Category Archives: Butterflies

Butterfly Count

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Just been doing a butterfly count.

Six Red Admirals, the most we’ve ever counted here at one time. Four on the blue buddleia and two on the red one.

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Red Admiral

Five Large Whites. Could probably have made it more if I’d looked in the polytunnel, as there are often six or eight there, but you are supposed to stay in one spot for the count.

Two Small Whites. They seem to prefer the periwinkle to the buddleia.

Two Small Tortoiseshells. It’s not been a great year for them. We did see a lot on the lavender before the count started but they have gone. Traditionally this has been our commonest butterfly (despite population dips elsewhere) but not this year.

One Peacock. Sometimes rivals the Tortoiseshells for numbers but not this year so far.

One Comma. The first of the year. It just goes to show the benefit of taking time to look.

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Comma

It’s not a bad selection, but it’s a strange year for our two commonest butterflies. At least we have a surge in Red Admirals.

Meanwhile there are no Mint Moths about at the moment, despite seeing several early on in the season and there were no Gatekeepers/Meadow Browns flying during the count.

I will try again in the same place this afternoon and see if it makes a difference.

 

Julia finds a Ringlet

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I can’t believe it!

After several years looking for Ringlets, knowing that they should be present in an area like this, I finally mentioned my frustration at not being able to find one.

When Julia took one of the cameras for a walk to the woods with the group I did not for one moment suspect that she was going to come back and say “I’ve got some pictures of a different sort of butterfly. It has rings under it’s wings too.”

That is a description of a Ringlet. It’s not a rare butterfly, it’s just that I haven’t been able to spot one on the farm. I’ve been looking for years.

Some people have all the luck.

 

The Butterflies arrive!

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We haven’t seen many butterflies this year. Even on sunny days we’ve not seen more than half a dozen and I’ve been starting to worry that we were in for a disastrous year.

However, things took a turn for the better today when Julia came back from the lavender patch with reports of 16 Small Tortoiseshell as the headline figure. I had to have a look for myself and found the butterflies dotted about all over the lavender like rubies on velvet. Of course, I exaggerate, they were more like orangey things on purple shrubs, but for a moment I felt in the mood for a simile. Butterflies and sunshine can have this effect on a man.

On a more prosaic level, it gave me a chance to compare new camera with old one (I think the old one won) and several exciting times as I thought I saw new species.

The possible Ringlet turned out just to be a very brown meadow brown but the skipper gave me my first photograph of a Large Skipper. It took me over 20 minutes to identify it when I got the pictures back to the computer, but the pointed antennae (from a picture taken by the old camera) finally solved it for me.

It’s a bit like children – they all look the same to me. Unlike children, of course, I can take lots of photographs without incurring any suspicion.

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Ringlet

 

Butterfly Diary

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First butterfly this year: Small White on Sunday 20th March – Bulwell Forest Golf Club. I was in the car on my way to TESCO.

First butterfly on the farm: Peacock and Brimstone – both spotted by Julia on Friday 1st April during a farm walk.

I saw a Peacock this morning too.

I’m very bad at recording things but I do know Peacocks are the first butterflies we normally see and that I took a picture of one on a crocus last year, indicating that it was a month earlier than this sighting, though last year was warmer and I’d actually seen a Small Tortoiseshell in Peterborough the day before the Peacock on the farm.

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Sorry about the poor photo of the Brimstone – we don’t see them often and I don’t always have my camera with me when we do see them.

Another day, another meeting

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I may have used that title before. I may even have moaned about meetings before. 😉

Today, I’m not going to waste another thought on negative things. There will always be meetings, and there is nothing I can do about it. But, using my new meditation techniques, I can imagine that I am in a summer meadow with the droning of bees in the background.

As long as I don’t (a) get caught out by a question or (b) snore this technique makes meetings a lot more bearable.

It’s the First Day of Spring (or the first First Day of Spring – there’s a second First Day of Spring on 21st March), it’s 13 degrees Centigrade outside (about 10 better than yesterday) and though the weather is a bit squally it’s somehow more springlike than it was a week ago.

