A few days ago I went for a walk up my hill. There were butterflies and bees visiting the wildflowers. The caterpillars were doing nicely. I found plenty of tortoiseshell butterfly caterpillars on the nettles. It was exciting to find cinnabar moth caterpillars on the ragwort.
I took photos.
The next day I came back and found that a man with a tractor was mowing the verge. The caterpillars and wild flowers were macerated leaving an ugly brown mess.
If we want birds, butterflies and bees we have to look after them!
This unnecessary mowing destroyed communities of butterflies and wild flowers.
The birds need the insects and seeds.
WHY???????
I took photos of the decimated verges. You can see the two foot high verges full of wild flowers and caterpillars. You can see the result after mowing.
