Sunday, 10 August 2025

Butterflies and Oak Galls in Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens

We had a lovely visit to Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens yesterday. As this year's Big Butterfly Count  finishes today, we decided to carry out a quick count of butterflies in one of the flower borders in the Botanics. We were delighted to see this beautiful Red Admiral 

 
and this lovely Speckled Wood 

In another part of the gardens, we came across a wonderful oak tree that had several different types of galls on it. We're used to seeing galls on oak trees, but I've never seen so many different galls on one tree. There were Knopper Galls, caused by the wasp Andricus quercuscalicis:

Oak Marble Galls, caused by the wasp Andricus kollari

Artichoke galls, caused by the wasp Andricus foecundatrix


 and Spangle Galls (the circular galls on the underside of the leaf in the photo below) caused by the wasp Neuroterus quercusbaccarum

We also walked through Inverleith Park and met this very handsome feral pigeon by the Pond 

  


 

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