wildlife – Ann Mackay: Inspired by Nature

Things are Starting to Buzz…

March 9, 2025March 9, 2025 Ann Mackay15 Comments

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The sudden warmth in the sunshine over the last few days has brought more life to the garden. The birds have been singing and busily getting ready for spring for a little while. Now they’ve been joined by the first of the butterflies (peacock and brimstone so far) and both bumblebees and honey bees.

I hope the insects won’t be caught out by cooler temperatures next week and some sub-zero nights yet to come. Last year was a bad one for bees and butterflies here, so they really need better conditions this year to boost their numbers. While there’s not much that I can do to protect them from a change in the weather, I can at least try to provide early-flowering plants so that they have something to feed on.

Currently there aren’t very many plants that are in flower here. The viburnum bushes still have their pink flowers and there several hellebores and some snowdrops and crocuses. But there could be more. Yellow winter aconite for instance, or blue Siberian squill. Chionodoxa (‘glory of the snow’) is another that offers blue flowers. Both it and Cyclamen coum come in a range of other colours, including pinks and white. These would all flower very early and provide food for insects at a time when it can be hard for them to find enough.

There have been a lot of changes in the garden over the last couple of years and I’ve lost a lot of small bulbs (mainly crocuses) by accidentally digging them up while moving plants or changing the layout of borders. I’m hoping that I’ll now have areas settled enough for bulbs to be reasonably safe. One of these areas is where I’ve planted a number of fruit trees. Early spring bulbs should grow well there and enjoy the sun before the leaf canopy appears. I want it to work because our little insect friends need a bit of help. 🐝

purple crocuses with a honey bee — A honey bee enjoys crocuses that have opened in the sun.

A Plea for Butterflies

September 29, 2024September 25, 2024 Ann Mackay15 Comments

Back in August I posted about taking part in the annual ‘Big Butterfly Count’ which is held by UK charity Butterfly Conservation. The results of the nationwide count have now been published and they confirm that the UK has indeed had a very bad summer for butterflies. So much so, that the charity has labelled it a ‘butterfly emergency’.

This year’s count recorded the lowest number of butterflies in the 14-year history of its existence. A total of just over 935,000 butterflies and day-flying moths for 2024 was a drop of over a third in comparison to the figure of over 1.5 million for 2023. The average number of butterflies seen per count fell from last year’s 12 to seven for each count this year and there was also the highest ever number of counts where no butterflies were seen (9,000).

Peacock butterflies counted fell in numbers in England by 66%.

While habitat loss and this year’s wet and initially cool summer must both be at least partly to blame for the dramatic drop in butterfly numbers, Butterfly Conservation is seriously concerned about the effects of pesticides. Head of Science at Butterfly Conservation, Dr Richard Fox, said that neonicotinoid pesticides used on farmland can contaminate the wild plants growing around the edges of fields, killing the butterflies and moths and their caterpillars that feed on them.

In an effort to protect future generations of butterflies (and of course, other insects), Butterfly Conservation is calling for a complete ban on neonicotinoid pesticides in the UK. (They were banned in 2018, but an exception was made for their use on sugar beet.) The request for the ban is being made in an open letter to the Secretary of State and they are asking UK residents to support that request by signing their letter. You can find the letter here. (And you can see the full report on butterfly numbers here.)

The photographs in this post weren’t taken this year, but in 2020 and 2021. This year there were very few butterflies in my garden, so I had very little chance to photograph any. Like many people this year, I noticed that my garden was unusually empty of butterflies, bees, and the other insects that I normally expect to see here. (The small tortoiseshell in my top photo was one of England’s worst-affected species with a drop of 72% from the numbers in last year’s count. Holly blue numbers fell in England by 80% and red admirals by 82%.)

I hope that those who can sign this letter will do so – it’s a small chance to do something that may help preserve all of our insects, not only the beautiful butterflies.

Comma butterfly — A comma butterfly looking a bit the worse for wear – their count fell by 51% in England this year.

Small Signs of Hope

September 8, 2024September 6, 2024 Ann Mackay13 Comments

This summer butterflies have been pretty much absent. However, this week there have been several flitting around the garden and feasting on the last of the buddleia flowers. There weren’t many, but they were very welcome and they brought with them the hope that there may be more butterflies next year.

