Big Butterfly Count 2017

Anyone who knows me well will know that I am a nature nerd, an animal lover, that I have always been passionate about wildlife. I have a degree in Zoo Biology and I have forever been fascinated with animal science. One of my most loved hobbies is nature photography because I love to capture the little details I see so that I can treasure them always. Since becoming an amateur wildlife photographer, I have really enjoyed getting up close and personal with wildlife, but being a spoonie means that a lot of that wildlife tends to be the small creatures that dwell in gardens. Since I was around 16 years old, I have loved taking photographs of insects, and the more I photographed them, the more I became interested in their behaviour, their physiology, their biology. I started reading more and more about different species because I wanted to ID them, and I wanted to know everything I could about them. As a result, I grew into a geek when it came to bugs. I've even had them as pets over the years... giant African Land Snails and giant Australian stick insects! 

I love the variety and diversity that makes up the order of Insecta, and I think they are such an under-appreciated group of animals even though they are so crucial to all of the ecosystems in the world. Without insects, so many other species couldn't survive. So it's super important to help conserve insects, to help protect their habitats and to make sure that we do all we can to ensure the survival of them. One of the ways that people can get involved in animal conservation is to take part in wildlife surveys. There's several that go on throughout the year, with the most well known being the RSPB's 'Big Garden Bird Watch', and the Butterfly Conservation charities 'Big Butterfly Count'. Today, I'm talking about the Big Butterfly Count, that has been ongoing since the 14th July. It ends on 6th August and I was supposed to blog about it sooner, oops! You have three days left to take part and its super easy! Keep reading to find out how you can join in to help save our butterflies! 

 It was amazing last year that 36,000 people took part in the Big Butterfly Count! I am proud of be one of them :) All you have to do to take part is take 15 minutes out of your day to sit outside, whether it's in your garden or the park or just whilst you're out and around on your lunch break from work or class or whatever. All you have to do is record any butterflies you see within those 15 minutes. On the Butterfly Conservation website, there is an identification chart that you can download and print out to make this easier too, as it has pictures of some of the different species of British butterfly. 

As you can see, the chart has tick boxes to help you record any butterflies that you see, and can also help you learn to ID butterflies. This makes the Big Butterfly Count a great activity to do with children, as it's both fun and educational. I know that my nieces love helping me spot butterflies! You can do the count as many times as you want, and you have until the end of August to log in your results online. 

It's summer time and so I've been spending a lot of time outside in the garden, which means that I've had so much opportunity to survey for butterflies. All I do is set a timer on my phone for 15 minutes and if I spot a butterfly, I jot it down. I write down, usually in a notebook, the time that I started the count and the time when I'll finish, then I write down the names of buttefly species that I know I'm more likely to see: Large Whites, Green-veined Whites, Red Admirals and Speckled Woods are the butterflies that mostly visit my garden. I will tally any butterflies I see next to the names. It's super easy and everyone can spare 15 minutes of their day to watch for butterflies; you can even do it from the comfort of your home. You can look out of your window into the garden if you want to. 

You have until Sunday night to join in and it would be wonderful if you could! Even if you don't spot any butterflies, it's still super important to record this. What the survey allows scientists to do is see how healthy our environment is. Some butterflies can only thrive in certain conditions so by recording which species you see and where can help work out if the habitat of the butterflies is stable and if there are any problems that need fixing to protect the butterflies and also the other animals that live in the same area. Please join in if you can! Here's a link to find out more or to download the ID chart. Let me know in the comments if you do :) 

Today, I did another count (my 5th count so far) and I will do my final one on Sunday afternoon if the weather permits. I took photographs of some of the butterflies I saw, other than the ones that flew away too quickly like the speedy Speckled Woods. Butterflies, and moths, are beautiful and it would be so sad if we lost them, so it's crucial to do everything we can to make sure they are protected. 

I saw the first Peacock Butterfly (Aglais io) today that I've seen since 2012! I had to climb up high to photograh it which was scary, but worth it haha!

