Terrible year in Northern Ireland

[Aughie]

This is the worst year out of the last 3 I have been interested in observing butterflies and moths. This last week or so of good weather has been reasonable. I have spotted and photographed all but 5 of the species I saw this last two years. The missing include no Red Admirals, which were numerous last year no small coppers speckled woods large whites or any cinnebar moths. One thing I have noted is an explosion in the numbers of 6 spot burnet moths which are locally the commonest species right now. I am lucky in having a totally uncultivated field close to where I live and it is great for many species. I have seen small tortiseshells, common blues, painted ladies, small whites. peacock, meadow browns and ringlets plus many small white moths. The main plants seem to be ragworts (which makes the absence of cinnebars all the stranger) thistles and blackberry blossoms (this makes for fantastic photographs) plenty of nettles plus many varieties of grasses.

There is locally a tropical butterfly house and I was thinking could they be persuaded to help preserve our native species - just a thought!