Martin Brown wrote:
Hardly seen a butterfly at all this year despite having plenty of nectar
rich plants in flower now. House martins, swallows and bats are starving
to death. All in all it is really not a good summer...

There's a lovely red one that I keep seeing (or perhaps a family of them :-)
on the allotment. I've not seen one quite like it before.

Spotted my first caterpillars this week (one on an african violet! That's
a new one on me), but so far the brassicas are unscathed.