There’s a wren on the verandah looking for a nest site and goldfinches on the feeder squabbling over the best perch. We have snowdrops, we have daffodils and we have blackthorn blossom.

We have quite a lot of flowers in fact, when I go for a walk round, but many of them are already suffering from the wind, which, as usual, is blasting across the fields.

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The vinca, which was one straggly piece bought for 50p from the bargain corner of a garden centre just two years ago is 4 feet across and contributed half a dozen cuttings last year, which are starting to fill out too.

I’m trying to see if I can get a photograph of a Peacock butterfly on a crocus again, as I did last year, but I fear it may be too windy this year.

 

 

 

The Unforgiving Minute

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If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it
Rudyard Kipling – If (but you knew that didn’t you?)

Well, where do I start?

We did the cutting back, despite the cold rain, but the planting of the garlic has been delayed because I fell asleep in front of the TV last night instead of going shopping. As for the forcing of the rhubarb, that can wait till I warm up. And while I’m being honest, we didn’t exactly do all the cutting back, but there is a lot of it, and that rain was cold.

However, though the list of outdoor jobs may look like a bit of defeat I have been industrious inside, making up the calendar for 2016; tidying the files on the computer and selling half a lamb. I’ve also transferred 50 sheep photos ready for one of the girls to do a sheep scrapbook, proof read some other sheep stuff; tried to link a lap top to the wi-fi and taken a leading part in demolishing the pile of chocolate and cakes that people have brought in to eat up after Christmas.

Now I’m blogging with a clearish conscience, knowing that I have at least filled in my time, even if I haven’t filled it exactly with what I had intended.

It’s a start.

I could post some cold, grey photos of rain, but I’ve gone for butterflies and bright colours instead. Look at them and remember summer!

 

View from the office
Red Admiral
Painted Lady
Day Lily
Peacock – our first butterfly of 2015

 

 

Gotcha!

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It’s a bit of a blur, but I finally got my shot of the hummingbird hawk moth.

It was quite a cool morning and we only had weak sun so I was a bit surprised when Julia shouted from the front garden to tell me it was in the garden.

Luckily, as we were packing the car at the time, I had my camera to hand. It would have been better if we’d had the Canon to hand but you can’t have everything.

Does anyone know if they fly in cooler weather? I’ve seen four this year – two of the other three sightings were in the evening as things were cooling down. The fourth was in the polytunnel, where it kept flying at my head – I’m thinking this probably isn’t typical behaviour.

The length of the tongue is amazing, and makes you marvel at the accuracy as they flit around feeding from small flowers.

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Singing the Blues

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Yesterday, I had a quick walk round with the camera around 4pm. It was overcast, but reasonably warm and the wind had dropped. It wasn’t ideal but having added a few species to the list in recent weeks I’m always happy to have a look round. It would be nice, I thought, to add some decent shots of a Common Blue, or to see the Brimstone come back and rest for a while.

That’s the basis of positive thinking. Because it makes you believe that doing things brings a greater chance of success you do things. And because you do things you get greater success. It’s not the thoughts that work the miracle, it’s the activity.

I’m not knocking it, just pointing out to everyone who exhorts me to cheer up and be positive that you can be negative and still successful as long as you keep active. I may write a book about my philosophy “How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success without Smiling” (Apologies to Frank Bettger).

Anyway, it paid off, though not in the way I anticipated. I didn’t get a better shot of a Brimstone and I didn’t get a better shot of a Common Blue. What I got was a mediocre shot of a Holly Blue. I thought I may have seen one by the ivy in the hedge on the day I saw the Common Blue, but I hadn’t been sure. However, it’s definitely a Holly Blue and the proof is now shown below and on the Butterflies and Moths page.

I used to see a lot of them when I was a gardener, particularly in the old-fashioned overgrown gardens attached to Victorian houses, so when I saw the flash of blue today I recognised it as being slightly different from the Common Blue and was pleased to be able to prove myself correct. I’m starting to like the butterfly garden!

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A blog in in which fingers are mentioned

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I’ve been sleeping badly for the last few nights because I have a painful finger. Yes, that’s right, the large bearded man is whining about his finger. Sorry, but it hurts and I can’t get to sleep.

