Tuesday, 24 July 2018

BIG BUTTERFLY COUNT (1)

As it started to get slightly cooler I thought I'd do my first big butterfly count of the year  in my garden.

I was slightly surprised to find that my first two butterflies were a common blue and a large skipper!  These were both in my wild area of the garden which consists of a large patch of lawn that I have left unmown. As I waited for the common blue to settle, I realised that there was another one  clinging to a long stalk of grass right in front of me!  

A comma flew back and forth for a while, before I lost it, then realised it had actually landed on the camera I was holding!  Later it, too, settled on one of the grasses. During this fifteen minutes I also saw  5 small whites, fluttering to and fro amongst the grasses, occasionally stopping for a few seconds.

My wild area is giving me a lot of pleasure at the moment; apart from reducing the amount of time mowing it, it has succeeded in attracting five new species of butterfly to the garden
 ( ringlet, meadow brown, gatekeeper, common blue and large skipper). On the downside it looks as if it has been regularly trampled in certain area, possibly by foxes.   I have mown a path through the middle of it, but it was quite a challenge for my lawnmower whereby I had to  stop to remove the grass from the blades at intervals. I'm not sure how I will manage to mow it at the end of the summer!!

comma


common blue

large skipper

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