The Large White Butterfly dating 'n mating

There's a whole lot of mating going on!

It appears another male is coming in! Making three?

Butterflies mate facing in opposite directions with their

abdomens attached.

With mating, males mate numerous times during their

short lives.

Most females mate only once.

Watching butterflies mating singles the beginning of the end

for adult butterflies.

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HUMMINGBIRD HAWK-MOTH

Hummingbird Hawk-moths move at speed, and are not easy to photo, so I was pleased to get these three photos of one in action in my garden.



I've noticed this particular one returning to the same patch of Verbena B since the end of August.



If you have seen one or more in your garden, you can plot your sighting at the Migrant Watch webpage.

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PAINTED LADY

I don't know where they've been hiding up until now, but today I spotted the first Painted Lady of the year.

A year or so back Britain saw an invasion!

Have you seen one or more, or a Hummingbird Hawk-moth in your garden this year? If so, how about plotting your finding(s) at the Butterfly Conservation's website in their survey Migrant Watch.

In my garden both species have been favouring Verbena Bonarensis.

Which plant(s) have you spotted either species on?

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THE BIG BUTTERFLY COUNT

... is on.

So today hasn't been the best of days for counting butterflies, but there's plenty of time to get your sightings in.

I'm going to wait for a sunny day!

Big Butterfly Count

To date, all these beautiful butterflies have been regular visitors to my garden.

Above is the Small White on Verbena bonariensis.

A Red Admiral on Cephalaria gigantea.



A Speckled Wood on Buddleia davidii.



A Gatekeeper on Marjoram.



A Common Blue on Stachys byzantina.



A Comma on Euphorbia ?.

Gardening for Butterflies

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RAIN STOPS PLAY IN JUNE

Would you believe at the end of May I was praying for rain?

Well my prayer was pretty much answered. After an exceptionally dry month in May, June has seen its fair share of heavy showers, with hail and a cracking good thunderstorm thrown in.

The garden's enjoyed endless soakings, and the water-butts are full.

Pretty yellow Lysamachia above (my Dad calls it Bombsite 'cos as a kid he remembers it growing on unused and neglected spaces).



A beautiful bronze Comma butterfly perching on Euphorbia seed-heads.

With a list of to-do jobs as long as your arm, this kind of weather can seriously hold you up.

With much to do and limited time, you begin to wonder whether you're ever going to get anything done?

Panic!

It's only by having time off work, and a spell of fine weather, I've been able to make some kind of headway.



There's been a lot of cutting back to do of early Summer perennials, to make room for annuals like Cosmos, Cerinthe and Calendula, which I've grown from seed.

Whatever size garden you have, there's never enough space!

I wouldn't say no to a few more day lilies, like the one above.



Here's that Comma again, this time on the seaside-loving shrub Escallonia.

I've also noticed a rather handsome pair of Red Admirals taking nectar from Giant Scabious, and big hairy caterpillars that I've yet to identify?

There's a rather cute pair of baby blackbirds around too, getting pretty tubby with their endless feasting on Amelanchier berries, and sultanas!

I love my garden, and all those who love it too.


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COMMON BLUE BUTTERFLY

The female of the species, is much browner than the male.





These Common Blue butterflies have been enjoying a small space in my garden.

I'm glad I managed these photos. They sure were 'flitty'.

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HOLLY BLUE BUTTERFLY

My garden has a good population of Holly Blue butterflies.

Fact is, this species will feed on holly and ivy, and on plants such as euonymus, snowberry and bramble, of which I have a plentiful supply of.

These asters will quite happily set seed around the garden too.

A good food source for bees.

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TUESDAY GARDEN RAKE

You really couldn't have asked for better weather over the past week for gardening.

It's been bloomin' gorgeous!

I've spotted my first Painted Lady of the year.

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If something does well, I use repetition, rather in the style of a Cottage Garden.

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At the end of flowering seedheads were left on Japanese Anemone plants, and they've rewarded me with lots of little plantlets.

I've potted up ten new plants, and will leave their roots to establish. They will be planted out either this Autumn or next Spring.

This variety has a lovely pale pink flower.

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This spider's not backward in coming forward in making the most of this lovely sunshine. Behind the rock is Sedum.

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Big hedges surround most of the garden, ideal for nesting sites.

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Having spent a lot more time outside this week I've noticed a fair amount of Blackbird activity, with male and female both busy in and out of the nest.

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This saucer of sultanas will help build up their energy. That's if the starlings don't get to them first!

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Simone from Linden Grove came up with the idea of a Tuesday Garden Rake. Pop over to her blog to find out how to join in.

