Beautiful Butterflies

Last summer I couldn't help but notice the lack of butterflies fluttering around the garden, which was probably due to some pretty miserable weather. luckily, this year could not be any more different. The sun has been shining (ok, it rained today but shh), and there are butterflies everywhere! The flowers in my garden and the surrounding marsh are absolutely covered in them, and I decided to take my camera on a walk with me and take some photos. Butterflies make the prettiest pictures!

walking onto the marsh on a beautiful day. All the nettles at the side of the track definitely helped the surge in numbers, providing food for the caterpillars. 

The flowers on the marsh were completely covered in butterflies. 

Peacock butterflies seem to be everywhere at the moment!

Nettles are still covered in caterpillars, so hopefully there are even more butterflies to come this year.

Below are some pictures of the different butterfly species that I managed to find (all in one afternoon).

Peacock butterfly (Inachis io)

Small blue (Cupido minimus)

A pair of cabbage whites (Pieris rapae) on budliea.

The butterflies go crazy for budliea flowers. If you want to encourage them in your garden this is definitely the thing to plant.

Painted lady (Vanessa cardui)

Meadow brown (Maniola jurtina)

Small skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris) 

I was impressed at the number of species I found just on one walk around the marsh and the garden. I was really pleased to find a small skipper, I have never seen a butterfly like it before. It was tiny and it was only with the help of google that I realised it wasn't a moth.

I hope that you are all enjoying the large number of beautiful butterflies this year (unless you are like my friend who is absolutely terrified of them. In which case you probably shouldn't have read this. Sorry). If you want to encourage more butterflies into your garden, then this website gives some really good tips, including which plants butterflies love best and how to plant them. Enjoy!