We keep getting visited by a large Red Admiral butterfly. This is what they look like with their wings closed!

Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta). I had to stand around for so long to wait for this little guy to open it's wings!

These next two photographs are not from today, but were taken over the last month or so and are too lovely for me not to show you all...

Another very gorgeous Red Admiral. These were always my favourite butterflies when I was a child :)

This year I spotted my first ever Comma Butterfly (Polygonia c-album) and I was so so happy! Look how pretty it is, and I love the unique patterns on its wings as well as the shape of them!

So, that's it for today's post. I hope that you enjoyed reading and looking at my butterfly photography. I know I've said this so many times already, but please do a butterfly count yourself before the end of Sunday 6th August. The Big Butterfly Count is really important for monitoring nationwide populations of butterflies and moths, and it really doesn't take long. Help your beautiful little fluttery friends out :)

Thankyou for reading!

♥

What is your favourite butterfly species?

Have you spotted any butterflies lately? I'd love to hear about them! 

 Are you a fellow nature lover? Then you may enjoy these posts too!

| Sunny Sunday in the Garden | #30DaysWild: Week 4 | Dyserth Waterfall | 

#30DaysWild | Week 4

Hello lovelies! Yesterday marked the end of the Wildlife Trust's 30 Days Wild challenge! I had a lot of fun taking part and it had a great effect on my mental health. It encouraged me to get outside everyday, even if it was only for a little while and I've always found being surrounded by nature therapeutic. I feel so relaxed just looking at the flowers and leaves and trees, watching their branches swaying in the wind and listening to the birds tweeting to one another. I find that my imagination really runs wild when I'm laying on the grass and day-dreaming. I've written quite a few short storie over the last 30 days. I hope that you've all enjoyed my last three photography posts. It's definitely been a challenge within itself to keep up with taking photographs each day! So here's my fourth & final week of the challenge... Enjoy! 

Last Wednesday, I spent the day visiting Blackpool with my mom, scrolling along the sea front and trying not to melt in the boiling weather. It was a very physically draining day and not only were my feet sore and throbbing by the time we got home, my body ached. I woke up on Day 22 feeling dreadful and in pain; the trip had really taken it's toll on my fibromyalgia. There wasn't much I could do so I decided to search through the prompts on the Wildlife Trust's app, and found one suggesting people 'pen a wild poem'. I hadn't written a poem since my college days, when I was studying English Literature. I thought I'd give it a go and this is all I mentioned to come up with but I hope you enjoy it anyway, haha :)

Oh beautiful is the natural world, 

So bright and colourful and free,

Sitting amongst the tall green grass is where I'd rather be.

Speckled with sunlight that shrines through the trees,

And lost in a whimsical dream.

Listening to the song of tiny birds,

And the rustle of crunchy brown leaves.

My fingers exploring a carpet of soft moss,

And my toes dipped in a cold stream.

Oh beautiful is the natural world,

So vibrant and full of wonder and glee.  

After I finished writing my poem, this little fly came to explore my notebook :)

Of course, little Miss trouble joined me in the garden :)

I really didn't do much for 30 Days Wild today, other than relaxing the garden for a little while with my family chatting and drinking a good cup of tea, and watched Aurora attempting to chase the birds and bees. Whilst exploring and sniffing throughout the garden, she managed to scare a few moths from their daytime hiding places but they flew away too fast for me to snap any photos. I thought I was dreaming when I could see something red fluttering in front of me, until I realised it was a Cinnabar moth! I completely geeked out and got so excited, which my family found quite amusing :)

Lovely Mock Orange Blossoms :)

Does anyone know the species? They remind me of tiny cabbages!

Not the best quality photo as I had to take it quickly before this little male House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) flew away. I am always so happy when I see birds feeding on the fat balls I've put out for them!