I know it doesn’t measure up to the pain of childbirth and stuff like that, and I realise that having to open bottles with my left hand isn’t officially recognised as a disability but it’s amazing how a little thing like that can affect your life.

Probably the worst thing is the uhtceare. (Read the list behind this link by all means, but if you are one of those people who thinks in pictures, do not click the link in Number 9). Yes, fitful sleep causes a constant state of uhtceare, and for a man that has a lot to regret, this is not good. The result was that I travelled to work this morning wishing I didn’t have to go. This is very unusual.

Now, just in case you are thinking of telling me, as Julia does, that “it’s just arthritis”, stop and pause a minute – I don’t want to be told that bits of my body have entered old age.

Anyway, things got better when I reached the farm. The new apple press and scratter have arrived! We can now travel with and demonstrate pressing in schools (if anybody wants us while we have apples) and we can use it for the juicing days (starting from 12th September) instead of having to set the big one up to do a bucket of apples. That’s why the picture at the top of the blog shows two cardboard boxes. Not a very interesting picture by most standards, but quite exciting for me.

We had a nice steady flow of breakfast, there wasn’t much I needed to do and it was all very relaxed.I met the author of the nottsvillages blog, showed several people the visiting Painted Lady (it came back!), secured the offer of a moth trap, found a volunteer to do the job of Santa (let’s face it, I’m not a natural), took details from someone who wants to help with the bread group and took £10 after we were supposedly closed.

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As if that wasn’t enough, I also took the name of another baker, persuaded someone to come and do crafts at our Winter Event and had a good look round Project Molish (which started this weekend).

That, in the language of my youth, is a result!

I’m tired now – time for tea and cake, I think.

142 days until Christmas

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Have we really had 223 days of 2015 already?

Time really does fly as you get older, though whether that’s anything to do with the theories in the article, or just because you spend longer asleep in front of the TV is a moot point. In my case anyway, you may be a lot more active than I am.

I had an email this morning telling me that we have to have news of Christmas out by 3rd September. Not sure why this should be, as most people already know it will be at the end of the year even if they are hazy on the exact date.

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It’s going to be an interesting end to the year. We start apple-pressing in early September with Doga on 19th September, World Porridge Day on 10th October, Apple Day on 24th, Turkey Tasting on 28th November and our Christmas Event (with wreath-making and Dickensian cliches) on 5th December. Add seven shoot days and a couple of events waiting for confirmation and it’s quite busy.

Then there’s Project Molish. It’s something to do with children and tools, so there’s not much to go wrong there is there?

Doga? Yes Doga. You bring your dog, do some yoga, have breakfast and then take the dogs for a walk. We’re at the forefront of novelty Yoga here, or the cutting edge of chaos if you consider the likely result of introducing a random collection of dogs to each other while the owners go “om”.

Apart from that we’ve held a discussion on the existence of Santa and whether Rudolph is a proper member of the reindeer team or a later addition, so it looks like I’m not the only one who is thinking ahead to Christmas.

We’ve also done a butterfly count that saw us able to record two Commas for the first time. We’ve had record numbers of Peacocks this year, far outnumbering the Small Tortoiseshells that were last year’s commonest sighting.

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Comma

Overall we’re up on last year in terms of variety, though it’s the moths that have made numbers up. It’s time to start planning new plants for next year’s Butterfly Garden and I’ve been pricing up alder buckthorn. It’s a good plant for Brimstones – a butterfly which we had last year but haven’t seen this year.

I’ve just spent twenty minutes outside looking at the Butterfly Garden. For most of the time the loudest noise I could hear was the buzzing of bumble bees. That’s unusual on a crowded island. It’s also a good argument for planting to attract pollinators. I even managed to spot a Mint Moth. They haven’t been as common this year as they were last, probably due to weather conditions, and it was good to see one, though slightly annoying I wasn’t doing a count at the time. They are very small and difficult to photograph – you could fit two or three on my thumb nail.

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Mint MOth

Strange really, I start by asking if it’s too soon to plan for4 Christmas and end up with plans for next summer already.

No wonder time goes quickly!