Thank goodness for bramble and willowherb
Its #bigbutterflycount time – walk for 15 minutes and record the species and numbers of butterflies that you see (https://www.bigbutterflycount.org). It’s something I do every year, but this time butterflies have been badly hit by the drought. In fact, insect life is pretty poor at the moment. I can walk along our hedgerows and hardly see anything with six legs, so its all very depressing.
Today’s butterfly count – 4 small whites, 2 meadow browns, 1 speckled wood, 1 small copper. The smallest I think I have ever recorded. I have seen large whites, green-veined whites, red admiral, peacock, comma, common blue, and brimstone in recent days, but only one or two. No small tortoiseshells yet. No caterpillars on our nettle patches. There were very few bees to be seen and no hoverflies, but it’s not really surprising, there is hardly anything in flower. And this is where the title of this blog comes in. The only flowers in abundance at the moment are willowherb (Chamerion angustifol…
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