Our2008 Butterfly Page

Note that 1st visits for the year are marked in red.
Where noted the sex of the butterfly is mentioned as some species can be quite different between Male and Female and whichever is spotted second is highlighted with green.

Thursday, March 27th mid to late morning, Small Tortoiseshell then almost an hour later the Comma - both in our garden. To quote Genesis (the rock group!) 'and then there were three...' on Sunday March 30th the above two made an appearance and the Peacock Butterfly also landed in the garden before fluttering off! And now there's four - just in time on March 31st the Male Brimstone has flown into the garden several times - a nice sunny spring day for it! April 2nd and the Comma wanderd briefly into our garden whilst the Male Brimstone returned along the bund on April 4th. The next couple of weeks were poor weather but it's turned nice now and warmer so on Monday April 21st we had an unknown white fly by - seemed small so not a Large White but it could either be the Green Veined or Small. We also had the Speckled Wood turn up briefly as well as return visits of Peacock, Comma and Male Brimstone. Tuesday also had the Small Tortoiseshell come back and 2 Comma's - Male and Female. After a 2 1/2 week holiday in the Algarve it's now mid May and we can resume watching our garden butterflies. Confirmation of the Green Veined Butterfly and sightings of the male and female Orange Tips with a Large White have greeted our initial counts for May on the 14th with the Holly Blue returning the next day. A nice surprise on the afternoon of the 20th May when the Red Admiral turned up on our purple Lilac tree and we've now confirmed the return of the Small White on the afternoon of the 21st. May 30th and the Peacock came back again adding to our may totals and then on the 31st Paul spotted a small brown Butterfly that was either the Brown Argus or the Female Common Blue. Our feeling is that it's the Female CB based on previous years appearences. Into the first week of June and mainly poor weather but June 5th we did have the Male Brimstone and the Large White turn up. June has had mostly poor weather so our Butterfly numbers are down but we did have the return of the male Large Skipper on the 16th and 17th. June finished with just the Large Skipper coming back on most of the final days of the month so it was a poor month for us but surprisingly on the first day of July we've had the return of the Ringlet Butterfly plus a quick flying brown that was the male Meadow Brown. July 2nd was a mixed day weather wise but we did have the Large Skipper turn up again. July so far has seen 10 confirmed species with two suspected hence the bracketed figures. One of the suspected was either the Small or Essex Skipper which are so alike that you need to get close and see the antenna tips to diferentiate between them and we couldn't get close enough before it flew off. The other suspected butterfly looked like a Gatekeeper but again quickly flew off before confirmed. Confirmation of the Gatekeeper on Monday afternoon July 21st and also confirmation of Small Skipper same day. As I (Paul) was then away on the North Pole Solar Eclipse Expedition for almst 2 weeks Lorraine thought she spotted the Essex Skipper but could not get close enough to confirm but now I'm back we've spotted the Essex Skipper on August 6th and on Aug 7th Paul also spotted the Common Blue (male) and the Brown Argus near the end of the bund. August 23rd and we've been having mainly Large Whites, lots of Peacocks, a few Red Admirals and Small Wites and recently one fresh Small Tortoiseshell over the last week or so but then Lorraine spotted and confirmed the Small Copper - so for this year we're now back up in numbers of confirmed species to 20! September saw poor weather but we did have 7 different Butterflies which is one less than 2007. October has had more sunny days and indeed we have had 4 butterflies: Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell, Large White and a Comma so October has done well for us. For 2008 we are only missing the painted Lady Butterfly and the Wall Butterfly so lets hope we get them back in 2009.

Previous years sightings:
2003	2004	2005	2006	2007

Month	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October
Number seen	4	6	9	7	16	16	7	4
Cumulative	4	6	12	13	18	20	20	20