Big Butterfly Count 2023: The results are in

Gatekeeper butterfly on a sedum flowerhead in the large terrace bed in my garden

The Big Butterfly Count is one of my favourite 15 minutes of the year. Being in the garden without a thought of all the jobs lying wait, just admiring the natural world is time well spent in my view.

I don't always document my count on here, but it's time to do so again this year as I have some new observations to make. Earlier in the year there was plenty of speculation on social media on the lack of insect life and what might be the cause - last year's dry summer, and/or cold winter, and/or climate change were often cited as potential causes. I often wondered myself especially during June when I was gardening without the usual accompanying thwing of various bees and other insects around me. I also thought our dreary July might affect the results.

It was reassuring to find on my count yesterday that nature has restored itself over the past couple of months, in my garden at least. As well as more plentiful butterflies than usual - in numbers and species - there were plentiful bees - bumbles, honey and solitary - hoverflies of various kinds from large down to tiny, and many other insects, including plenty of angry ants crawling up my legs from the nest I disturbed on the lawn! Prize spot of the day has to be the humming bird hawk moth I saw bothering one of the clematis on my obelisks.

However, most important of all is the butterfly count I've just submitted on the website as follows:

  • Gatekeeper (pictured above) - 4
  • Speckled wood - 2
  • One each of:
    • Comma
    • Holly blue
    • Large white
    • Red admiral
I found most of them on the Echinops in the large terrace bed, plus the phlox next door and the self-seeded sea holly in the lawn below. The holly blue was fluttering daintily over the cotoneaster in the double terrace bed opposite, and the large white decided to dive bomb me on the lawn. It's too early for the sedum to flower (and the usual accompanying hordes of small tortoiseshells), but I found the gatekeepers did like to rest and sunbathe on the emerging flower heads there.

Did you take part in the count this year? What did you find? How's the insect life doing in your neck of the woods?

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