Final Fling

Today was the last day for this year’s Butterfly Conservation Big Butterfly Count, and it hasn’t been easy to find the right time and place to fit them in with the poor and changeable weather over the last few weeks. There was a couple of hours around midday today when I manage to get some washing out, and take 15 minutes to do a count. Numbers weren’t great, but I managed 7 species, including this Red Admiral and the Peacock in extras. I’ll still be surveying at Longshaw till the end of the season, adding garden sightings to my Garden Birdwatch tally, and recording other sightings as and when. My moth recording has bee a little sparse this year too, but plenty of time left if the weather picks up. In the meantime, my fungi-spotting friends are going into overdrive with the unusually early flushes out in the fields and woodlands.