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Red Admirals, Gatekeepers and Speckled Woods
20th September 2010 • Biodiversity • Stephanie DonaldsonWe are big into butterflies and moths at the moment. Not that we haven’t always loved them (with the exception of cabbage whites and clothes moths), but our holiday in Transylvania brought them into focus. They are still abundant there – less so here – but nonetheless we took part in the Big Butterfly Count earlier in the summer and found more varieties than we had previously seen in the garden including Gatekeepers and Speckled Woods. One way of attracting butterflies in September is to leave windfall apples to ferment in a sunny spot – they are butterfly magnets. Sadly so far we have seen no humming-bird hawkmoths, but if we do spot any we will add our sighting to the map on the Butterfly Conservation website which shows that they have been seen all over the country.