Wednesday 17 April 2013

Butterfly Atlas 2013 - April

Two things conspired today to make us go and do our first butterfly survey (STERF) for 2013:

We have seen quite a number of butterflies in the garden over the last few days and also the weather was just right. It was warm and sunny with a light breeze.

Disappointingly we didn't see as many butterflies as we had expected. Whether this is due to the excessive rainfall over the winter/spring we cannot be sure at this stage.

However there was a small contingent of Peacock butterflies, several more Orange Tip and Brimstone, one or two Holly Blue and the odd (distinctly battered) Wall Brown...



As always the Orange Tip evaded capture by the camera and the Common Blue chose the least attractive spot to land and be photographed!

However to compensate for the lack of butterflies, the Cowslips were out in force on the bankings and in the wooded area.

We'll have to wait now and see what May's survey highlights. Perhaps by then the section of the survey area which was still flooded today will have dried out sufficiently to avoid having to swim across!
Happy Days!

2 comments:

Susan said...

Your blue is a Holly Blue Celastrina argiolus. They are always the first blues to appear. It has fewer black spots than the Common Blue and no orange. It's a paler, more silvery blue too.

I saw my first orange tip for the year today, but nothing else of any interest. I'll do my survey sometime next week.

Colin and Elizabeth said...

Thank you, Susan, for the correction. Noted and amended accordingly!