Croeso pawb,
Summer 2025 just keeps on giving, my feeling is that there has been something of a bounce back from the recent run of poor springs and summers, especially when looking at numbers of some species of butterflies and bees.
In the past week I have been mooching about the nature reserves and country parks and have been delighted with the numbers of butterflies and bees seen.
At Pembrey Burrows I did a circular transect over the middle saltmarsh, taking in the swathes of Sea Lavender, it was only around 500m in total, however I counted the following: Common Blue 15, Meadow Brown 8, Large White 4, Small White 5, Small Heath 2 and Clouded Yellow ♂ 1.
Clouded Yellow, Colias croceus , image Butterfly Conservation
Feeling suitable impressed I then did another circular transect of around 300m on an area of recovering embryonic dunes nearer to "The Nose" Common Blue 13, Meadow Brown 4, Small White 34, Small Blue 3
I was really pleased with the counts but they paled into insignificance when I "popped in" to look at an area we are trying to recreate a wet area, a dune slack.
Growing in the slack is an area about 20sqm of Water Mint, Mentha aquatica, I was stunned by what greeted me, there were over 200 butterflies in and around the mint with at least a further 100 flitting over other adjacent areas of mint and a few Purple Loosestrife, Lythrum salicaria.
Without professional photographic equipment any photograph would not do the scene any justice.
A rough estimate of species recorded would be, Common Blue 140, Meadow Brown 55, Small White 45, Gatekeeper 20, Small Blue 5, Small Heath 4, Clouded Yellow 3 ♂ and 1 ♀, Red Admiral 1
Even more interestingly the ♀ Clouded Yellow was very pale, and likely to be the form helice,
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| Clouded Yellow ♀, ssp Colias croeus, f helice, image UK Butterflies |
