Tuesday 21 July 2015

Big Butterfly Count

The Big Butterfly Count makes a great, short summer holiday activity. 

The charity Butterfly Conservation is doing a survey of butterflies and moths in the UK. They want volunteers to spend 15 minutes on a sunny day surveying. They seem to be very flexible as to the areas used. We used our garden but it seems that most open spaces could be used. The date is also flexible, anytime from 17th July to 9th August although they prefer a sunny day. I guess that increases the probability of actually seeing butterflies. 

There is a handy identification tool on the site although we found that butterflies don't keep still for long so identification was a bit challenging, at times.
Butterfly on the potato plants.

The survey led us to look at other insects. We saw dragonflies and watched bees and bumble bees collect nectar, and hopefully, pollinate our pumpkin flowers.

The children were very keen to catch a butterfly but soon let it go.

Over 15 minutes, we saw three different types of butterfly and several other insects.

Definitely recommended!

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3 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. We loved doing this count-short, outside and we saw butterflies-all added to happiness!

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  2. Great idea - heading over to their site now.

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