A Flutter of Butterflies

Painted Lady

It has not been a good season for butterflies here in our Suffolk garden, though we had a few Brown Argus earlier on and even a Green Hairstreak. However, Red Admirals seem to have flourished in recent days and even the white Buddleia has been awash with their colourful wings. 

We have been thrilled to see a few Painted Ladies, like the one in the picture above that landed on one of the old insect houses. This house has been taken over by ants; you can see their earthworks in the holes. Last summer this same insect house was the domain of Leafcutter bees, who were a joy to watch as they came in and out with their rolled-leaf parcels. 

 

Comma

Meadow Brown, numbers down on 2020

A rather travel-worn Red Admiral

Peacock, one of the few

Red Admiral, one of the many more numerous

Small White (we have had Large Whites, too)

 

Small Tortoiseshell, a slightly better 'garden season' for these

We also had a single male Brimstone a few days ago followed by a Speckled Wood, but they didn't stay around long enough for a photograph. 

 

Painted Lady, wings closed

 

#30DaysWild, Day 9, A Streak of Green

 

We sat outside, drinking our coffee, in the hope that we might see some butterflies. Apart from a couple of Soldier Beetles and two 7-spot Ladybirds in the long grass, there were few insects making their presence known. After a few minutes we noticed a couple of lively Holly Blues on the wing. 

I thought perhaps there might be some bees on the Ceanothus so went over to inspect, when a flutter of iridescence caught my eye in the form of a Green Hairstreak. I had never seen a Hairstreak of any description before our move to Suffolk nearly a decade ago, and have now seen three species, the Green and the Purple in our garden, and the White-letter in the Local Nature Reserve up the road.

My thanks to David for the top two photographs. I have recorded today's butterfly sightings on the Garden Butterfly Survey. 

 • • •

P.S. In case any of you were here earlier today, I had posted my updated Garden Species List, but something happened to the formatting, so I have withdrawn that post while I sort out the code. 

 P.P.S. No further False Widow sightings ... to date.

#30DaysWild, 5 June ... a Butterfly at the Beach

 

There are some advantages in living close to the container port of Felixstowe ... and one of these must surely be the fact that it is possible at this time of year to see Painted Ladies as they fly into land after their long migrations. The photograph above was taken this evening at about 18.45 hrs. It was fairly sunny and mild. We saw four of these beautiful butterflies in total, a 300% increase on our total Painted Lady sightings for 2020.