Big Butterfly Count 2020

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A sunny afternoon and a few hours babysitting for my grandsons provided a good opportunity to go for a walk and look for butterflies for the Big Butterfly Count.

With a clipboard and pencil ready we set off and within 30 seconds we had seen a red admiral and a couple of whites.   A good start to engage them with the task!   Walking down my usual daily route we soon started recording,  the 7 year old took charge of the  writing, the 12 year old ran ahead to point out the butterflies whilst the 10 year old reported back and the 5 year old was so excited at every " budder-dye"he saw it was a joy to behold!

The ditch alongside the path is currently full of brambles, thistles, teasels and other wild flowers which is perfect for several different species and the boys were excited to spot several types they had seen in their garden.   A particular patch of teasels seemed very popular and the boys were amazed to see 5 or 6 peacocks just on that one plant together with a red admiral and a white!  We also saw a number of gatekeepers, ringlets and meadow browns and a couple of commas and quite a lot of whites.

Counting up after 15 minutes we found we had logged 31 individuals of 9 species comprising:
3 red admiral
2 comma
6 peacocks
5 gatekeeper
7 meadow brown
4 ringlet
7 large white
4 small white
1 green veined white








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