Hey friends! 

This week I’ve got a super special post for you, I’m really very excited about this one!!

But first lets go back to the glorious sunshine filled days of July 2025…

Last summer I met a whole bunch of Wall butterflies for the very first time, mainly while walking around the village – they seemed to have a colony in the old no longer used and derelict churchyard, but I wasn’t expecting to ever see one of these butterflies in my very own garden.

I always assumed any small-ish orange and brown butterfly in the garden was probably Meadow Brown or Gatekeeper so I wasn’t really chasing every single one I saw…big mistake when I realised my garden of wildflowers was attracting a slightly-rare butterfly I was over the moon.

Wall (Lasiommata megera) is similar in size (about 4.5cm) and colour to Gatekeeper, but is so much more patterned and I think looks more like a small fritillary butterfly. They like to bask in the sunshine on you guessed it walls.

They are beautiful.

The most exciting thing is that Wall are considered to be scarce, Butterfly Conservation list them a high priority for conservation and they are classes as ‘widespread but rapidly declining’ which is sad.

I was lying in my hammock on a lazy afternoon when one of them landed on a grassless patch of the dry stone wall at the bottom of the garden and I sat and watched her for ages – that was enough for me, just knowing that a type of butterfly that’s considered to be a little bit rare actually found my garden!

However, I never imagined that this spring I would find a pupa of one of these creatures, back at the beginning of April I decided to tidy up the grass that always seems to take over pots that are left unattended…imagine my surprise when I found this pupa!

Mind blown!

You know me enough by now realise that when I find eggs/caterpillars in the garden then I’m probably going to raise them safely in my butterfly house, but I was a good girl and instead of disturbing this one I simply deployed my Outdoor caterpillar protector which is an old bird cage that I removed the bottom from and covered it with a net curtain – it works just like a plant cloche but the little holes in the netting allow air to circulate.

Just to point out my usual butterfly raising disclaimer, I’m only rescuing the ones I can identify as eggs as some caterpillars can be tricky to raise or are protected species. If I don’t trust that I can look after them properly and give them the right food plant/proper environment then my plan is always to just leave them alone.

Obviously the grass didn’t get pulled up . I did my very best not to interfere and just obsessively checked on it every day. Eventually the pupa began to go see through and I could see the tiny wing patterns through the case. I’m always amazed by how butterflies and moths actually fit into their pupa cases, it seems like such a squeeze!

This may be my best pupa photo ever.

And one morning when I went to check on her she had emerged! I very carefully moved her to an orange slice that was sitting on the arm of one of my garden chairs (I like to put orange slices out for the bees in spring) and let her feed before she flew away.

Now she is out there living life and hopefully will come back and lay eggs in the garden and I can help this species as much as possible.

So that’s pretty much the end of this not-quiet-a-butterfly-tale butterfly tale, I’m beyond thrilled to not only have seen these butterflies but to also know that my wild garden is working!

As always thank you so much for reading this post and I really hope you have a great week!