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THE COMMA BUTTERFLY

It is said the male Comma butterfly is territorial. This one kept flitting backwards, forwards, sideways and upwards to the same spot on the wall!

I wonder if you are as fascinated with their brightness of orange as I am?

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FORM AND TEXTURE IN NATURE

Texture - a structure of interwoven fibres or other elements.

A Speckled Wood butterfly.

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COMMA

The beautiful Comma butterfly, with its crinkle edges, is often spotted at this time of year building up fat supplies on nectar.

One plant they favour is nettle, of which I leave in a wild patch, in a mainly undisturbed part of the garden.

Verbena Bonariensis, a plant I love for encouraging all species of butterfly, and the Hummingbird Hawkmoth. A plant I loathe when it comes to pulling up hundreds of self-seedlings, in early Summer!

The Comma will hibernate upside down, camouflaged on a tree trunk, or amongst decaying leaves.

Click on Butterfly Conservation, to visit their informative website, teamed with great photos.

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... a Painted Lady butterfly enjoying Verbena B nectar.

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PAINTED LADY

This beautiful butterfly migrates from North Africa. We have seen a large population this year. They don't hibernate over winter in this country, and in autumn some will make the long journey home, and the ones remaining will die.

A plant they seem to love is verbena bonariensis. I counted nine on these plants at one given time yesterday!



Look at me, from a different angle!

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CEPHALARIA - GIANT SCABIOUS

Giant being the operative word! This plant requires a lot of space.

A hardy perennial with pincushion heads of lemon-yellow flowers. A lovely addition to a cottage style garden, and makes a pretty stem for cutting. Its nectar is loved by both butterflies and bees.



The weather here in the South has been gorgeous, with warm, sunny days, with an odd blip here and there!

With longer daylight hours, evenings have been spent titivating, with more serious gardening only happening on days off.

Maybe now's the time to sit back and enjoy the fruits of one's labour!

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MONARCH BUTTERFLY

I took this photo of a Monarch whilst on a recent visit to Tenerife in the Canary Islands. This majestic butterfly, the largest on the island, gracefully soars and glides through the air, before settling down for a short while on colourful blossom.

After wasting vital seconds fumbling around in my rucksack for the camera, I haphazardly managed a few clicks before it took off again, way out of reach of the zoom!

Unlike the species found in the US and Canada, the Monarch found in this area are non-migratory so unfortunately will not be seen resting on flowers or blossoming shrubs in the UK. To see this butterfly has been a rare privilege for me.

See more photos from Tenerife on my home blog.

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PEACOCK BUTTERFLY

A peacock butterfly basking in late Autumn sunshine. This butterfly usually goes into hibernation in September and spends the winter in a location where they can find shelter and darkness.

You really do need to click on the photo to enlarge, to discover how perfectly beautiful this butterfly really is.

A butterfly lights beside us, like a sunbeam, and for a brief moment its glory and beauty belong to our world, but then it flies on again, and although we wish it could have stayed, we are so thankful to have seen it at all - author unknown.

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SPECKLED WOOD

A scattering of leaf debris you may be thinking, but look closely and you will see a Speckled Wood butterfly. This beautiful woodland butterfly is fond of sunbathing, but not for long at a time, this one perhaps being a little camera shy, just would not sit still for a second.

I would say I was fortunate as to not being overlooked in my garden. With all the butterfly chasing I have been doing lately, may well have started some serious rumours, hinting I am some kind of mad woman, taken leave of her senses!

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SAVE OUR BUTTERFLIES WEEK 19-26 JULY

These two small white butterflies stayed coupled together for quite a while, fluttering from plant to plant, with me in hot pursuit! I very much wanted to get a photo, having no memory of ever having been witness to this stage of the life cycle of a butterfly. I did feel a little guilty though, for not giving the pair any privacy!

I shall watch out for the next stage, those now fertilised eggs being laid on my nasturtium plants no doubt?

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COMMA

The sun came out today and so did the butterflies; this lovely comma was fluttering to and fro from flower to flower, but was in no mood to pose, and as I couldn’t spend hours on end chasing butterflies around the garden, this was the best picture I could get.Commas love feeding off nettle plants, so if you have a ‘wild’ space in your garden, where a weed or two wouldn’t really matter, don’t pull them up, leave them there for the butterflies.

The Comma is presently a relatively common butterfly but up until the 1940's it was only regularly seen on the Welsh borders.

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LARGE WHITE

I think this is what may be responsible for my sprout plants looking like lace curtains. Not enough attention was given when this was at the egg and caterpillar stage. At the same time as possibly considering this butterfly as a pest, it is rather pretty, even more so as this is a female with two spots and a streak on each upper wing, something which the male doesn’t have.

The plant it has perched on is verbena bonariensis.