Butterfly Walk at Birkshaw Forest Thur 6th Aug 2015

Decided to go and collect some hay rattle seeds this afternoon to plant in our wild strip of grass. We have been told it will restrict the growth of grass and encourage the wild flowers. Saw that they were ripe last week so, as the sun came out this afternoon, decided to go get some - and see if we could spot any butterflies at the same time. We have only seen one butterfly in the garden - a small tortoiseshell - since the Big Butterfly Count began.

We had been walking along the track for just a few minutes before we saw our first wildlife. Unfortunately not a butterfly - but loads of bees and insects on the flowering plants, especially the knapweed.

We were lucky to see both the caterpillar of the Cinnabar moth and a 6 spot Burnet today too.

Finally, we saw our first butterfly - a ringlet

Shortly afterwards, a Small Tortoiseshell, looking very fresh and beautiful in the sunshine.

Then a Common Blue .....

More insects to see too ....

What we think is a Small Skipper...

There were also a couple of day - flying moths, who co-operated long enough to grab a photo. A Shaded Broad bar and a Clouded Border. Pretty moths.

One more species of butterfly was spotted on the latter part of our walk but it just wouldn't sit still long enough for us to photograph. We identified it as a Meadow Brown - but used the butterfly net to confirm our thoughts. Unfortunately the net doesn't give a very clear photo but we didn't want to keep it any longer than necessary.

So, a few butterflies to record on the Big Butterfly Count for today. We did notice as we walked through the forest there were quite a lot of fungi sprouting under the trees. It seems a little early for there to be so many large fungi around but we presume the weather has had something to do with it!!

A nice wander in the sunshine, just a shame that there just don't seem to be many butterflies about this year.