Saturday 25 August 2012

Buddleia

There's a large buddleia in the front garden of one of the croft houses along the Ormsaigbeg road which has suddenly become the focus of a crowd of butterflies.  It's the ordinary, lilac-coloured buddleia.  In contrast, the buddleia in our garden, which is a pinker shade, has been in flower for a couple of weeks and the butterflies have shown no interest in it.

When we passed the bush this afternoon it hosted a dozen or so Peacocks and two Small Tortoiseshells.  The Diary's memory, which is famously hazy, is that, in the 'old days', the numbers used to be the other way round, with far more Tortoiseshells than Peacocks.  Certainly, Tortoiseshells have a problem, which is explained at the UK Butterflies site, here.

As can be seen from the second picture, Kilchoan is suffering another day without any Kilchoan sunshine.  The morning started grey but, with a Force 2 wind firmly in the north, it was only a matter of time before the sky would clear.  This it did by lunchtime, but by then the wind had became considerably brisker, much to the butterflies' discomfort.

1 comment:

  1. Jon,
    The purple Buddleia is often referred to as "The butterfly bush".

    Tony

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