March 23, and the UK went into full lockdown to try and combat the covid epidemic. For me, this meant a switch to working from home. One of the consequences of working from home was that I spent more time in the garden. Due to the beautiful spring and early summer, lunch breaks often saw me in the garden, and that inevitably meant I was starting to pay more attention to the butterflies visiting the garden.
It's not that I never paid any attention to butterflies, far from it. I've always, for as long as I can remember, noticed and recognised the common more 'showy' butterflies, such as brimstone, orange-tip, peacock, red admiral, painted lady, and small tortoiseshell. But I never really got 'into' butterflies, partly because of the perception that browns and blues were just 'too difficult'.
Over the weeks and months, it turned out the lockdown had at least one positive consequence for me ... and the Buddleia bush in back garden really played a big role in that, attracting lots of butterflies. Not surprisingly, red admirals were one of the most common visitors, but peacocks and the occasional painted lady also enjoyed the Buddleia flowers.
Last year, as a result of my wife's efforts, our front garden had changed from a rather sterile square of grass to a miniature wildflower meadow, and this front garden also attracted a range of species.
It didn't take me very long to be able to distinguish between small and large whites, which I tended to lump together earlier as simply 'cabbage whites'. Orange-tips and brimstones also made a regular appearance.
And despite my initial thoughts about browns and blues being 'difficult', it wasn't too hard to recognise meadow browns, gatekeepers and holly blues.
Once the butterfly season is over, I'll post our full list of '2020 garden species'!
