Hoping to submit records for the Big Butterfly Count, I am staring at the buddleia bush in my garden. Unhappily the plant is not living up to its name – the butterfly bush – and there are no butterflies to be seen on any of its violet flower spikes, maybe because of the very wet spring and early summer.
I am about to give up and put a zero against my record when a white butterfly whizzes by me. I follow it down the track leading on to waste ground, where the once lush grass has dried and set seed. There is white campion, white dead nettle and clover, a patch of pink-flowered rosebay willowherb stand tall, also thistles, dainty yellow-flowered nipplewort, and knitting it all together is sprawling purple vetch.
Here are the butterflies. A number of green-veined whites are flying backwards and forwards, and, taking nectar from the golden ragwort flowers, there are the prettily marked small tortoiseshell and a ginger-coloured large skipper. A meadow brown lumbers by with its orange-washed eye spot, and then fluttery dark brown ringlets are toing and froing, doing a dance whenever they meet, circling round and around and suddenly breaking away to continue along the path, or to nectar on the blushing bramble flowers. On a dark green bramble leaf, in brilliant contrast, is a comma with outstretched wings soaking up the heat of the sun. It is a pristine specimen, a vivid orange with brown speckled markings, but as the sun goes behind a cloud the vivid orange is changed to dark brown as it closes its wings and reveals the tiny white mark that gave the comma its name.
As I return to the garden I pause as I pass the buddleia bush, and see a lone red admiral butterfly on one of the flower spikes. At last word is getting around that there is a nectar bar in the garden.
Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/02/east-yorkshire-butterfly-bush
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