Anyone Seen Summer?

Butterflies

I know, I know, I keep banging on about the British weather that’s what we Brits do.  But honestly take this morning.  I took Mrs H to work the thermometer on the dash read 9c, in ‘old money’ that is 48f.  The sky a leaden grey and the rain steadily moistened the already saturated ground, at least the fresh northerly wind had abated.  The central heating’s on and I’m wearing a thick woolly jumper!

In these conditions certain species of butterfly can take a hammering.  Those that appear for just a few weeks at a certain time of the year can suffer.  They need to breed or else the colony could be lost.  Spare a thought for ‘our’ Swallowtail (Papilio machaon ssp britannicus).  This, the largest, British butterfly lives only in the east Norfolk Broads, that’s right, where I live.  It emerges late May/ early June and is on the wing ’till July.  It is renowned for being fussy, appearing only in warm sun and light winds, oh dear.

June 6th 2024 a beautiful Swallowtail on bramble. When I looked at the image closely I noticed that the insect on the left is a rare Fen Mason Wasp also a local speciality, bonus!

Last Thursday I noticed a large amount of blue in the sky when showers were forecast.  So I quickly drove to Hickling Broad in the hope of finding a Swallowtail.  Again there is a huge lack of nectar flowers along the ‘Weaver’s Way’ footpath.  Last year was bad this year worse. Once where there were big beds of Red Campion, a favourite of the Swallowtail, now there is just the odd plant lost among the grass and reed.  On previous walks I had noted a decent bramble bush coming into flower and it was this I ‘staked out’ waiting for the sun to appear from behind a very stubborn, slow moving cloud.  When it did I was rewarded with five sightings of this regal butterfly.

They say nature is resilient.  Hopefully there will be enough days for this beautiful and treasured butterfly to re-produce.

Next week we are off on holiday to the north/west Highlands of Scotland.  I dread to think what the weather holds in store for us!

21 thoughts on “Anyone Seen Summer?”

  2. That’s probably the most beautiful butterfly of all (at least in the UK) so let’s hope it survives. (Strange though that it should decide to populate East Anglia when sunnier areas are available!)

    Enjoy you holiday. My Mrs H and I have spent many happy times up there. It’ll either be glorious sunshine or heavy rain… Let’s hope it’s the former! 🤞🤞😊

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    1. Neurotic has been used to describe the Swallowtail. The Continental ‘version’ which is pretty much identical uses several plants to breed and can be found all over the place. ‘Ours’ chooses to breed on Milk Parsley which only grows in, you guessed it, the Broads. I think a few will manage to lay eggs.

      Not looking great up north next week, hey ho.

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  4. Your images of it are wonderful, it’s gorgeous. I have a Tiger Swallowtail feeding at my Hummingbird feeder!

    They seem to be everywhere here this year. I hope yours can find mates and you’ll have loads of them next year!

    Safe and fun journey to the Highlands!

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      1. I’ve been working on the birds and getting my checklists up on the ebird, but I’ll be getting to the Butterflies I saw last week-end soon! I haven’t got a pic of the one at my feeder this year…yet. 😊

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  7. Outstanding photographs of a really beautiful butterfly.

    Fingers crossed the weather improves as do the chances for proliferation of the Swallowtail.

    Pretend this is good news: our son just returned from a trip to the Orkney Islands and reports the weather was “quite good”.

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    1. Yes fingers crossed, there are not many dry days forecast in the next fortnight.

      We will take whatever the weather gods throw at us in Scotland.

      Thanks for the visit Wally.

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    1. They always seem to manage to cling on, then when we have good springs numbers will once again boom. It’s the way it is with weather. As long as the habitat is good they will survive the lean years.

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