Buddleia are well-known for their nectar rich flowers and their ability to attract lots of insects. In fact, they are often know as the ‘butterfly bush’. I have 4 different species in my garden and in a the warm sunshine yesterday I had over 20 butterflies on one of mine… a record this year when I have hardly seen any butterflies in the garden. I rushed in to grab the camera, as I had seen commas, small tortoiseshells, a single red admiral and large white and lots of meadow browns. Of course, when I returned, armed with my macro lens, it was only the meadow browns about… but lots of them!
I snapped away and managed a few shots of these on the buddleia and another plants around the garden…
I also had a wander up the bridle path opposite my house to take a look in the field, as last week insect numbers were picking up. Sadly the field has been cut for hay and all my lovely cinnebar caterpillar son the abundant ragwort were gone… along with all the butterflies that were beginning to frequent this habitat. I did find a small thistle-type plant on the fringes of the field which was covered in bees though. I will have to go back and collect the seeds from this plant in a few weeks as I would like it to come up in the garden… a bee magnet! There were lots of different species on bumble bee on it and I got a couple of shots…. a red-tailed bumble bee, carder and then honey bees as well… probably from the hives opposite my garden – all enjoying the nectar rush.
These were all shot with the Sigma 105mm macro lens, hand-held.