When the sun comes out from behind the clouds almost like magic, little fluttering jewels of joy just seem to appear out of nowhere. No matter how hard I look in our garden, I’ve yet to find a resting butterfly in the grass, and yet there they immediately are – bombing in delicately and quickly in to find the Budleia and Oxeye Daisy. Well, the sun might not last, so it’s almost like a gauntlet race against time.
If you love butterflies as much as I do, their welcome burst of flighty colour, the way they can just make you smile; then you too would want to help them – to protect and conserve them. One of the best ways you can do this is to have pollinator friendly plants and when the butterflies come to drink from them – record your sightings for The Big Butterfly Count – it only takes a minute to download the app, the identification guides/info and you’re ready to become a citizen scientist!! Spend fifteen minutes in your garden, park, balcony, by a potted pollinator friendly plant (see some good examples here) and you’ll really help make a difference to understanding butterfly numbers, habitats and how well our environment is fairing. Butterflies are excellent indicators of pollution and how well other species are doing also.
We’ve had great fun again, joining in and counting lots of beautiful butterflies! We’ve taken part (so far) in eight different counts and we’ve seen a good variety of species! Here are some photographs I have taken over the last few weeks on our counts.
From top to bottom – Meadow Brown, Small White, Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral and Small Tortoiseshell and finally our best spot – the Comma butterfly!
Earlier in the year we also had Holly Blue, Speckled Wood and Ringlet butterfly in our garden too! You never know what you might spot if to join in – it gives you such a buzz and you’ll feel like you’ve really made a difference! You’ve got until the 6th of August to get going with a count (or two, or three)! If you get involved I’d love to know what you spot, so get in touch with your sightings!
Good luck and thanks for reading
Dara ????
10 Responses
Beautiful! I’m trying to take a picture of all the butterflies I have around our house but they are moving so fast, I can’t!
They can be tricky! Wait for the sun to go in and you might find them resting ☺️
Thank you Rose! We found the Comma on the Bellanaleck loop walk. Dara ☺️
Fantastic Dara – getting 8 BBC’s done is a very good record! Where did you see the Comma?
Thank you Rose! We found the Comma on the Bellanaleck loop walk ☺️
Thank you so much for raising awareness of the count Dara! And I am so jealous of the Comma record, that is truly marvellous!
Thank you, Catherine! Yes, we were really lucky. They are so beautiful ☺️
Did you also record a Comma on the Big Butterfly Count in 2016?
I got an e-mail asking me to click on “confirm” but it took me to the home page (sorry I am not familiar with the set-up) I was expecting a reply to my comment.
Hi Ian, this is Dara’s mum – he doesn’t check his comments on a daily basis as he is busy with school and other things that don’t include technology. I do believe we recorded a comma both this year and last.
Thank you
Roisin