Butterflies of Westgate Wood and Sir Joseph Banks Country Park

Friday, August 30, 2013

Exciting News - the rare Clouded Yellow can be seen at the Sir Joseph Banks Country Park!

Congratulations to the Country Park for creating a paradise for butterflies!

Alongside the path next to the pond closest to Jenny's Wood the meadow is alive with a multitude of butterflies. This is a wonderful achievement, for land that was so recently dedicated to agriculture has been transformed into butterfly rich meadow land.

Butterflies are threatened by loss of habitat and the last two summers have hit them hard.

However, not only are the butterflies you would expect to see, like the Common Blue, the Small Tortoiseshells, Meadow Browns, Small Coppers and Whites there in abundance, we are delighted to say that the hard to spot Clouded Yellow was also visible there on the 29th and 30th August 2013. This species can be seen until the end of September.

This is a remarkable sighting of a migratory butterfly which can be seen all over the UK, yet is actually very hard to spot. It is generally easiest to see in the South of England. However, every ten years or so we have a "Clouded Yellow Year" when they are here in great numbers and 2013 is one such year.

We were delighted to see and photograph this magical butter yellow species, which was feeding on what we think was meadow vetchling and lucerne:-