After a dearth of butterflies, it is turning out to be a much better year for them than last summer.
Back in the mid 1990's, we had a "Painted Lady Year" I shall remember it for the rest of my life.
There was a letter in the local paper from a lady who said she had nine - NINE - in her garden. We went out for a walk round the wood at the back of our home, which led to a derelict bit of land at the back of the motorway service station. A patch probably quarter of a mile square. All thistles. One plant every six inches or so. The plants were not green, but a dusty khaki brownish colour. That is because each plant was covered with roosting butterflies, packed so closely than the green was completely hidden. Much in the way that Monarch butterflies do when they go to Mexico to overwinter. We let the spaniel run into the thistles, and we could track her movements at the base of the plants, by the little clouds of butterflies that rose up and settled back down in her wake.
Nine in one garden - maybe nine hundred thousand in that field - possibly! Maybe even more.
UNFORGETTABLE
1 comment:
You are lucky to see the Painted Ladies, I have yet to spot one though I did spy a Comma in my garden last week, my very first.
A week or so ago, I was somewhere in the country parked near a patch of wild grasses and it was covered in Ringlet butterflies, I was entranced.
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