Where are the butterflies?

[sidpost]

In Texas (USA) here and the "bee colony collapse disorder" is significant. Monarch Butterflies normally come up out of Mexico and fly North toward Canada but, I have seen NONE this year! I suspect the drug cartels and human trafficking killed off the Monarch's as they over-wintered in Mexico. Truly a sad thing in my world as I enjoyed the Monarch Butterfly migration from my time in grade school until I moved away later in life. I have no bees this year either on my 40 acres in rural Texas.

I have seen a total of two moths. Mosquitos are doing well though with all the rain and humidity! The bird population seems about normal.

 

[Woody girl]

One single butterfly spent about 30 seconds in the garden this morning. A cabbage white!
The budlia is in full bloom, but still no butterflies on it. Not a one.

 

[Toddy]

I'm finding a lot of caterpillars but have only seen three butterflies.....there are an awful lot of moths about though. Big things, with fur and horns, and a weird totally white one.

I'm glad we have had rain though, because we live right next to trees and there has been a lot of far too early leaf drop. Maybe that'll settle down and the insects will get more of a chance.

M

 

[Woody girl]

I have a lot more flowers in the garden this year that are bee and butterfly friendly, I had hoped my garden would be more attractive. I've had a no mow may and June out the front , long grass, and some wild flowers, and there are crickets there, but even my friend S has no butterflies in her flower stuffed garden.
I don't know what else I can do to attract them.

 

[sidpost]

Where have our butterflies gone? Not a good sign for our gardens with no butterflies or bees.

 

[Toddy]

Mind I said we had a lot of bees ?
Well, we had the house re-roofed a few years ago, replaced the dark grey tiles with dark terracotta colour marley ones instead. I like it it's cheerful, not garish but kind of warm looking.
However, every late Spring/early Summer since we have been finding bees all along the gable path. They're not all dead, but there are a lot of dead ones, and if you look up at the gable apex there's a sort of dancing group of bees. At first I thought, oh no, they've built a nest in behind the new end capping of the tiles, but it's not that.
It's a Drone Congregation Area, and there's another one just above our bedroom window at the front of the house.
Basically it's an aerial site that the bees use to meet up and mate, and then the drones die while the queens go off to lay eggs.

Quite disconcerting at first, especially since I'm really careful to plant to attract bees and won't use anything that would kill them.
Relieved to find that it's not something horrible, but something rather special

Lots of different kinds of bees too, so somewhat reassuring.
The sad thing is that there are two rather hysterical mothers in the street, and if they knew that the bees were congregating here then every time one of their screaming daughters spotted a bee and ran away in terror, it'd be my fault.
Sometimes I worry about the future of humanity

 

[sidpost]

DCA, Drone Congregation Areas, are usually up high in the air where I live. Surprised they are on the eaves of a house in the UK.

 

[Toddy]

There's another house further round in Woodlands that has them too. They too have a large group of trees nearby as well.

I wonder if the native bees used to use a woodland clearing, and that has somehow transferred to the clear bit near the trees that just happens to be above our roofs ?

 

[Ystranc]

First off, we keep honey bees. Since it’s known that I can work with bees I’m often called to collect swarms or eradicate wasps that are causing a nuisance. Our house has several different species of wild bees as well as a colony of honey bees (a small cast swarm, not worth recovering) all living in the roof void and insulation, they live in holes in the ground, disused bird boxes and even a pile of old wool carpet used to cover the compost heap…they’re welcome visitors. It’s difficult to generalise about wild bees because each species has its own behaviour, time of year that they’re active and preferred habitat. While they can look very similar and there is a lot of crossover it is wrong to generalise. From memory there are over 280 distinct species of wild bee in the UK alone

 

[Toddy]

There's a quite distinct variety among the bees we find on the path.....and it changes as the year goes on too.
The very black little ones that were flying above our bedroom window have stopped, but there's still a dancing crowd of other ones at the apex.

 

[Ystranc]

To complicate matters even further a lot of wild bees also show sexual dimorphism, buff-tailed bees are a good example. The male looks like an entirely different species.