For most of the day, I was getting ready to go out for the night, as my best friends & I had planned to hang out and get drunk, haha! Before getting picked up by my friend, I headed to the pub at the end of my street to take some photographs of the beautiful flowers they'd just decorated with outside. They really do look fabulous so I wouldn't not take photographs of them! As you can all probably tell by now, one of my favourite things to shoot is flowers :) I took A LOT of photos but here's a few that I liked best... 

I absolutely adore yellow Begonias; they are definitely one of my favourite flowers!

Hello there tiny Hoverfly :) ft. the loveliest lilac and pink fuchsias.

The local insects are as delighted with the new flowers as I am!

Well... as you can imagine, I was very hungover on Sunday. I was in bed on and off throughout the day and my friend was feeling very sick so we just chilled around his apartment for the entire day. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get any photographs of nature on Day 25. I did however sit by an open window for most of the day and listened to the birds outside. I watched my favourite Urban Explorers channel on youtube, Hell on Earth, and although this isn't about nature, it does fascinate me how nature grows throughout abandoned buildings, almost reclaiming the space after humans have gone. I think it looks so awesome! On the drive home from my friends place, I spotted quite a few species of bird including swifts swooping over the river that's close to the Brockhole's Nature Reserve near Preston, Lancashire. I really need to go and check that place out.

Today was a insect watching kind of day! I watched a lot of bumblebees in the garden as I lazed around on the grass for a few couples, my fibromyalgia causing me so much pain that it was difficult to move much at all. Earlier in the day, I saved a little spider and took it outside :) If you follow me on instagram, you'll have seen the photograph of a bumble bee investigating the mess that the birds have left all over our castor oil plant/tree. When eating one of the fat balls I put out, the birds have scattered loads of crumbs all over the tree below and I'm not sure if the bee was eating these or was attached to the oily secretions from the castor leaves. Nevertheless, the little guy gave me the perfect opportunity to do one of the prompts from the 30 Days Wild app, 'Find a Creepy Crawly. Be gentle. Get close & watch the way it moves'. 

I always think bees look so unnatural and strange when they are crawling around, and when I feel their tiny black legs it immediately bring back a memory from back when I was with my ex-boyfriend. I was staying over at his house and in the morning I awoke to a trickling feeling on my leg, which I of course assumed was him trying to annoy me or something. So I told him off and tried to go back to sleep but it continued. My poor ex got 'scolded' for nothing because when I lifted the covers to investigate, there was a huge bumble bee crawling all over my leg. It was horrible and I completely freaked out! The poor bee must have been as scared as I was, but my ex moved him onto the window sill and he soon flew away. ugh bumble bees are adorable but that was dreadful, haha! Oh, today a Red Admiral Butterfly came to visit the garden too :) 

I spent the majority of Day 27 in bed trying to deal with the pelvis and back pain I was experiencing, then in the evening I made a silly decision to walk to the shop with my parents thinking that the exercise might have a positive impact on my pain. It didn't. However, the trip wasn't a waste as I got some munchies from the shop, some chips and sausage from the chippy for my tea and I spotted some very pretty roses in some of the gardens along the way. I really wish that we had more varieties of rose in our own garden, so that's my project for next year :)  

Taking inspiration from some of the prompts on the Wildlife Trust app, I decided to collect a range of colourful natural bits & pieces from around my garden, and then use them to make an animal design out of. This would have been a great task to do with children, so it was a shame that my nieces and nephew were around to help. It was still fun, even if the puppy thought I had food and kept barking at me and trying to get things out of my hands! 

It really is amazing how many colours appear throughout nature!

I made a butterfly, using random leaves, ferns, moss, a petunia stem, a geranium petal, buttercups & daisies! I think it looks so cool :)

This Thursday was not a great day for me, after having dealt with intense pain that didn't look to be going anywhere soon it had started to really affect my mental health. My depression was bad and then things were made worse by the fact that I had an appointment to see my psychiatrist. I knew that I would be seeing a new doctor this time which is daunting, plus with the anxiety of going out/the thought of socialising with people and having to talk about symptoms that are personal and hard to discuss as well as my fear of leaving the house when experiencing a lot of pain, I was just not in a good place mentally at all. So, I didn't do much at all for 30 Days Wild other than spend about fifteen minutes in the garden to check if I needed to put out more fat balls for the birds. 

