Hugh’s views: Butterflies and dragons
The year started quite promisingly with a single peacock and a small tortoiseshell on my allotment at the end of March. They were followed by an unexpected red admiral at Low Hauxley in early April, then a flurry of sightings including a speckled wood and a male orange tip, both in our garden. Several small whites and more peacocks followed before the end of the month. However, there were very few other pollinators around and great swathes of dandelions in full flower around Amble remained largely insect free.
Peacock butterfly
May was highlighted by another three orange tips, a lovely female holly blue feeding on barely open spirea flowers in our garden and a male green veined white on the Industrial Estate. The normally common small whites were relatively few in number and bee numbers were also very low so it was no great surprise that most buddleia around Amble, flowering during May and June, seemingly failed to attract any insects. June was relatively cold and the low temperatures continued into July only improving towards the end of that month.
Comma butterfly
Even on the flower rich Links butterfly numbers remained disappointingly low. A walk through the links in late July resulted in singles of peacock, small skipper and burnet moth with four meadow browns. The only compensation being a single flowering stem of agrimony.
However, in a quiet corner of Amble a chance encounter with a small dark butterfly on a sunny but breezy morning led me to a colony of ringlets along with small numbers of meadow browns and small skippers. A real bonus.
Butterfly numbers remained low until the very end of July when the warmer weather together with the flowering of buddleia ‘Dartmoor’ at home and at my allotment started to attract greater numbers of butterflies with a peak on 11 August at both places, with combined totals of twenty peacocks, three small tortoiseshells, a single comma and red admiral.
Female Hawker dragonfly
Our garden also had two visits from daylight flying hummingbird hawkmoths in late July and visits from both a male and then a female migrant hawker dragonfly on consecutive days in early August. Both dragonflies allowed quite close examination while they rested.
1 August saw the visit of another exotic flier to Amble, a parakeet which circled the allotments in late evening sunshine before flying off towards the industrial estate.
A surprisingly good return for the year so far despite some adverse weather.
Hugh Tindle
