The shrub Buddleia is known as the Butterfly Bush since its long tapering flowers are a magnet for many species of butterfly. Apparently the flowers produce nectar which is very high in sucrose, glucose and fructose. Although it is generally considered better to use native flowers and shrubs to attract insects, which have evolved to feed on them over hundreds of thousands of years, nobody could deny the value of the buddleia, a native of China, as a great food source for insects.
  Although they produce high quality nectar, they don’t produce a lot of it which is why butterflies spend so much time on the flowers when they’re feeding and since the nectar is deep within a small flower they’re not accessible to smaller butterflies whose proboscis aren’t long enough to reach down into the flowers. In recent past summers I have often thought I had more buddleia bushes in the garden then actual butterflies when a succession of cool wet summers had resulted in dramatic declines in many species who can’t fly during heavy rain. The bad summer weather after cold winters and springs caused serious declines in what were once our most common species. Thankfully that trend seems to have been reversed in the last couple of years with two decent summers and a very mild winter between them.
   Buddleia come in many different varieties and colours and research from Clemson University in the USA says that butterflies don’t favour white or light coloured buddleia preferring red, pink or lavenderpink flowers and concluding that this is “probably due to the fact that butterflies, unlike many insects, can perceive red wavelength colors.” It would seem that the butterflies that visit my garden were unaware of this research or chose to ignore it since on a very hot, sunny morning in August our large white flowering buddleia was playing host to as many assembled Peacock and Red Admiral butterflies as I’d seen in years. Two of our most glamourous butterfly species they made a lovely sight with, at times, two individuals from each species perched on the same flower. Later on a walk around the hill we came upon another buddleia, this one the more common purple flowered Buddleia Davidia, which had those two species again as well as Painted Lady and a Grayling, a butterfly I’d never actually seen on buddleia before. Apart from the butterflies this individual bush buzzed with bees and hoverflies. Holly Blue butterflies flew around behind it, a species we usually only see in early spring. Although they’re often considered a nuisance growing from chimneys, gutters, breaking through driveways and on  every bit of wasteland they certainly pay their way when the butterflies are around to appreciate them.

  At the time of writing the swallows that nest in a neighbour’s garage are flying around with what would seem to be their third brood this summer, with the adults joined in the air by juveniles who are recognisable by their lack of tail streamers. Since they’re the only swallows nesting in the vicinity I hold them in high regard, their joyous twittering being one of the few bird songs still heard in late summer. Occasionally the twittering will take on a different, more urgent tone and that often signifies they’re chasing a bird which they might see as a threat to their young. This is known as mobbing since often a few small birds will gather together to chase off a predator but often it’s just a single small bird launching its attack. We often see the swallow, or sometimes the pair of them, flying at a passing sparrowhawk uttering a babble of angry notes at it till it has passed. In June as we walked up the road one of the swallows flew over us chattering in agitated fashion and next second the source of its agitation appeared, three juvenile peregrines coming in the opposite direction. Although they were probably too young and inexperienced to do any harm to the swallows chicks it wasn’t to know that as it launched a head on charge at them. You’d have to admire the swallows’ courage and I hope after its long migration back to southern Africa it’ll be back again next year.
  As far back as early July there were signs that our long spell of good weather seemed to be accelerating the seasonal changes. Serious newspapers in the UK were saying that autumn had already arrived even while the temperature was getting higher. Berries started appearing on trees weeks, if not months, before they normally would. Rowan trees are full of orange berries for over two months and brambles were bending over with the weight of blackberries while our berberis bush which usually incites an almost maniac frenzy in feeding blackbirds in early autumn has long ago been stripped of its dark berries. Blackcaps would be considered insect eaters during the summer months but we’ve already had a family of them moving through the garden eating blackcurrant and Leycesteria berries in July. It’s usually still humid days in August or September when the ants will take to the air but this year they were flying in vast numbers in July.

Swallow
Photo: Michael Ryan