Absence of butterflies attributable to hedgerow cutting

Last week, I wrote about butterflies, their notable absence this year, and expressed the hope that by the time you read the column, on the August bank holiday weekend, favourable winds might have brought in the migrant red admirals and painted ladys, while a rise in temperature might have woken up or led to a hatch of small tortoiseshells and other species.

Not so. Unfortunately. On the glorious Sunday, the only decent day, we walked and drove around the beautiful villages of Glandore and Union Hall in West Cork (crammed with traffic, everybody ‘out for the day’ to enjoy a lengthy spell of sunshine, unique this summer) and saw three colourful butterflies in all, and three whites.

The best viewing I got was of a male gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus), an orange-brown butterfly, smaller than the (usually common) tortoiseshell, with distinctive black spots near the tip of the forewing. Gatekeepers obligingly roost with wings wide open on flowers and shrubs in hedgerows, laying their eggs on grasses in midsummer.