 

[TLM]

We seem to have the usual butterfly crowd flapping around here in the north, normal amount of bees around after the cool first half of June. No wandering species seen so far though but maybe there hasn't been the needed long south western wind belt.

 

[Woody girl]

Budlia in full bloom, still no butterflies. 10 yrs ago I could count 10 different species all day long.
I love butterflies and I'm so sad about this.
Even the dreaded cabbage whites are practicaly missing. (So far!)
I've had a few , I think three over the past couple of weeks. Certainly not had to net my cauliflowers this year so far.

 

[Broch]

And yet .... we have all three whites, red admiral, small tortoiseshell, orange tip, small skipper, speckled wood, comma, meadow brown, gatekeeper, ringlet, small copper .... the list goes on. Some are in quite large numbers as well; the meadow browns fly up in a cloud as I walk down the path to the small wood.

 

[mikehill]

Still nothing in Warrington bar a few day moths

 

[1 pot hunter]

I have a lovely budlia (sorry can't spell it) tree in my garden. Every year it's covered in up to ten different species of butterfly. This year not a one. Has anyone else noticed a lack of butterflies? I've had two cabbage white in the garden so far this year. Bees are also relatively absent. Normaly you can hear them buzzing about. The garden is awfully quiet this year... noticeably so especially in the evenings. It seems utterly silent apart from the few birds in the trees. It feels eerie. Considering I'm in a rural area it's very odd.
Anyone else noticed this or is it just my garden? The strangest thing is I've planted so many more butterfly specific flowers than normal this year. I can't understand it.

There’s loads in South Yorkshire

 

[slimshady]

Hardly any visitors to our garden (south of Oxford), although we've had masses of Dragonflies.?. more than normal. Bees about the same as normal. Not had any time away from work so countryside could be fine.
Alex.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Budlia in full bloom, still no butterflies. 10 yrs ago I could count 10 different species all day long.
I love butterflies and I'm so sad about this.
Even the dreaded cabbage whites are practicaly missing. (So far!)
I've had a few , I think three over the past couple of weeks. Certainly not had to net my cauliflowers this year so far.

Do you have other flowers attractive to butterflies other than Buddleias ? I have a Buddleia & there hasn't been much butterfly activity on that this year. However I do have a lot of wild flowers (most people would call them weeds ) & they have been popular. I also let a patch of thistles do their thing & their purple flowers have been heavily visited by butterflies. Surprisingly, they have completely snubbed the lavenders so far.

Also, there are no butterflies without caterpillars, so if there are no or fewer host plants for their larvae around then......................

 

[Woody girl]

Do you have other flowers attractive to butterflies other than Buddleias ? I have a Buddleia & there hasn't been much butterfly activity on that this year. However I do have a lot of wild flowers (most people would call them weeds ) & they have been popular. I also let a patch of thistles do their thing & their purple flowers have been heavily visited by butterflies. Surprisingly, they have completely snubbed the lavenders so far.

Also, there are no butterflies without caterpillars, so if there are no or fewer host plants for their larvae around then......................

I live very rural, so plenty of host plants for caterpillars close by, tho I mostly grow veg in the garden, and always have done since I turned it from just grass into what it is now. I have lots of flowering "bee, and butterfly friendly" and wild flowers, more than I usually do, this year.
Everyone round here has noticed it, so it's not just me.

 

[Wander]

Butterfly numbers and variety are definitely down this year.
I've seen all the usual ones I would expect (including, oddly, more green hairstreaks than would otherwise expect) but numbers are much lower (especially the blues, which I would expect to see plenty of on the chalk hills here). Meadow browns have proliferated and made up for the shortfall in others.
But there's a noticeable decline.

Don't wish to teach anyone to suck eggs, but attracting butterflies is about more than just flowers. Many 'weeds' are also essential to many butterfly species - don't overlook the benefit of a good patch of nettles for many wildlife species.
Flowers such as buddleia are introduced and not native and, consequently, not good for the support of native wildlife species.