Update... Poor year all round in north yorks. Plenty of Admirals around but nowhere near as many peacocks and tortoiseshells this year. Plenty of whites and orange tips, meadow browns, speckled woods, gatekeepers. Saved 3 tortoiseshells 3 peacocks 3 comma and for the first seeing more and more red a...

Just wondering what people are seeing more of or less of this year. I am in Harrogate North Yorkshire and have seen a lot less small Tortoiseshells an Peacocks than usual this year. Maybe the cool wet spring to blame. Seen plenty of Comma, meadow browns, small copper, gate keepers and orange tips. p...

Seen loads of Orange tips in the wild this year on the garlic mustard think its a good year for any pupa that over winter. Wading through speckled browns and meadows the last few weeks. I am in Harrogate North Yorkshire and we had a really cold wet April and early May with virtually no sunny days wh...

Another 25 nearly ready

I breed and release Peacocks and small tortoiseshells and normally have an 80% success rate. Normally find loads of tortoiseshells and struggle to find Peacocks this year though its the other way round. Sometimes lose 1or 2 to parasites that normally emerge with the butterflies. This year though out...

Thank you for the replies for some reason I don't get an email alert when someone replies.

Update: Kept 6 and 3 survived the spiders first caterpillars 2 weeks ago saved 10 and released the rest. 3 Peacocks also survived and they also laid and hatched last week. The 3 over wintered tortoiseshells have naturally died but 2 of the Peacocks are still with us not bad to say they were borne la...

I saved 3 small tortoiseshells from my breed and release programme hoping to over winter them not thinking for a moment they would breed this late. Really surprised when I saw these on the living nettle plant in the greenhouse they are about a week old. I have brought 20 indoors and the rest are fee...

A few more photos

I live on M.O.D land where the contactors spare little though for butterflies and bees :-( The hedge cutting and the ditch cutting is geared around open days and passing out parades and not the birds, bees, and butterflies . I became interested last year after spotting loads of caterpillar nests in ...