Please excuse yet another post about butterflies but in the sad butterfly world we now inhabit any good news merits celebration. For a start, we haven't seen a small tortoiseshell in the garden since early July - and then this one turned up yesterday, to be joined this morning by....
So our list of butterfly species seen in our garden today is large white, small white, red admiral, peacock, painted lady, small tortoiseshell and small copper. Seven species. Wow!
The Butterfly Conservation, Big Butterfly results were published today. They say:
ReplyDeleteBetween 18 July and 10 August, over 125,000 of you got involved in Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count and recorded an impressive 1.7 million butterflies and moths. Thank you!
With the sunniest spring and hottest summer ever recorded in the UK, the weather seemed favourable, however results show it was definitely not a bumper year for butterflies.
On average, participants recorded 10.3 butterflies during each 15-minute count. While a marked improvement on last summer’s record low of just 7, it is only broadly average by modern standards, and has done little to reverse longer-term declines.
The top five species for this year's count were:
Large white
1. Large White
Small white
2. Small White
Gatekeeper
3. Gatekeeper
Red Admiral
4. Red Admiral
Meadow Brown
5. Meadow Brown
The Large White, Small White and Jersey Tiger moth all recorded their best ever Big Butterfly Count result. In contrast, the Small Tortoiseshell, Holly Blue, Common Blue and Meadow Brown were all below average.