The red admiral shown here was one of a group of five that found the only buddleia that was still flowering well. This particular plant is one that I had intended to remove, but had found it impossible to dig out. (I have a number of more attractively-coloured named varieties in the garden, so I had decided to remove some of the more ‘ordinary’ buddleias. This one is one of the progeny of a massive shrub that was in the garden when we arrived. It seems that its family line is destined to continue!)

The severe and later than usual cutting-back prevented this buddleia from flowering at the same time as the others. That turned out to be an advantage for this group of late butterfly visitors. Next year I’ll cut the buddleias back at slightly different times so that the flowers will be spread over a longer period. Then there should still be something to feed butterflies that arrive later on, rather than all the flowers being over by this time.

The red admirals briefly had a small tortoiseshell butterfly as a companion, but I suspect they chased it away. I spotted it feeding much higher up and too far away for me to be able to photograph it. (But you can see a photo from a previous year in this post.) This was the only small tortoiseshell I’ve seen this year.

Other interesting visitors to the garden this week were a couple of elephant hawk-moths and one of their caterpillars. (Found on a very small potted fuchsia. I brought the pot up to a much larger fuchsia and later noticed that the caterpillar had very obligingly transferred itself to the less vulnerable plant.) This is only the second time that I’ve seen elephant hawk-moths here, so I’m hoping that there will be more in the garden next year. 🦋

Missing: Butterflies…

August 4, 2024August 2, 2024 Ann Mackay19 Comments

‘Where are the butterflies this year?’ I’ve heard that question from many folk here in the UK this year. The rain and lack of warmth earlier in the summer have been blamed, especially after the previous very wet and windy weather in the spring.

It has become warmer and more summery recently but there still aren’t many butterflies around. At this time of year I take part in the ‘Big Butterfly Count’, run by the UK charity, Butterfly Conservation. Butterfly Conservation has reported that the numbers of butterflies recorded this year are the lowest ever in the 14 years of holding it. Although the poor weather has made it hard for butterflies to fly and to mate this year, their numbers have already been in decline in recent decades. Much of this is attributed to the loss of habitats, pesticides, and now a changing climate.

My photographs here were not taken this summer, but in previous years. There simply haven’t been enough times when I’ve seen butterflies in the garden to be able to photograph them. For my count here, it was noticeable that there was a huge drop in the numbers of those that are usually the commonest. There was only one peacock butterfly and no red admirals at all. (I have in the past seen a dozen peacock butterflies sunning themselves on our brick path and around the same number of red admirals feasting on a buddleia.)

For one particular butterfly – the gatekeeper (below) – there was actually a slight rise in numbers. This year I saw five of them during the 15-minute count. Last year I think it was three. (We are probably seeing more of these because we now have both blackberries and thyme in the garden for the adults to feed on.) Other butterflies – large white, small white, and comma (top photo) were sighted but, again, in fewer numbers. There was a single brimstone, which I’ve only seen once during a count, but no small tortoiseshell this year.

It’s not just a poor year for butterflies here, but for bees too. Normally there would be lots in the garden, but now there are very few. (Spring was good at one point, and I noticed that the ajuga was absolutely buzzing while it was in flower.) I hope that the insect numbers will be able to recover in warmer years, but I feel that I may need to do more to provide both habitat and food to encourage these visitors. In particular, I’d like to grow food plants that will be available over a longer period, especially for any late-arriving butterflies and bees. 🦋

A Meadow Beauty: Sainfoin

July 16, 2023July 18, 2023 Ann Mackay19 Comments

Flower of sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia)

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The flowers of sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia) were sprinkled throughout the meadow that I wrote about in last week’s post. It’s a plant that I had never seen before. I was enchanted by the spikes of delicate pink flowers with darker pink veining, so I took the opportunity to photograph it.

Reading up about this grassland plant afterwards, I discovered that it is a native of Europe and Asia. Sainfoin is an ancient forage crop grown to feed cattle, sheep and horses. It fell from favour in modern times but is apparently making a comeback. The plant has several benefits, including controlling worms in grazing animals and improving the quality of the soil by fixing nitrogen. (The common names of ‘healthy hay’ and ‘holy hay’ reflect the benefits to livestock.)

