The Butterflies of 2004
The 2004 sightings
Note that 1st visits for the year are marked in red.
March 29th 2004: Lorraine caught sight of two Butterflies
just as we were driving away from home to go out shopping. One was light
coloured and the other orangish. March 30th: Paul at work :-( but
Lorraine clearly spotted the Male Brimstone and Peacock Butterflies
during the late morning making them our first officially recognized Butterflies
for the year. March 31st and we both saw them plus a couple of Small Tortoiseshells. Later
that afternoon the Comma also drifted into the garden so it was a good day for our
colourful friends! Those few days had been quite mild so these Butterflies
were probably ones that had come out of hibernation. Similarly Easter
Monday was fairly warm and we had the Comma and Male Brimstone visit. Late
April and the Green Veined White (GVW) returned and Lorraine spotted the Orange Tip Butterfly on Tuesday
April 27th. May saw the Brimstones, Peacock, Comma, GVW and Male Orange
Tips fairly regularly. Late May (27th in the morning) we spotted a Blue
Butterfly and from past experience we're sure it was the Holly Blue Butterfly and we
also finally confirmed that some of the 'small white butterflies' were most
probably the Female Orange Tip as we viewed one up close when it landed
in our garden - ironically the F OT has no orange tip but the underside
was identical to the male whilst the upperside could be confused from a
distance with either the GVW or Small White. We also spotted what appeared
to be a Large White flutter by quite quickly several times and again it's
flight pattern resembled what we've seen before for the Large White so we're confident
that it had returned. June was a poor month and we seemed to be down for
the number of returns as compared with 2003 - possibly due to the weather
and us being away when there were several days of good weather! The Large Skipper became
a regular visitor for the last few days of June although it was spotted
early in the month and then we had the return of the Meadow Brown and Ringlet and a brief return of
the Small Tortoiseshell after a gap of a couple of months. June 30th also
saw the return of the Small Skipper. July started well with Sunday July 4th having the return
of the Painted Lady and a welcome return after a couple of months absence of
the GVW as well as plenty of Ringlets and Large Skippers. Wed and Thurs
July 7th and 8th saw the return of the Gatekeeper (7th) and Essex Skipper (8th) and the Red Admiral returned on Saturday July 10th making the number of different
butterflies seen for July double from Junes abysmal showing!
July 18th and we had a very late return of the Small White Butterfly whilst on
July 25th we finally spotted the Common
Blue Butterfly (male) along the bank at the back and I (Paul) managed
to photograph it again. Although we've not seen it at the back or in
our garden we have seen the Speckled Wood butterfly
fairly locally over at Old Bolingbroke on July 22nd. Thursday July
29th and in the afternoon we finally saw the Small Copper Butterfly and Brown Argus Butterfly as well as the female Common Blue. August started
well with an abumdance of Peacocks, Small Tortoiseshells and gatekeepers
in particular and the Wall Butterfly returned
which now made 21 Butterflies that have returned to either our Garden
or the bank along the back of us. September and October saw rapid declines
in all species and as we are neared the end of October we hadn't seen any
Butterflies for a couple of weeks so guess the period of visibility was
almost over for the year. :-(
Butterflies that we have not spotted
at our site this year:
White Admiral Butterfly (very remote
possibility of this returning) Speckled Wood Butterfly (see above).
The table below is a record of the number of
different Butterflies we have seen for each month of the year so
follow the table to check on our progress through the year.
| March |
April |
May |
June |
July |
August |
September |
October |
| 4 |
5 |
6 |
6 |
18 |
18
|
10
|
2
|
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