Bring on the butterflies

I don't inflict graphs on you very often, but this one I thought tells today's story very nicely:

Across the bottom axis are weeks of the year, from 1 March to December. And up the vertical axis are the average number of butterflies I've seen in my garden in each of those weeks.

You'll notice the graph bumbles along, on average under five butterflies a week, all the way right through to the end of June. There's the odd mini peak, such as in April which is probably the first really warm spell when hibernating butterflies emerge. But all of that lovely May and June weather that we sometimes get just doesn't translate into lots of butterflies.

Then, in the week starting 5 July, the graph starts to climb, and climb, and climb, reaching a peak towards the end of July before gently sliding away through to the end of the year (although notice that there are more butterflies per week than in spring all the way through to October).

Now I realise the graph is how things are in my Sussex garden, but I can promise you that the pattern would be somewhat similar in gardens across the country. Your numbers might peak a bit later, or you might not get such a pronounced peak, but the fact is that now, and only now, do we start to see peak numbers of butterflies in gardens.

The reasons for this is that the flight season of each of our different butterfly species is incredibly predictable. They are like clockwork. For example, this is the butterfly of the moment, the gorgeous Ringlet, which flies from about the third week of June to the second week of August, peaking in July.

I also managed to grab a shot of the upperside, which you don't see as often:

In contrast,

• Orange-tips fly from the end of March to the beginning of June.
• Gatekeepers fly from about now until the last week of August.
• Holly Blues have one generation in April and May, and another from mid July to early September.

...and so on for each of the 55+ species in the UK. If you live further north, you'll probably find your butterflies lag a bit behind those dates, but not by much.

It is in high summer that a range of common species emerge for the first time, plus we get the second generation of those that bred earlier in the spring, hence the boom in numbers right now.

So the big message of this blog? Get ready to enjoy your garden butterflies, because the next eight weeks should be the best!