The 2005 sightings
Note that 1st visits for the year are
marked in red.
The 2005 sightings started a little
later than normal but this may simply be due to the poorer weather
we had during March. Saturday April 2nd, a warm sunny day gave us
our first Butterflies of the year - old faithfulls of Peacock, several Small Tortoiseshells and a couple
of Male Brimstones. Lorraine
thought she saw a Comma
as well but didn't get close enough to confirm it. We are now fairly
confident that Lorraine did see the Comma as we both saw (and Paul photographed)
it on Wednesday April 6th. April also saw the return of the
Green Veined White but the last
week of the month and the first week of May we were away on Holiday
in the Algarve so we don't know what else turned up at home whilst
we were away. On our return and with the occasional decent weather
we have spotted the Small White
and Large White, the Male Orange Tip and the female Holly Blue. June has given us a nice
surprise with a brief return of the Speckled Wood Butterfly. By now we normally have
had several other regular butterflies return but so far by June 20th
we are down in both numbers and returned species as well. On Sunday 19th
we did see the Large Skipper
briefly fly into the garden and the next day we had both Male and Female
Large Skippers turn up. They have now been regular visitors to the garden
and on Tuesday June 21st Lorraine saw a Red Admiral basking in the sunshine
marking it's return. The good weather has been king to us as Paul also
saw the Red Admiral on Sunday 26th and things have picked up with
the return of the Meadow Brown
and Ringlet on Monday June 27th.
Tuesday June 28th and yet another return with the appearance of the
male Common Blue making an earlier
than normal visit to our garden. Early July and on Saturday July 9th the
return of the Essex Skipper
although we did suspect this one from a possible sighting on July 3rd but
it didn't stay around long enough to properly identify. the same day has
also seen the return of the Small Skipper
and after a month's absence the Green Veined White, Large White and Small
Tortoiseshell have made an appearance. Monday July 11th and the Gatekeeper has returned although Lorraine
suspected it a couple of days earlier. The rest of July was disappointing
weather wise with no more 'new returns' for the year recorded. August had
a mixture of warm and wet weather but amazingly we saw 16 different Butterflies
including a surprise return of the Speckled Wood although we are still missing
the return of 4 regulars and the never confirmed White Admiral. Well September
came and went with still no sign of the missing 4 Butterflies and the last
sighting was made by Lorraine of a surprise appearance of a Male Brimstone
during mid October. It's quite possible that we've simply not been
watching or out at the right time to catch the missing Butterflies so we
hope this isn't a bad sign for the future.
The Butterflies that did not appear to have returned were: White Admiral, Painted Lady, Wall Brown, Small Copper and
the Brown Argus.
The table below is a record of the number of
different Butterflies we saw for each month of the year so follow
the table to check on our progress through the year. The Cumulative number
records the total number of different UK Butterflies seen at home through
2005.
Month
|
March |
April |
May |
June |
July |
August |
September |
October |
Number seen
|
0 :-( |
5
|
6
|
10
|
18
|
16
|
9
|
1
|
Cumulative
|
0 :-(
|
5
|
9
|
15
|
18
|
18
|
18
|
18
|
Webmaster ã Paul L Money 2007