Sunday, 19 July 2026

Butterflies and Birds at Musselburgh

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)

lots of Small Skippers (a species not included in the Big Butterfly list of species) 

a couple of Common Blues

and a few Small and Large Whites, which we didn't catch on camera. We got several photos of the Six Spot Burnet Moths 

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.  

9 comments:

Jenn Jilks said...

I do love butterflies and moths. I miss them in winter.

eileeninmd said...

Beautiful butterflies and I love the bird in flight.
Take care, enjoy your day and the new week ahead.

MELODY JACOB said...

Beautiful. Counting sixty-five butterflies plus those rare curlews is a massive win for a single afternoon.

Shiju Sugunan said...

Amazing butterfly totals and so wonderful to get a glimpse of a stoat and hear about so many curlews!

Crafty Green Poet said...

So do I, Jenn!

Crafty Green Poet said...

Thanks, Eileen!

Crafty Green Poet said...

Thanks 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!

Crafty Green Poet said...

Thanks Shiju, we were particularly pleased to see the stoat as they are so elusive.

RamblingWoods2.com said...

Good luck with the big butterfly count…. I think I would enjoy something like that if I could do the walking…. MIchelle