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Butterflies

L

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There is a marked absence of butterflies in our garden this year.
We have a buddleia that has reached maturity and is looking brilliant it ought to be smothered in butterflies but I haven’t seen a single one on it yet.
 
We are hoping that the Monarch butterflies will return, we have plenty of milkweed in our garden and property. Usually we get a few dozen hummingbirds but this year only a pair.
 
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Agree - they are not abundant. We've seen a few but just a handful really. Not sure why as there are moths about and the life cycle is similar.
 
Even the number of ants seems to be very low this year. Very worrying.
 
Insects in general are well down in numbers. A trip around Scotland in May and down to North Yorkshire Dales in the motorhome with hardly any spattered insects on the windscreen where there used to be hundreds.
 
Buddleia also devoid of flutterbys. I carefully escorted a red admiral out of the greenhouse yesterday. Have seen a number of green woodpeckers in the lawn feeding so ants must be there.
 
We're not short of ants, at all. They're everywhere.
 
Green woodpeckers also feed off bees Andy. Voraciously. Especially in winter. We have greater, lesser and green and only the green are a problem: we have to surround the apiary in both the garden and orchard with chicken wire netting in winter. The kingfisher has also returned today to feed from our "canal". The fish mostly are a bit big for him or her now. Last year he came into the kitchen numerous times. They are quite curious birds. Lots of photos.
 
On the subject of weird year, how is your grass growing? Its been a very cool year so far for us and I've only had to cut the grass twice, the first cut was left a bit late and was quite long.
 
Very few butterflies where I am in North Oxfordshire, also in parts of Bucks. I imagine it's weather related - too wet, too cold, too hot etc.
 
wallace said:
On the subject of weird year, how is your grass growing? Its been a very cool year so far for us and I've only had to cut the grass twice, the first cut was left a bit late and was quite long.
Click to expand...
I'm in Warrington and my grass has been cut daily, when it's been dry, since April! It was cut on Monday, rained yesterday and is already showing it needs cutting again today, so I've just sent the robot out...
 
North Northumberland. One butterfly so far. Grass is growing slowly...but....the unmanaged meadow out back is rampant; grass well over a meter high.
 
I started this post a year ago.
Happy to report that we have lots of butterflies in the garden this year.
 
I saw one today, which made me think how few there have been.
Can it be too hot for butterflies? We've been up in the 30s for two weeks now and so sign of respite.
S
 
Yes. You are right. We've not seen many either and zero exotics.
 
I read this last year and at the time of the OP I had seen very few but the number picked up slightly a month later but nowhere near as many on the buddleia as in previous years. Just went outside and none on the buddleia but one flew past to settle on a white window frame and I saw one yesterday. Given the amount of wild flowers I have and overgrown areas I would have expected to see many more butterflies, bees etc. I did have a tree bee nest behind a soffit but no activity for the last couple of weeks and the odd dead bee on the ground. I have seen a couple of wasps eating plums which have just started to ripen but no others.
 
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