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Tuesday, 4 July 2023

Butterfly Monitoring

As I mentioned in a recent post, I'm currently taking part in butterfly surveying for the Butterfly Conservation Trust at the Lauriston Farm Agro-ecology project. 

The surveying involves following a set transect through the farm fields (which are currently being rewilded), noting any butterflies I see. Butterfly surveys can only be carried out in certain conditions, the temperature needs to be above 13 degrees centigrade or, if it's cloudy, it needs to be above 17 degrees. It can't be too windy and it can't be raining. Which limits things a little in Scotland! 

Yesterday, the weather was just about good enough, it was sunny and mostly warm. The breeze was sometimes on the verge of being too strong, but I did see a reasonable number of butterflies, including this Small Skipper

You can find out more about helping the Butterfly Conservation Trust with surveying here, and other ways you can support the trust can be found here.  

The rewilding fields are developing a large range of flowering plants, including a few Common Spotted Orchids

There are lots of birds around too! I saw around 20 House Martins flying around a field, around 30 Goldfinches flying around a wildflower meadow plus a few Swifts, a few Swallows, one Greenfinch and one Reed Bunting.



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5 comments:

  1. aspiritofsimplicity12:06 pm

    That sounds like a great thing to do. Very interesting and a great reason to get outside and pay attention to things you might not normally being paying attention to.

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  2. eileeninmd12:14 pm

    Sounds fun spending part of the day surveying butterflies.
    Take care, enjoy your day!

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  3. martine8:05 pm

    Hi, I randomly came across this article this morning, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/13/maverick-rewilders-endangered-species-extinction-conservation-uk-wildlife it struck me how there are different approaches to protecting/reviving endangered species. I actually had a lot of admiration for people who just go out and do stuff, because whilst the conservationists don't like people interfering with their research it pales into insignificance beside what capitalism is doing to our natural environment.

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  4. Sal9:50 pm

    Lovely to take part in a butterfly survey! I’d be interested to see the results! We have so little in our garden right now…but we do have plenty of bees! Also lovely to see those orchids. 😁

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  5. Lowcarb team member10:50 pm

    Well done on taking part in the butterfly survey.

    All the best Jan

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