Saturday 8 August 2009

8th August 2009

Craig Reed (who kindly sends me sightings for a Norton Lane garden that he visits) informs me that today he counted 26+ Peacock, 2 Painted Lady, 4+ Small Tortoiseshell, 3 Comma, 3 Speckled Wood, 1 Gatekeeper and assorted whites including 3 Green-veined White, butterflies in the garden.

P.S. I too had good numbers of butterflies in and near my back garden today, including 45+ Peacock (yes, really!), 5 Painted Lady, 2 Comma, 2 Gatekeeper and 1 Small Tortoiseshell (released it from my house). Yesterday (7th), my mom found a "butterfly" on a mint plant in our garden; I counted 3 of them and eventually identified them as Mint Moths (day-flying, pretty species and a lifer). Today, 2 Mint Moths were still in my garden.
M.P. Griffiths

2 comments:

midlands birder said...

thanks for the mention matt,it was a specticle to see that many pecocks.but 45+ in your garden has there been a huge hatchout in the earlswood area
MB

Matt Griffiths said...

Maybe. I do have a lot of nettles in my garden, which might've allowed more caterpillars to grow. As I think you've found, they like buddleia shrubs so maybe we're just seeing clusters of them, with much lower numbers elsewhere.