Butterfly Counting

By Ken W.

Green Veined White butterfly (stock image)

If you walk regularly in the Caldy Nature Park you may well have noticed a bumper time for butterflies starting around the end of June continuing until the beginning of September. The number of white butterflies was especially striking in July and August, both Large Whites and Small Whites but also the lovely often overlooked rather more delicate Green-Veined Whites. Another butterfly that is easily missed is the Speckled Wood and it’s been a good year in the Nature Park for these too.

The results of this year’s citizen science Big Butterfly Count - you can see the findings on the Butterfly Conservation website - also indicate a better year, though they caution that that’s mainly because last year and the trend of recent years has been so bad.

Among the more colourful butterflies on our patch there have regularly been Red Admirals, and the Comma with its jagged wing edges. The heavy looking and sometimes aggressive Peacock has been around from time to time, also once or twice the Small Tortoiseshell that used to feature so regularly. The tiny Common and Holly Blues put in appearances, as also the browns, the Meadow Brown and the really dark brown Ringlet. At the beginning of the butterfly year now drawing to an end, you might have seen the lovely yellow Brimstone, and almost certainly the small but striking Orange Tip, in both cases these being the male of the otherwise white species.

Ringlet butterfly (stock image)

It’s perfectly possible to see a butterfly at any time but the counting season for me is almost over. We record butterfly sightings and send them in to Butterfly Conservation each week from April to September following the same slow 40 minute circuit at a time when the sun is out. At least this year with the increased sunshine hours it hasn’t felt like the dispiriting challenge of some recent summers - for me as for the butterflies!