The Butterflies of our garden & bank at Horncastle

The 2007 Season.

  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.

Our first sighting! A Male Brimstone fluttered along the bund then into our Garden on March 14th - our Wedding Anniversary! Lorraine then had a suspected sighting of the Comma on the 15th and was able to confirm it on Saturday March 17th! Sunday March 25th - the return of the Small Tortoishell and spotted the Male Brimstone again whilst Monday March 26th brought the return of the Peacock - the run of good spring weather has done well for us. This breaks our 2 year hiatus with no Butterflies seen in March for 2005 and 2006 and now equals our 2004 tally. April arrives and we have had 3 of the above return during a spell of warm weather leading up to Easter  (Male Brimstone, Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock) and we've also had a white butterfly quickly pass through  that looked suspiciously like a Female Brimstone whilst the Comma briefly returned as well. Wednesday April 11th and first sighting of a Male Green Veined White along the back and in the garden. Lorraine and I both saw the Speckled Wood butterfly zip past us along the bund on the 14th. Back from our Algarve holiday and April 28th we had the return of the Male Orange Tip and the Female Holly Blue plus confirmation of the Male Large White as well as Speckled Wood, Male Brimstone, Small Tortoishell and either the Green Veined or Small White. Confirmation of the Small White now on Sunday April 29th! This now makes at least 9 different butterflies seen during April which for us is a record!

      May 1st has started May off well with 7 butterflies seen: Orange Tip, GVW, Holly Blue, LW, Speckled Wood, Small Tortoishell and a Peacock - there's even a possibility that one of the smaller white butterflies was a Small White! Long period during most of May with very few butterflies due to the weather but occasionally saw the Lge/Sm White but on May 31st a nice surprise when we had the return of the Red Admiral during a warm sunny period during the afternoon. Next Day and June gets off to a good start when Lorraine sees the Large Skipper in the Bund grass as well as the Red Admiral, Brimstone and one of the white butterflies. Since then June has been a bit of a washout with lots of rain and only occasional clear periods. During this time we did have the Speckled Wood make a brief comeback adding to our June list and on Thursday June 21st we had the first Meadow Brown (Male) seen in the bund. A nice surprise considering the weather but our first Painted Lady of the year has arrived on Saturday afternoon June 23rd along with a Red Admiral and a Small Tortoishell so June has now equalled the 2006 number of different butterflies seen. First day of July and two butterflies - 2 Small Tortoishells and 2 male Large Skippers and the days up to July 6th we've had Red Admirals, and the first return of the Ringlet on the 6th. By Monday July 9th we had also seen a Small White, Male Meadow Brown and 2 Commas and on the 12th we had a Large White put in an appearance.

      July has mostly had terrible weather with some parts of Horncastle under water! July 16th we had the return of the Male Gatekeeper and on July 23rd the first sighting of the Essex Skipper. The next day we also had a Small Skipper come and land in the garden although we've not seen it since (not surprising considering the rain!) and we've also had several butterflies pop back including the Speckled Wood and Holly Blue so July has been OK despite the worst efforts of the weather!  Now August 1st and we've already had 9 different butterflies on the first day so lets hope it bodes well for the few that have yet to return.  August has been very mixed with lots of poor weather again which has severly affected the return of several regulars. Despite this August still managed to have 16 different Butterflies coming into our Garden and the Bund directly behind us. With the onset of September again very poor weather means we have lost most ofthe Butterflies we'd expect to see if the weather was warmer and as we approach the end of the month we have counted just 8 different Butterflies. We have had a nice surprise now with a Small White visiting the garden on a warmish Oct 4th in the afternoon! Latest update is that during the warm days we've had in the first couple of weeks of October we've also had the Red Admiral, Large White and Small Tortoiseshell so October has seen 4 butterflies hold on. However we've now started to get some frosty nights and they turned out to be the last butterflies of the year for us.  Missing Butterflies for 2007 (or at least we haven't spotted them here) are: Common Blue, Brown Argus, Small Copper and the Wall Butterfly.

Webmaster © Paul L Money 2010

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. The Cumulative number records the total number of different UK Butterflies seen at home through the year.