One of the gardens we surveyed in south Leeds today had two buddleia bushes - one with white flowers, one with the more familiar purple flowers. There were butterflies all over this garden - it's taken a while, but they're finally starting to make a very welcome show. We spotted peacock, tortoiseshell, whites and red admirals, visiting the buddleia and mophead hydrangeas, and basking on the path in the warm sun.
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| Butterflies enjoying the sun! |
The whites flitted through, scarcely stopping to sup at all; the tortoiseshells seemed to have very eclectic taste, visiting pretty much any flower in the garden. The peacocks and red admirals, however, seemed to show a marked preference for one kind of buddleia over the other - the peacocks were predominantly seen visiting the purple-flowered bush, while the red admirals gathered on the foamy white flowers of the other bush.
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| Peacock butterfly (Inachis io) on purple-flowered buddleia |
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| Red admirals (Vanessa atalanta) on white-flowered buddleia |
That is great you have seen all these butterflies. We have not seen a single butterfly on the Buddleia bushes this year and people asked us what happened to the butterflies this year. But we keep seeing more butterflies now, and I also see more in mu allotment.
ReplyDeleteNot many butterflies in Bristol either. I've seen a few red admirals, but they have all escaped my net. On one of my days off I chased one in Ashton Court, only for it to embarrass me in front of several families.
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