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 2009