But it’s not the usefulness to animals that caught my attention. I’m far more interested in the benefits that sainfoin offers to bees and other pollinators. Apparently sainfoin produces large amounts of both pollen and nectar, making it very attractive to pollinating insects, including bumblebees and butterflies.

This suggests that it would be worth growing in a selection of wildflowers for a semi-wild area that will be a habitat for wildlife. It’s an idea that appeals to me greatly, but I would need to be able to fit my wild patch into a small space. A possibility for next year… 🙂

Sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia) with ox-eye daisies

Common Carder Bee: Bee I.D.

September 26, 2021September 25, 2021 Ann Mackay29 Comments

In the last few years, I’ve become fascinated by the bees and other insects that visit my garden. Sometimes I like to just sit and watch as they go about their business among the flowers. It feels very relaxing and deeply peaceful.

There are several different species of bee that use the garden. Honeybees come here frequently. There’s usually a good number of buff-tailed bumblebees too, and just occasionally, a red-tailed bumblebee. And there’s the bumblebee pictured above – the common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum).

I’d noticed these bees back in spring, visiting the white deadnettle and other early flowers. They moved about too much for me to get a really good look at them, or a clear photograph that showed their markings. Recently, I saw a couple of them enjoying the freshly-opened flowers of a sedum on a sunny afternoon. It made a good opportunity to photograph them.

Having photographs of the bees made it easier to identify them by comparing them to images on websites about bees. Even then, it can be very hard to be sure about identification, because many bees look very similar.

Honeybee on Sedum — For comparison: honeybee on sedum

To make it easier to see the differences between the commonest bees in my garden, I’ve posted a couple of comparison photos. Above is the honeybee. (The western or European honeybee, Apis mellifera.)

You can see that the honeybee’s colouration is quite like that of the common carder bee. But the carder is much hairier and a stronger ginger colour. (The common carder is also a bit bigger than the honeybee.)

If you look at the tails of the two bees, you’ll notice that the tail of the common carder has hairy stripes in black and white. While the honeybee also has a stripey look to its tail, they are quite different. Here the black areas of the tail look smooth and slightly shiny, with just very short and sparse pale-coloured hairs.

Bumblebee on a blue scabious flower. — For comparison (2): Buff-tailed bumblebee (I think!)

The other comparison (above) is the very common buff-tailed bumblebee. (Which can be distinguished from the white-tailed bumblebee by that very narrow orangey stripe at the top of its tail.) It looks quite different from the common carder bee, having a mostly black thorax with an orangey-yellow stripe just below the head, and another on the abdomen, just below the waist. (Mostly hidden here by the wings.)

One of my reasons for wanting to know which bees use my garden is so that I can try to make sure I have a range of flowers to suit them.

The common carder bees have been busy at the caryopteris flowers, even though the shrub has almost finished flowering for the year. Like a lot of other bees, they’re keen on the flowers of sedums at the moment, as well as the last of the catnip flowers. (When there’s not a cat sleeping in it!)

Now I must go and read up on what other flowers they like and what sorts of habitats suit them. I’m hoping for lots more of them next year!

Out for the Big Butterfly Count

August 8, 2021August 7, 2021 Ann Mackay29 Comments

Recently I wrote that there had been few butterflies in the garden this summer. And I had seen no Peacock butterflies. Happily, some have now appeared, as you can see from the top picture (where it shares the buddleia flower with a Red Admiral.)

There aren’t as many butterflies as in last year’s really warm summer, but it’s great to see some. A little bit of sunshine and the scent of the buddleias has brought them into the garden to feast and sun themselves – conveniently for the ‘Big Butterfly Count’, which finishes this weekend.

The appearance of this Small Tortoiseshell butterfly was well-timed for my second go at the butterfly count. It’s the only one I’ve seen so far this year. In fact, I’ve only seen it a few times in the garden. I was delighted that I had my camera ready, and even happier that it didn’t fly away. (Most of the pictures here have been cropped from much bigger images because I couldn’t get close without disturbing the butterfly.)

