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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