Sunday 6 August 2017

Madam Butterfly

On the last possible day I managed to do this year's Big Butterfly Count - it wasn't so big, but the sun shone enough to encourage a few species to join me in this pretty corner of the site.
This is what I saw during my 15 minute slot:
  • 2 Peacocks
  • 1 Small Tortoiseshell
  • 3 Small Whites
  • 1 Meadow Brown
OK, so not a huge count, but at least they were quite interesting butterflies. That buddleia bush helped as the peacocks in particular were still enjoying the nectar when I left. I tried to get the evidence but only had my little Canon camera on me and it wouldn't behave much of the time.
You may be thinking 'that's not a great photo' but a lot of the photos looked like this...
Some bad ones were the butterfly's fault and not just the camera focusing on the wrong area...
Tut! Just open your wings, stay still and pose for me!
That's better!
And the last one is the Meadow Brown, which was a struggle to but still a little easier than the whites - but we've all seen plenty of whites haven't we?!
I also did a bit of seed collecting: mostly poppy, Californian poppy and nigella.
I'll probably sow them in a communal part of the allotment site next year - I'm sure our plot has self-seeded plenty of these without any help from me.
Here's today's harvest. Salads are on the menu for at least part of this week - home-made coleslaw, yum!

Of the various butterfly songs I could have chosen I opted for Malcolm McLaren's Madam Butterfly as I like it.

2 comments:

  1. We have a whole row of buddleia on our plot the scent from which travels far and wide. So far we have seen hardly any butterflies at all. The bees are enjoying the flowers and the occasional white butterfly stops by but other than that we have had one comma and one red admiral and that's the lot. We do have gatekeepers but they don't tend to go on the buddleias

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It started out as a pretty good butterfly year but then they disappeared. Must have been some dodgy weather as they were emerging I reckon. Perhaps there will be a late flush of them if the weather warms up again...

      Delete

If you visit, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. Thank you for your interest.
Belinda