Below is a butterfly that I’ve not noticed in the garden before. It’s a Gatekeeper and there were two of them, often in the same area. (The dark, band-like markings on the forewings of this one show that it’s a male.) These are common in hedgerows, grassland and around the edges of wooded areas, so they may have come from the woodlands across the road from us. There are plenty of trees and shrubs in the gardens around here and wilder areas with long grass too, so there could soon be more of them.

After I had photographed the Gatekeeper, I thought to myself that it would be good if I could find a Comma to photograph too. They are common butterflies and sure enough, a couple of them turned up. In fact the first one surprised me by landing on the grass at my feet and then deciding to perch on my leg for a while. So I got a rather dodgy photograph of that one and then managed to get a better photograph of the Comma below.

The butterfly that we see most often here is the Red Admiral. There’s usually several of these around on a sunny day and they’re pretty reliable when it comes to being around for the Big Butterfly Count. Afterwards they entertained me by chasing each other around the garden. It was amazing to see them spinning wildly through the air in the last of the evening sunshine.

While I was taking part in the butterfly count, I noticed that many of the butterflies came to feed on the buddleia plant that you see in the photographs here. This was good, because I hadn’t seen many on it before and I wondered if they preferred the paler purple varieties. This one is ‘Royal Red’. Here it looks more of a reddish purple but the colour changes a lot with the light and sometimes it’s a really lovely deep colour with more red in it. I’m glad to see that it does attract butterflies. I have several cuttings of it that are growing well, so I’ll plant them out in a sunny and sheltered area. Maybe they’ll bring in more butterflies for next year’s count.

There was a surprise while doing my first butterfly count for this year – a big hedgehog snoozing in the undergrowth! I haven’t seen one in this garden for a few years, so it’s good to know that they are around. It was worth having to restart that count just for the glimpse of him or her. (And don’t tell my cats, but I left out a bit of their food, which it ate pretty quickly.)

Red Admiral butterfly — Red Admiral on Buddleja davidii ‘Royal Red’

Little Visitors

July 25, 2021 Ann Mackay17 Comments

After the bees got all the attention last week, I thought I’d pay some to a few of our other garden visitors. I find a lot more wildlife in the garden here than in our previous garden, so there’s often something new or unfamiliar.

The metallic-looking little beetle in the top photo is a first for me. I’d never seen one before but I have read about them. This is a rosemary beetle (Chrysolina americana) and actually an unwelcome intruder because it feeds on various aromatic plants. (These include rosemary, lavender, sage and thyme, all of which grow in our garden.) Luckily I’ve only seen the one so far, so I hope it hasn’t brought its friends! Apparently the damage they do may not harm the plants much, and the beetles themselves can just be picked off the plants.

I never use chemicals in the garden and prefer to hope that predators will naturally get rid of pests. In the case of rosemary beetles, their larva are eaten by birds, frogs and other beetles. So it’s good to have plenty of hungry carnivorous beasties around!

Greenfly tend to suddenly appear in large numbers every summer but luckily the ladybirds do too. A few weeks ago I found the weird-looking larvae of ladybirds in amongst a swarm of greenfly – I hope they had good appetites! There are lots of ladybirds around this year so I think they must have had a an easy winter. (I tend to see them grouped in curled up leaves that have fallen in autumn. Our garden is never too tidy, so there are plenty of places for them to hibernate.)

Another visitor that comes here in large numbers is the hoverfly. (Pictured above.) There are always a lot of these tiny pollinators around the garden – many more than there are bees. I like to watch these little brightly-coloured flies as they zoom around amongst the flower heads. And I find they will often be very obliging and sit still for long enough for me to focus on them when I’m out with my camera. Wish the bees would do that too!

The visitors that we’re missing this year are butterflies. There have been a few Red Admirals and some Large Whites but not much else. Last year there were often Peacock butterflies (below) sunning themselves on our brick path – sometimes as many as a dozen along the length of it. This year I have seen none so far. The low numbers are probably due to all the cold and rain we’ve had this year, so perhaps things will improve as the weather does. The ‘Big Butterfly Count’ survey is being held in the UK at the moment. Let’s hope that the results of that are a bit more encouraging!

