Today in my garden, 3 speckled woods, this time last year there was only one and there are 2 holly blues, again there was only this time last year

Butterfly heaven! At last, they're out, in my garden today there's 2 red admirals, 3 large white and a small one, speckled wood is still here and he seems to have company, there's a meadow brown and a great big comma

In the last week I saw 3 orange tip butterflies, one in Lelant at the water mill in the garden there and 2 3 days ago, 1 at trerice place ant the next on the stennack in St Ives Cornwall

thanks guys I'm gunna blame that one my new camera it's makes such a great difference

I found this little guy in my garden this afternoon, the first butterfly I've managed to take a photo of for months! I noticed white rings around the black spots on the bottom wing and it was roughly 1.5cm across

at last! Today on my buddlea 6 red admirals and 2 large whites there is also a ringlet and meadow brown in my garden then down the road another 4 red admirals a ringlet and 2 small whites on some bindweed

over the last 4 days i have seen something like 30 red admirals :O

yesterday, 14/08/11
Burthallan lane St. Ives
4 x Gate Keeper
2 x Meadow Brown
2 x Speckled Wood
2 x Red Admiral
and a small Fritillary though I couldn't see which one it was, not too good at the different ids' lol

today, a speckled wood, a meadow brow, some red admirals and whites and a comma, it was lovely, i think it's the first comma i have seen

well, it's the closest thing to an id i can get atm...

and that's a really cool butterfly sight too

Isn't the largest European Blue the Iolas? Does anyone have a picture? Not a likely garden visitor in the UK, mind. I'd say a release from a butterfly farm is more likely, though the ones I've seen in such places (Blue Morpho) are huge. Dave one final question, are you actually a genius? :shock: ht...

Gruditch wrote:http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/reports_policies.php

Regards Gruditch

thank you

David M wrote:Shame those 126 Heaths got released in such dreadful conditions.

it really is though

hmmm so i spose it is a good idea to get people interested, some data is better than no data... ?

The butterfly I saw was the size of a Cabbage White

I support what they're doing, but quite a lot of the data is worthless as people are making errors in identification and/or making false claims. For instance, I checked the results for the Isle of Man from last year's count, and there were several 'sightings' of Small Skippers, Hedge Browns and Rin...

This was the programme i saw a breeder releasing his Fritillary

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00cskdd

seemed totally freelance kinda thing
from what I can gather this kind of thing happens all over the place so what are the legal issues with breeding?

or should I post it in the links forum?

http://www.bigbutterflycount.org/

k

Don't even think about it, Vawn. :D Butterflies are perfectly capable of breeding all by themselves. Plebejus species are sedentary and locally extremely diverse, to the extent that there is active speciation occurring as I write! You couldn't possibly release silver-studded blues of unknown geneti...

I am now looking for reasons not to breed them myself and I can't think of any. Here are some reasons (I'll stop at 5!): 1. What is the origin of the stock being sold? Is the stock actually British? 2. Has the stock gene pool been weakened by excessive interbreeding? 3. Is the stock guaranteed to b...