A Red Admiral butterfly kept me company whist I sat outside enjoying the sunshine and my mid morning coffee today. The beautiful creature fluttered from plant to plant seeking nectar to drink and occasionally rested on the lawn enjoying the sunshine just like me I guess. The butterfly above is a Peacock and the Red Admiral is below on the top left of the square picture.
I’m making a few changes to our garden to encourage butterflies to spend some time here. Many of our butterfly species have falling numbers and that bothers me a great deal. It’s likely that environmental changes such as housing construction and road building plus farming methods and land management have all affected the habitat and food supply that our butterflies need. There’s not much I can do about all of that in the wider environment but I can make some changes here in our own garden which may be useful to them.