We had a lovely day at Musselburgh yesterday. It's always a great place to see birds and at this time of year, a great place to see butterflies. So we went along, hoping to get some good counts for the Big Butterfly Count, which started on Friday. The Big Butterfly Count asks you to spend 15 minutes in one place noting the butterflies and day flying moths you see (the project only focuses on a selected range of species). We spent 15 minutes in each of three different places and saw a total of 65 butterflies and three Six Spot Burnet Moths. Here are some photos:
We saw a lot of Meadow Browns, the photo below shows a female (unusually, in this species, the female is brighter than the male)
a couple of Common Blues
We saw a good selection of birds, including around fifty Curlew, which was particularly pleasing as these birds are becoming very rare.
We also had a wonderful view of a Stoat, though we didn't get a photo of it, as it dashed away so quickly.
Shared for Nature Notes.
I do love butterflies and moths. I miss them in winter.
ReplyDeleteSo do I, Jenn!
DeleteBeautiful butterflies and I love the bird in flight.
ReplyDeleteTake care, enjoy your day and the new week ahead.
Thanks, Eileen!
DeleteBeautiful. Counting sixty-five butterflies plus those rare curlews is a massive win for a single afternoon.
ReplyDeleteThanks Melody, in total there were more than 65 butterflies, those were just the ones we counted during the official 15 minute Big Butterfly Counts that we did. So it was a great day fur butterflies!
DeleteAmazing butterfly totals and so wonderful to get a glimpse of a stoat and hear about so many curlews!
ReplyDeleteThanks Shiju, we were particularly pleased to see the stoat as they are so elusive.
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