighting Purple Emperor males. We might also see some of the large free-roaming mammals that ‘manage’ the vegetation here, such as Fallow and Red Deer, Old English Longhorn cattle and Tamworth pigs.

We will then drive back to Burgess Hill Train Station.