It's been a dreadful year for insects, whether in the garden or out in the countryside, with precious few on the many flowers in bloom on plants which have shown few signs of suffering unduly in the dry, cold, breezy and grey conditions which have characterised the summer of 2026.
However, one insect group has visibly declined in numbers - the butterflies, their absence notable because....
....many are so gloriously colourful. So we've seen peacocks (above) and tortoiseshells and red admirals and whites and fritillaries and blues and ringlets and a small copper or two and....
....we've had the pleasure of visits from painted ladies; and....
....in the dappled shade of the woodland we've seen one species which has bucked the general decline, the speckled woods; but with these one or two exception we've seen precious few butterflies this summer.
So, yesterday, in classic 'showers with sunny intervals', we saw one painted lady and one peacock, possibly the last of the few we've seen this year.
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