Bright September sunshine lured me out to walk in a Sidcup field full of possibilities for birds and insects.

The caw-caw of an unseen carrion crow reverberated around as I entered a field pockmarked with dandelions, some waving yellow faces towards the sun while others were losing wispy, white tendrils to a stiff breeze.

I could hear the soft contact calls of blackbirds feeding greedily on blackberries in the field-edge hedge and the raucous blast of unsubtle ring-necked parakeets as they soared over.

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White butterflies zoomed around the dandelions before another, darker, type caught my eye. Its flight was much weaker than the whites.

This butterfly seemed to be struggling to stay aloft on failing wings. As I approached it flopped down to rest on a thistle giving me time to identify it as a painted lady, the first I had seen this year. It really was a sorry specimen no collector would want pinned up on the wall.

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Small Tortoiseshell by Jim Butler

The rich orange, black and rosy-pink colours of a newly emerged painted lady had faded to such an extent the wings were totally transparent. Sadly I reflected that painted ladies die out late each autumn and depend totally on an immigrant population to regenerate every year.

Painted ladies arrive in Britain from Europe in late April, occasionally in huge numbers such as in 1996 when several millions were estimated to have invaded. Every garden had a dozen or so and painted ladies could be seen at unlikely spots like railway stations, school playing fields and car parks.

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Wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation say this year has been a “painted lady year” with the number recorded 30 times greater than in 2018. Peacock butterflies and small tortoiseshells also enjoyed a significant spike in numbers recorded during the three-week annual Big Butterfly Count.

There’s still time to see painted ladies. They can be found until late October so settle down and wait near a patch of their favourite thistles. September sunshine also lured red admiral and holly blue butterflies to my garden while a few clouded yellows at a Kent estuary brought my butterfly species year count to 30.