A very belated HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
In December 2005 I included an article that Peter, my husband wrote for our local Village magazine with regards the butterfly count in our garden. As he has only just written last year's records up I will copy the letter for this years magazine now.
This is our annual update of Butterflies seen in our garden. The basis of the count is the highest number of any species seen together in each week, then all weeks added together.
Generally there appears to be a trend of lower numbers since we started in 1991. This year we recorded 125 against 124 in 2005 and 242 in 1991. The largest loss is Small Tortoise Shell down from 62 in 1991 to 6 last year and none this. Whites & Peacocks are also down in numbers but Commas and Red Admirals are increasing.
The Comma switched its diet to nettles when Kent’s farmers abandoned their hopfields after being undercut by imports.
Our 2006 numbers were – Small White 18; Large White 26; Peacock 6; Red Admiral 32 (highest ever); Gatekeeper 9; Holly Blue 4; Comma 12; Meadow Brown 7; Orange Tip 2; Brimstone 4; Painted Lady 3, and 2 Speckled Wood. This represents 12 of the 22 species we have seen since 1991.
We saw no Skippers, Ringlets, Small Tortoise Shells or Small coppers which have been present recently and only had 3 Painted Lady despite a report of swarms of them approaching along the A120.
With regard to moths, Janice records for the Essex Moth Group and has had a moth trap for the last three years. As with the butterflies there is a downward trend. She has recorded 242 species in 2006 as opposed to 261 in 2005. In total she has recorded 350 species in our garden since she began recording in 2003. This is only a small percentage of the moth species in the UK that amount to over 2600.
I have attached an excel file
showing the records that he has collected over the past 8 years, this can be
accessed if you click here. If you are interested
in the records for the moths seen in our garden then please click here.
Moths seen in the garden to date A-C, D-F, G-M, N-Si, Sh-the end