Skipper Returns

The Large and Small Skippers are our most regular butterfly garden visitors during July and August. The Large Skippers are the first to emerge followed by the Small Skippers a few weeks later.

There are swathes of their larval food plant, Yorkshire Fog, on Baildon Moor on the other side of the garden wall and to be honest, in amongst our geraniums as we're a bit behind on our weeding.

I did see, and blip, a pair of Large Skippers when I was up in Newcastle a couple of weeks ago, but one of my annual blip cycles is to record the first one seen in our garden, or on the moor.

In 2011 the first we spotted was on July 2nd.

In 2012, the first was on July 5th.

Looking back at those entries it's also evident that two years ago I was just starting to find my way with identifying butterflies, but two years on, through a combination of blipping, iSpot and Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count I've become quite a confident recorder.

This year's butterflies are generally running a couple of weeks behind their usual emergence dates, but this Large Skipper seemed bang on schedule - enjoying the warm sun at 8 o'clock this morning. Hopefully the expected warmth and sunshine over the coming weekend will bring a few more species out, and help us escape the "June Gap".