Buzz! Buzz! Bee-lated Celebrations!

May 23, 2021May 22, 2021 Ann Mackay20 Comments

I’m a few days late to celebrate ‘World Bee Day’, but I will anyway because I think every day should be a bee day. (It was actually this lovely bee portrait by Steve Gingold that alerted me to the significance of Thursday 20th May.)

World Bee Day was launched by the Slovenian Beekeepers’ Association and has been supported by beekeepers worldwide. There’s a website for World Bee Day that tells you all about the importance of bees and the essential role they play in the production of our food.

I think we’ve all become more aware of how much we need bees and that we need to do what we can to help them. There are some good books and websites to advise on planting ideas if you have somewhere to grow flowers for nectar and pollen. It doesn’t need to be a garden, pots on a balcony or window boxes can help. And the flowers in my images below (zinnia, scabious, salvias, and a perennial sunflower) are all very easy to grow.

If you’re in the UK, Dave Goulson’s ‘Gardening for Bumblebees’ is very good, for both planting suggestions and information on the lives of bees. But if you’re in the US, you’ll probably find that ‘Pollinator Friendly Gardening’ by Rhonda Fleming Hayes is more useful. (I thought it looked very interesting and would have bought it if it had been relevant to the bees and native plants here. You do need to read something based on your own area to get the correct information for where you live.)

Websites by local wildlife trusts are also likely to tell you what flowers are good to plant in your area. For the UK, I’ve found the Bumblebee Conservation Trust has an excellent site with lots of information about gardening for bees, identifying the different bumblebee species, and the lifecycles and habitats of bumblebees. I like the site set up by the UK Wildlife Trusts too – they have a good section on bees. (I would suggest checking out your nearest wildlife trust or organisation if you live outside the UK.)

I have a lot to do still in my own garden to make it really useful to bees for as much of the year as possible. It feels like something very worthwhile that I can do to help increase the numbers of bees around. And if most gardeners plant what they can for bees, while also avoiding the use of pesticides, we will together make a big difference.

Finding a Balance: Weeds for Wildlife

April 18, 2021April 17, 2021 Ann Mackay18 Comments

This week I’ve been looking out for bumblebees on white deadnettles here. The white deadnettle (Lamium album) is an excellent wild plant for the queen bumblebees that have just emerged from hibernation in spring. The flowers, which are already opening now in April, are a great source of nectar and pollen when there isn’t much else around.

We have a lot of bee-friendly plants in the garden and I’m trying to develop this further by planting to provide for bees and other insects for as much of the year as possible. This is causing me a bit of a dilemma at the moment because this particular deadnettle runs rampant in my garden.

Deadnettles are members of the mint family and this one is determined to take over as big an area as possible. Before I knew that it was such a good bee plant, I’d spent years trying to remove it from the garden, with very slow progress. (I doubt that it was deliberately planted by anyone – most likely it just ‘arrived’.)

Recently I’ve been reading a lot of books about gardening for wildlife. They all recommend the white deadnettle for bees, moths and beetles, so I feel that I really shouldn’t get rid of it all. At the same time, these books don’t mention how invasive this plant can be.

It’s a UK native wildflower, but can be bought as a garden plant (presumably for a ‘wild’ garden). As you probably guessed from the name, it looks just like a nettle – except for the rings of white flowers around the stalk – but thankfully it doesn’t sting.

So now I’m wondering what to do. I have noticed that there are a couple of different species of bumblebee that visit the flowers. (Not many yet. It’s been quite chilly and if I was a queen bee, I’d have popped back to bed for a bit longer!) I really don’t want to deprive these bees of their food source but I know that the moment I turn my back on the deadnettle, it will reach out and grab the rest of my garden. The bees might then be really well-fed, but everything else will be swamped.

The best answer is probably to grow some of this over-enthusiastic plant in large pots. I’ll have to watch that none of the roots escape through the drainage holes, or else it will be off, racing through the garden again, with me in pursuit.

As you can see from the photo below, ladybirds like deadnettles too. Maybe I’ll get to like it eventually!