Kitchen Garden Forum

Well, this has been the best day for butterflies of the year in my garden. What a pity the warm weather is forecast to end .

There have been 11 small tortoishells, two red admirals, 2 commas, three peacocks, numerous whites, 4 speckled woods and a common blue. Lovely

Wonderful. I've only seen 2 small tortoisehells recently but plenty of whites

There have been even more small tortoishells this week, all the above and a Painted Lady.

Very surprisingly a mole has turned up in the garden, the first for about 60 years. It's been making its way along the top vegetable garden for the past week but has reached the steps and drive so I'm wondering where it will go next. Hopefully into next door's garden and not my lawn.

There's also been a Tawny owl at about 04.30 every morning in the pear tree outside my bedroom window.

Yes, the butterflies have had a late summer bonanza this year. We had red admiral, small tortoiseshell, peacock, painted lady and small white on the remnants of the buddleia bushes and holly blue and speckled wood in the garden overall.

The funny thing is, one of our allotment neighbours who is very new to gardening cut down a buddleia bush right down in about June and I thought, that's a shame, but now that most of the other buddleia blossoms have gone, this poor 'butchered' bush has come into its own by producing lots of flowers and attracting all the butterflies in the neighbourhood!

Just seen a butterfly i have never seen before, could be a holly blue but i have never seen one of those either, it was about just over half the size of a cabbage white with a dark patch on the inside of the wing 2/3mm deep along the outer edge the rest of it was pale blue. Any comments anyone?

Sounds like a holly blue, Jeff. The male certainly has black at the outside edge of the blue wing when they are open. If you see the butterfly folded, the back are very pale blue, almost chalky white. Holly and Ivy are their caterpillar food plants.

Thanks Monika, that sounds like the one, it confirms for me you really are never too old to learn , thanks again.

Nothing exotic here just lots of orange tips.

It's been quite good here in the sunshine with all the usual and lots of orange tips. The speckled woods have arrived and we've had a brimstone showing up a few days this week. There has been a new hatching of red damsel flies too.

Just orange tip, green-veined white and occasional 'cabbage white' here at the moment, but our more common butterflies like speckled wood, wall brown, common blue don't usually turn up until late June and also the "pretty" ones like small tortoiseshell, red admiral, comma.
I do love brimstones, Plumpudding, but in our 37 years in this village have only ever seen one. That was on the runner beans on the allotment!

Wow, I have noticed different varieties of butterfly on my garden . These butterflies are in varying color too.

I think you have missed the big butterfly count this year farsana but maybe you could still get the id chart just so you know for yourself. Or there are books available at reasonable prices. It always seems the cabbage white is the most prolific on my plot but I do love spotting a more beautiful one.

Welcome to the forum BTW! x

Nothings but the damned cabbage whites here, especially in thst week of heatwave. Beats me how they seem to find even the tiniest break in the netting over my cabbages too!

It's sad to see the name of this thread, "Butterflies everywhere" - I wish.
For us it has not been a good year so far, a few small tortoiseshell, occasional red admiral, peacock, speckled wood, ringlet, large and small white and, earlier on, a few orange tip. I am hoping that, when the buddleias start flowering, we might get some more. But the grassland butterflies like common blue, meadow brown, large and small skipper have been just absent ......

Just starting to appear in numbers up here this week, Common blues(which are not common here), Red Admirals and Tortoiseshells in the garden, not big numbers yet though.