A butterfly encounter ...



A green veined white  .

  This morning  I found a green veined white sitting on a bird feeder , not the safest place for it to be ,  so I moved it to the wild flower patch after taking a couple of photos . The appearance of this  butterfly takes the garden list up to about 16 species , about a quarter of the number of the British  total .  Catering for butterflies is usually easy :  provide them with food  from nectar bearing flowers such as sedum , ox eye daisy and knapweed  and also give them the food plants of their caterpillars , which is less easy for some gardeners to bear ! Announce a ban on pesticides and you have given them all they need . A good sized garden , well stocked with native plants could well attract between 15-25 species over a 2 year period . 
    The  wildflower patch , along with plenty of nectar plants has made seeing these flying jewels a regular pleasure in our patch .
    
                

             

Time to take control

Every one of us is living through an age of  paradox ,  of discovery and desturction  We have forced most life out of our formely  green and pleasent land with an battery of chemicals , poor land use and destructive  agricultral and forestry practice . Hedges grubbed out  , ponds filled in and the whole place kept so horribly  , so  unaturaly  tidy .
 A budding sherlock holmes won't need his magnifiying glass to see why our wildlife is in crisis , you can see why from the car window . We have created a monocrome , a green desert where there used to be a network of small habitats linked together keeping things ecologicaly stable .
  So what has happened to the animals , birds and insects that once inhabited these places ? Some have gone extincted  , whether localy or nationaly , such as the greater mouse eared bat , large blue butterfly and red backed shrike . Others have been forced into the wild and remote corners of britain , such as golden eagles , polecats and pine martens .  Yet others still have taken advantage of the fastest growing habitat in our small and crowded islands : suburbia  . The  concrete maze we live in  is also the biggest collection of privately owned ''eastates '' in the whole of britain . The varitey of plant life is enough to rival the most ubsurdly hot tropical rainforest and the furry and feathered countryside regfugees have arrived in force .
   Almost every species of non specialist bird has been spotted in gardens , and a good few raritys as well .   Mammals ranging from long eared bats to badgers have all made appearences in the urban jungle and can often survive at far higher population density  than anywhere  in the countryside .
  And with a bit of work with a spade or a saw , we can encourage almost anything onto our patch , however small or insigificant it may seem . You see , why bother feed the birds ? Apart from seeing birds up close , it really does make a  difference , in ensuring that many of our  species survive the winter and breed successfully    . Why dig a pond ? It probably wont lure passing ospereys or save the water- rail , even if they are your favorite birds , neither will it be inhabited by great crested newts or brown trout    , but it makes a difference  to your area  and that is what really matters . Anyway , frogs and pond skaters will love it .  
          As Chris Packam says in his book ''Back Garden Nature Reserve '' , we are all the wardens of our own pesonal nature reserves , so get out there and see what you can do .


        This blog aims to show what I get up to and more importatly , what I see in my own garden in terms of wildlife .
           I hope it brings interest to anybody who reads it and they might be fired up to do somthing in their own patch .
                                  Setho