It’s getting towards late summer in England,and the small tortoiseshell butterflies have arrived in our garden, at much the same time as they did last year. One sunny morning, the first after a period of rain, there were an incredible 12 basking on our awning and roof, probably newly hatched. They really are rather pretty butterflies.

The feeding proboscis is particularly evident in the following.

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Click to see more detail.

Populations are said to be declining, possibly related to habitat loss, pesticides, global warming…

I saw plenty of these small tortoiseshell butterflies around the hedgerows during a recent walk over local farmland. What an amazingly hairy body they have!

The plentiful insects show just how important hedgerows are for wildlife diversity in the otherwise rather arid intensively farmed environment.