Everytime I see Geraniums anywhere now, I always think about the Mother's Day Ladybird bath bomb from Lush :)

Mr European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) was being very noisy!

How adorable is the logo for the final day of the 30 Days Wild Challenge! I'm sad that I didn't see a hedgehog at all this month as I usually spot them in the bush around my garden. Hedgehogs are lovely little quintessentially British animals, with the cutest name! I recently borrow my dad's binoculars as I was planning to mark the last day of the challenge by going on a walk to a hill near my house where I used to play around as a kid, which has some cool views nearby over the next town. I thought it would be cool to take a look through the binoculars to see what far away details I could pick up. I was sad that I couldn't do this because of the pain I'm in, so I had to turn to the app ideas to see if I could find something I actually could do. I settled on take a blue photo... so here is the bright blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds, and some pretty blue Lobelia flowers. Thankyou for following my progress through the challenge :) It's been a blast! I hope that next year, I can get out and about more... visit some nature reserves, find some species of butterfly that I've never had the joy of seeing in person before, go to a big pond or lake :)

If you missed my previous weekly #30DaysWild updates, here are the links... 

Week 1, Week 2 & Week 3. 

 Thankyou for reading!

♥

Did any of you guys take part in the challenge?

If not, I'd love to hear about any wildlife, pretty scenery or any nature-filled day trips you've been on in the last month? Nature is beautiful & should be appreciated :)

Did you know I had a facebook page? I'm trying to get more followers so it would be great if you could help me out & follow me (here).

#30DaysWild | Week 3

Happy Thursday! I hope you've all had wonderful days. Although still very warm, the weather has been a lot easier to cope with in Lancashire today. I'm hoping tonight is the same, because it has been so so difficult for me to get to sleep lately. I'd love a decent night's rest tonight! Yesterday, I went out for my first day trip in a long while, to Blackpool with my mom. I planned the journey around going to the Build A Bear Workshop, to get the 4th Pokemon plushie that the store have released. My new Squirtle plushie is really awesome! I had a very nice, albeit very tiring, day; it was great fun relaxing by the beach and browsing in some of the seaside touristy shops. It was also cool to spend the first day of Summer on the coast! There's no Disney store in my hometown either, so of course I went in there too! I'd love to go back again soon :) Today's post is another about the Wildlife Trust's 30 Days Wild Challenge, which hit the three week marker yesterday! I cannot believe how fast this month has flown by. I hope you enjoy looking at the photographs that document what wild things I've been doing for the last seven days! 

 Aww, I love how the Day 15 logo has starfish on it... that's so cute! After struggling to sleep on Wednesday night, I spent most of Day 15 sleeping or lounging around. It was Nature Photography Day so I was a little gutted that I wasn't able to go out anywhere teeming with wildlife to get some photographs. I did however enjoy browsing through photographs I've taken in the past :) I decided to go out into the garden after dark to see which creatures were out and about. There were lots of insects! 

I absolutely love snails!

It looks like I caught this slug and woodlouse having a conversation, haha :)

Last Friday, I planted some wild flower seeds in two different locations in my garden. I am so looking forward to them growing, because I think wild flower species are so beautiful and remind me of meadows. They also attract more bees and butterflies so I can't wait for that :) I didn't use the whole box of seeds, since I'm going to also plant some when I'm out and about. Talking of flowers, what's everyones favourite? Mine are bluebells and sweet peas!

Since the weather was wonderful on Saturday, I spent quite a few hours outside relaxing on the grass and watching my nephews playing with Aurora the puppy :) I decided to do some colouring in one of my pretty animal colouring books by Millie Marotta and ended up just daydreaming and colouring away for hours! haha I made up some sugar water solution and put it out for the bees and butterflies, so that they could stay hydrated whilst exploring our flowers, many of which are starting to bloom now. I'm really looking forward to our lilies opening! 

