The wet summer has not been great for the UK's butterflies, so it was pleasing to see so many this afternoon, especially as we had friends who'd been helped in coppicing in Sweep Wood visiting to see the wildlife benefits of their work! Some of them lived nearby, others were from Rother Guardians.
Here's one of the old favourites, a Peacock:
The Buddleja it's settled on has self-seeded at the top of Sweep Wood - we have quite a few garden escapees up there, and while I wouldn't have planted this one in a woodland, as it's arrived by itself I'm quite happy to leave it - and the butterflies are delighted I'm sure!
Just as a reminder, Sweep Wood used to look like this:
Then we got busy coppicing and it looked like this:
And just a year or two later it looks like this:
The hill in Sweep wood had lots of other butterflies present, especially Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers:
There were also various White butterflies, but I didn't get photos of them. Lots of dragonflies too - remember none of these insects were to be seen here before we did the coppicing:
Heading further into the woods we saw several Speckled Wood butterflies:
White Admirals:
and a beetle too...
In the wayleave were Comma butterflies and more dragonflies; I got a rare opportunity to photograph two together:
We also saw this wasp feeding on Common Figwort - apparently they're a good pollinator for them:
Great to see all of these creatures around again!
Mike
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