How to Become a Minor Deity

Still recovering from our older son George's 18th I spent some down time in the garden today looking for butterflies. Appropriately enough, as next week is Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count, sponsored by Marks and Spencer. I counted 6 species in half an hour loitering around the herb garden - Common Blue, Large White, Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown, Small Copper, and Brimstone. Nothing unusual to get the hardened Lep excited, but really good news for me; when we moved here there were only Whites around, so we've done our bit to create good habitat for butterflies. I've also recently seen Six Spot Burnets and Large Skippers. In a very modest sort of way I feel like a kind of God; there's a lot you can do to build up a good population of colonial species like these. In the herb garden Oregano seemed to be a particular magnet for the Browns, and in the borders Veronicastrum for the Brimstones.These guys are a particular success, as I hadn't seen one around here at all until now. Why have they suddenly arrived? Because I planted a short stretch of Alder Buckthorn, their larval food plant, in a section of hedge. You can see how tasty it has proved. With butterflies it's not just the nectar plants you need - it's their whole habitat. When you get that right the effects are pretty much instantaneous.