Here's the little plate I made up for the insects. The sugar water is poured onto the kitchen roll so that the butterflies and bees won't drown whilst they are trying to drink. I was saving an over-ripe banana to put on the plate too since I know butterflies are a huge fan, but my mom didn't know and so threw it out. Oops. I had a nectarine for breakfast so I decided to share it :)

Sunday was another gorgeous day weather-wise, although I am definitely not a huge fan of the heat so I hid in the shade for most of the day. I decided to search the 30 Days Wild app for an ideas on how to spend my day and I ended up choosing to read about nature in the garden. I have quite a few wildlife books but unfortunately they are all packed away in boxes with the rest of my things from when I came home from university and I won't be getting them out until I have my own bedroom, which looks like it's going to happening within the next few months. Yay! Instead, I decided to read about moths and butterflies on my phone whilst relaxing out of the sun under our Apple Blossom tree. I found out a lot of interesting techniques for attracting moths that I'm definitely going to have a go at myself very soon.

The birds have made such a mess under the fat ball feeder!

I was inspired by the prompt from the Wildlife Trust's app to go in search for an insect to observe it's behaviour and try to ID the species. I found a lot of insects that I was already very familar with but then I started lifting up rocks and other things in my garden to see what creatures inhabited the space underneath. Another of the prompts on the app is 'lift a log' and since there's no logs laying around my garden, I improvised and lifted up a small chunk of wood at the bottom of my garden. I came across some really really tiny lice/beetles, some woodlice and then a baby millipede! It was too small for me to ID but it was cool to hold it and watch it crawling across my hands with all those legs! I of course put the little guy back where I found him afterwards. These are the only photos I managed to take...

This Tuesday was another 'lazy' day for me. Being the introverted ball of anxiety that I am, Sunday always zaps all of my energy because of all of the social interaction that I have to do when my family are over. My insomnia combined with the sauna that is my bedroom at night made it so that sleep was almost impossible. I was up watching Netflix until ridiculous o'clock! In the evening, I sat outside with a nice cup of tea enjoying the sun with my parents and some of my bunnies a good cuddle :) I had a blog post to write notes for so I decided to put my little lionhead X rex rabbit out in the run and lay on the grass nearby dotting down ideas and watching him 'binking' around in excitement. I almost fell asleep on the grass though! Something that I really like about this season is that my grey rabbits fur lightens and they get patches of browny beige throughout their coats. It think it looks lovely.

My beautiful boy, Jacob :)

'Oi, why are you taking photos of me?'

I spent the final day of Week 3 over in Blackpool on the North West coast. It was a fabulous day out and I thoroughly enjoyed walking along the beach, although I didn't spend as much time on it as I would have liked. I saw lots of young and old Herring Gulls, who wouldn't leave me alone when I sat down to eat my lunch on the seafront. The place were we ended up sitting was next to a patch of glass and I soon discovered that it was home to ALL OF THE LADYBIRDS! I've never seen so many ladybirds in one place at the same time. It was amazing! I embraced my inner weird bug lady and had a great time handling the beetles, letting them crawl up to the tips of my fingers and watching them open their wings to fly off. What a great way to end the week :) Just a few more days to go now!

 

Can't go to Blackpool and not take a photograph of the Tower :)

It was a challenge in itself to take a photo of the ladybird since they didn't stay still for long!

I had a great week, even though other than my trip to Blackpool, it was a very relaxed and uneventful seven days. The heat made it very difficult to get much done, especially since it makes my fibromyalgia flare up! I really appreciate all of the little wild moments I experienced and I can't wait to document the final week of the challenge :) Check back next Thursday for the next #30DaysWild post. 

Thankyou for reading!

♥

Have you spotted any wildlife this week or done anything in an area surrounded by nature? I'd love to hear all about it in the comments.

Check out my two previous 30 Days Wild posts:

| Week 1 & Week 2 |