Butterfly Blues

A rare sight on the islands; Common Blue Butterfly (Ciaran Hatsell)

Common Blue discovered on Brownsman (Ciaran Hatsell)

Migrant butterflies...amazing to see over the sea (Ciaran Hatsell)



Small Copper Butterfly (Anne Wilson)

Saturday 21st September comments: Despite some strong westerly winds earlier in the week, its been another generally settled spell of weather. Today brought some glorious conditions, with very little wind and sunshine, which brought back memories of our stunning summer.

This years good summer was well received by all, from staff to visitors, to our breeding seabirds and the various wildlife of the islands including our Butterflies. It was arguably one of our best summers for a long time for Butterflies which brought noticeable highlights including Common Blue and Small Copper amongst others.

Numbers of common butterflies appeared to be up and breeding has been very successful (judging by the number of caterpillars we've found on the islands!). Let's hope this fine weather continues into the autumn although for the birders in the team, I won't begrudge them a bit some easterly winds...its September after all and anything can happen.