Last month I decided to join in the Big Butterfly Count. I'm always a little disappointed in the numbers of butterflies in my garden but the organisers of the Count need to know how certain butterflies in particular are doing throughout the whole country rather than just in my garden so I suppose it's helpful to take part anyway. Actually, out of the 19 butterflies on the list, in the 15 minutes allotted for watching I saw two each of large and small Cabbage Whites, a Gatekeeper and a Holly Blue. Of course, I couldn't register the Painted Lady, the Meadow Brown and the Large Skipper I have seen outside my 15 minutes - how tempting to add these too! But I didn't.
There have been plenty of Cabbage Whites here all summer and plenty of tatters in the kale leaves to prove it. I used to find these pale creatures a bit uninteresting, but watching their frail flutterings round the patio, up and over the privet, straight into the wind, and back over the mallow and round the patio again I have found them as lovely as snowflakes, courageous, delicate and fascinating.
We have plenty of holly growing in this neighbourhood so the small azure
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| Holly Blue |
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| Gatekeeper |
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| Gatekeeper on Marjoram |
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| Large Skipper |
I have a small patch of nettles that has chosen to grow under the Magnolia stellata. Although it's not officially large enough to attract many butterflies, nevertheless I allow it to grow because I make nettle tea from it and I tell myself it must be big enough to attract a few butterflies. I also have a small bluddleja, planted last autumn which already attracts butterflies and will attract even more when it grows larger with the years.
Its incredibly strong smell of honey catches me by surprise sometimes when I'm reading in the garden. The non-mown lawn, has obviously helped this year too. Other plants the butterflies enjoy are the African marigolds and all types of aster.
Like the Cabbage Whites, I've noticed other butterflies following a sort of circuit in which they will cover the same patch many times a day visiting the same flowers (or, in the case of the whites, the same cabbage patch) over and over again.
The Big Butterfly Count didn't have the Large Skipper on its list, which was a bit disappointing - I suppose there's no worry about their survival.
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| Jersey Tiger, wings closed |
But the big delight of the season for me wasn't a butterfly at all. It was a moth. I was cutting back some ivy near the shed when I caught sight of a black and white 'shield' on the wall. I peered closer to admire it and it took off, opening its wings t reveal the brightest red curtain - an absolute work of art and I'm sure a warning to predators not to touch. I rushed indoors to my insect books and identified it as a Jersey Tiger. "Distribution: rare, resident in parts of Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and the Isle of Wight, otherwise a rare migrant". Well, my books are a little out of date and I've since discovered that it has actually been seen in London by people other than myself. All the same, I am still excited that it has chosen my garden and astonished at its beauty. There are, in fact, lots of pretty little coloured moths flying around during the day as well as at night but it's really difficult to catch them with the eye or a camera.
The Big Butterfly Count is organised by Butterfly Conservation a British charity devoted to saving butterflies and moths throughout the UK.My two most used insect books are:
The Collins Guide to the Insects of Britain and Western Europe by Michael Chinery (Collins 1986): with plenty of helpfully clear illustrations.
A Comprehensive Guide to Insects of Britain and Ireland, by Paul D. Brock (Pisces Publications 2014): full of reliable, very clear photographs (more than 2,700 of them). Highly recommended.
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| Jersey Tiger |
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