Saw two Red Admirals and a Comma on the buddleia yesterday afternoon; maybe the warm calm weather will bring more to the gardens in the coming week.
Monty15, that is so sad; I wish people who pave or build over their gardens would grow things up the sides of buildings - climbers on trellis, a green roof on a garage, hangingbaskets, green walls - to help make up for growing space lost. Permeable paving with planting pockets can be very decorative. Plants in containers are better than nothing. Our lives are poorer if we drive all the wildlife out and don't have access to natural growing things.
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Butterfly Conservation’s butterfly count has been extended to midnight on Monday 12 August.
I think there’s genuine concern about how few butterflies there are being recorded this year. It needs 15 mins of sunshine, which is where the problem has been for me.
Thanks Fiona; on a dogwalk in a nearby meadow last Sunday morning I saw four speckled woods, one meadow brown and a small white - maybe that's the best I'm going to get!
edit:my friend's just come back from Cornwall (Crantock) and she said she saw plenty on their coastal rambles, so maybe some areas are better than others.
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Almost nothing in my garden this year- no Red Admirals, no Painted Ladies, no Peacocks, just one or two blue ones that I’d have to look up. Nothing on the nearby moor but a handful of Meadow Brown, when there were clouds of butterflies a few years ago. I was at Floors Castle walled garden recently (Kelso): almost no butterflies though the flowers were ideal (single dahlias not double, for example); surprisingly few honeybees too & a passing beekeeper (as I used to be) said she’d had no honey off her bees this year.
I think in dry spells it's really important to water pollinator-friendly plants well; they'll produce pollen when it's dry, but not so much nectar, which pollinators really need. Also important to have very shallow places where bees etc can drink without drowning. My garden has been fine for bees, it's just butterflies that are lacking.
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I’ve had plenty of bumble bees too. But I talked to a fellow beekeeper, over at Kelso (I’m only a former beekeeper) & she’d had no honey off her bees. A colleague who’s still employed & involved in nature conservation said today: “I’m hearing from all over that this year has been remarkably poor for all insect life. Not sure why? But knock on implications for bats and insectivorous birds.”