This was a great week to have off work - amazing weather and now we've also had some very welcome rain. During sunny-ish Friday I chose an hour from 1pm to do this year's Big Butterfly Count for Butterfly Conservation.
I sat near our mass of Common Knapweed, which the bees love.
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| Raggedy Red Admiral |
The butterflies weren't as numerous as I'd hoped. Apart from lots of cabbage whites!
I retrieved this Gatekeeper from a polytunnel.
So the final count was:
- 2 x Large Whites
- 6 x Small Whites
- 2 x Gatekeepers
- 1 x Red Admiral
Shame it wasn't a bee count...
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Butterflies would drown here at the moment. We used to have masses visit our buddleias but over the last couple of years the numbers have dwindled to just one or two. I was hoping for more this year.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that I wrongly identified the photo of the Gatekeeper - it's a Meadow Brown (just 1 white dot in the black circle) However I did see a Gatekeeper as well (2white dots in the black circle)
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