Feed the butterflies

Bartosz was a beautiful swallowtail butterfly. He had black and yellow wings with delicate red and blue spots on his back.

It was a sunny morning, and Bartosz flew happily over the fields and the meadows. He flew over the stream and the bridge. He flew over the factories and the houses.

Wait! That’s not right!

Bartosz was confused: he must have taken a wrong turning. He was flying over gardens with trampolines and sheds.

Bartosz began to feel very tired. It was a long time since he’d had breakfast in the meadow. He flew lower and lower. He could see some children playing in a garden. They looked friendly. He landed on a big green plant to rest.

‘Wow! Look at this butterfly!’ said Nora. Everyone came to look. Bartosz flapped his wings but he was too tired to fly away.

‘It looks like it needs some food,’ said Annie.

Annie, Nora and Lance ran into the house to find out what butterflies eat. Annie came out with a bag of sugar. Nora carried a banana. Lance took off his sweaty socks and carried them at arm’s length.

‘Phew!’ everyone said, holding their noses.

Annie mixed some sugar into her glass of water. The sugar water would be a bit like the nectar that butterflies drink from flowers. Annie poured a little into the spoon and put it on the table.

Nora peeled the banana and put it next to the spoon. It had gone black in the fruit bowl and nobody wanted to eat it. Overripe fruit is sugary and can give butterflies an energy boost.

Lance put his socks on the table. He knew that butterflies need salts as well as sugars. A diet only made up of one thing isn’t as good as a diet made of lots of different things.

The three friends crept back the house and watched Bartosz.

He fluttered off the plant and onto the table. What a feast!

He sucked up some sugar water with his proboscis, which was like a straw. Instantly he felt energised.

He landed on the banana and tasted it through special pads in his feet. He nibbled at some of the squishy bits. Mmm!

But all this sweetness was getting a bit sickly. What about the salt?

Bartosz spotted the socks. Sweating leaves salts behind on our skin, and Lance’s sweat had rubbed onto the socks. To a butterfly it tasted delicious!

‘The butterfly likes all the food we put out for him,’ said Nora. ‘But his favourite is definitely Lance’s smelly socks!’

By Jess Connett

• A butterfly starts its life as an egg, then it becomes a caterpillar, and finally it turns into a colourful butterfly.
• Butterflies live in lots of places all over the world. The biggest butterfly in the world is over 25cm from the tip of one wing to the tip of their other wing! Show everyone roughly how big this is. How would they feel if they saw a butterfly that big in the park?
• In the UK, butterflies love to live in meadows or gardens that have lots of flowers.
• People sometimes think that butterflies have two wings, but they actually have four wings.
• Butterflies don’t actually eat their food; they just drink it. They drink nectar (a sugary liquid) from plants.
• Butterflies help move pollen from one plant to another plant of the same type. Pollen is a very fine powder that plants make. When butterflies are busy drinking nectar from the plants, pollen gets stuck to their legs. When they go to the next plant, some pollen falls off onto that plant. Plants use this pollen to make seeds or fruit, and then more plants can grow.
• Butterflies taste with their feet! When they land on something, they can tell if it’s good to eat or not. Would anyone like to be able to taste with their feet?
• There are lots of different types of butterflies; different types are different colours and have different patterns. The Wildlife Trusts have some pictures and information about the different types of butterflies you might see in the UK. The Woodland Trust has made a great butterfly spotter sheet.