By: Blonde Two
Can you spot the butterfly in my picture above? No, me neither but he, and his friends, were there. Peacock butterflies I think but I wasn’t sure. I am going to have to brush up on my butterfly identification before I take part in the Big Butterfly Count. If you want to join in too, you only need 15 minutes between July 19th (aka tomorrow) and August 11th (for the actual counting) and you can:
- Download a butterfly chart
- Submit your sitings
- Look at a map of other people’s sitings
- Use a smartphone app to complete your identification while you are out and about
I have been quite excited about the increase in butterfly numbers in my garden this year. I have made a deliberate attempt to encourage insects of all kinds and have:
- Planted lots of bee and butterfly friendly plants
- Tried to ensure I have flowers for a longer season
- Left lots of my vegetables and herbs to flower
- Left cuttings and other organic matter on the soil
The garden has perhaps looked a bit more jumbly than usual but the vegetables are all doing really well and I have taken particular pride in the hum and buzz of activity I hear as I enter my own little jungle. As well as a variety of butterflies, I have already spotted a day time moth (large and fuzzy so perhaps a fox moth) and some cinnabar moths (a childhood favourite).
I have even been quite polite to the cabbage white butterflies as they flitter around trying to lay their naughty caterpillar eggs on my cabbages.
Dartmoor, by the way, is home to some very special butterflies…
