It’s been a tough year for butterflies. Cool, wet, windy weather doesn’t suit them at all. So it was really good to see lots of peacock, small tortoiseshell and red admiral butterflies feeding on the buddleja yesterday.
Today the weather has taken a turn for the worse – again. Wet and windy, so there’s not a butterfly to be seen. This summer’s weather must be taking its toll on butterfly populations, many of which are struggling anyway.
I’ve been looking at the Butterfly Conservation website for ideas on how to help our butterflies. It really is worth a look if you want more information – there’s a whole page of gardening ideas, and lists of what to plant to attract more butterflies. If the summer carries on like this, the butterflies are going to need all the help they can get.
I only have the British (or Yorkshire) view of how this year is going for butterflies, bees and other pollinators. How are things looking where you are?
Here in Bavaria it has been a fairly good year, with several I have never seen before, and all the common ones too. Lots more hawk moths than usual too. Having said that, the common butterflies are not as abundant as some years… hopefully the sedums will attract a few more once they start flowering.
Not much in the way of butterflies at all this year – my buddleia has hardly any on at all – very sad.
We have lots here in the Charente-Maritime. I do get some on the buddleias in the garden, especially the Swallowtails and Hummingbird Hawk moth but I find more on the Hemp Agrimony outside and other wild flowers like the wild mint. It has been a very dry spring but the temperatures have not stayed too hot for long up to now so the flowers are quite plentiful.
Sounds like mainland Europe is doing better for butterflies this summer than we are in the UK. The flowers are there, we’re just missing the insects.
Last year we had absolutely heaps of butterflies – more than I’ve ever seen before. it was the second relatively wet year after 12 years of drought and they seemed to respond by reaching plague proportions – luckily they weren’t destructive varieties.
Hope you get plenty of the right kind of butterfly again next summer, as well as much rain as you need!
Very few really. Saw lots of Green Veined Whites and Ringlets but not much else. Lots of Bumble Bees this year though.
The bumblebees seem to be coping with the weather better than other insects – just as well really for gardeners, we still want our crops to be pollinated.
Here is western canada the bees are having a better year. We have a small apiary and the bees are strong and healthy.
It’s good to hear of an apiary that’s doing well – there are so many stories in the media about colony collapse disorder. I hope your bees continue to thrive.
It wasn’t so great an early summer for them with all the rains around here, but now that it has moderated them seem to have bounced back. A lovely reminder of summer as it ticks away.
Michael