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| COMMON BLUE |
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Time – About one hour depending on the age of the children and the site available.
Application – A sunny nettle patch or suitable grassland is an ideal place to witness the different stages of the butterfly life cycle. Butterflies are easy insects for children to spot and their exotic beauty makes them fascinating to study.
Resources – A good field guide to butterflies, notebooks, pencils
Activity – Choose a warm, summer day for this activity as butterflies tend not to fly when it is raining or cool. Go for a walk through a grassland, meadow or along a riverbank – try to find a patch of nettles as this is a good place to find butterflies. The children could make a note of how many butterflies they see and could try to identify them or at least fit them into the correct group. They could also record how many of each type they see. If there are more than eight kinds of butterfly on the walk, then it means that the site is particularly good for butterflies.
A nettle patch is a breeding site for various butterflies and is a safe haven for caterpillars as most grazing animals avoid them. Adult butterflies like to bask on the sun drenched leaves and lay their eggs on tender young leaves or the undersides of leaves. Turn leaves over and see if you can spot eggs from more than one species. Look for caterpillars – are they on the young juicy leaves or the older tough ones? How many different types are there?
Risk Assessment – Care should be taken when looking in nettle patches and children should not touch leaves with their bare skin. Children should be told not to attempt to catch butterflies in their hands as they can be easily damaged
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