Hummingbird Hawkmoth: This day flying moth is quite unmistakeable. It has a smart grey brown body with white markings along the sides and orange hind wings. With a 5cm wingspan and its continually whirring wings it makes a characteristic ‘hum’. Part of its scientific name is Macroglossum which recognises that it has a very […]
The ‘Eat out to help out’ is available at the Westbury Inn from tomorrow – Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday each week through August. In order to take advantage of what is available Andy is not producing a menu to pre-order from. What is on offer is 1) a table d’hôte 3 course meal based on […]
2020.7.27 Eat out to help out offer
Small Copper: This handsome, brightly copper-coloured, small butterfly lives up to its name. It is about the same size as a common blue. It is widely distributed and found in a great variety of habitats across the wider countryside, where its chief food plant – common sorrel grows. Woodland rides, hedgerows, arable set aside, parks, […]
Chalkhill Blue: This elegant butterfly, somewhat larger than the common blue, is confined, as its name suggests, to unfertilised chalk and limestone short grasslands. Ideally, and perhaps nearly essentially, rabbit grazing to create this short sward height is important. Certainly, scrubbing up of such habitats, as rabbit numbers have reduced, is connected to reduction in […]
There are 4 hairstreaks that have been seen in the Parish of Westbury, but they are all rare and, maybe, particularly hard to notice as well. Green hairstreaks are over, Purple and White-letter hairstreaks are flying now and Brown Hairstreaks fly from mid-August into September. Green Hairstreak: The butterfly overwinters as a pupa, unlike the […]
Comma: This is really a woodland butterfly that has had times in the past when it became quite rare. However, since the 1960s it has increased dramatically in numbers and has spread northwards reaching Scotland in 2000. It is now a familiar butterfly of woodland edges, hedgerows and gardens. The butterfly is named for […]
Below are links to the data for the months March to June inclusive. July and August will be added as we get there. The data for March to May have been posted earlier but you would have to chase about to make comparisons between months. There is a separate file of Photo-voltaic generation totals for […]
Ringlet: This is a butterfly of the wider countryside whose caterpillars depend on the tall grasses of sheltered and damper places like hedgerows, field margins and woodland rides. It is one of the British butterflies whose numbers have been increasing and whose distribution has been expanding over the last 30 years. It is suggested […]
These two skippers will be flying for the next few weeks and provide a real challenge to distinguish between them. The only feature that is clear is the colour of the underside of the ends of the antennae! Needless to say they rarely pose to suit you as the observer. If you can get a […]
