People of a certain age will remember when a day’s or night’s drive in the summer months would leave your car’s windscreen and numberplate covered with dead insects, but not these days; evidence gathered from numberplates indicates a 78% drop in insect numbers over the last 20 years. This decline is perhaps most noticeable in butterflies and moths, and the cold damp start to this year has done nothing to help them recover.
A lot of effort is being made by conservation bodies to reverse this decline, and good solid data on population numbers is vital to understand what is truly happening. Butterfly Conservation are running their annual Big Butterfly Count again this year, and want our help.
All you have to do is find a place to watch for butterflies and moths for fifteen minutes, count what you see and submit your results – simple! The Count runs until Sunday 4th August, so please take part if it’s not too late. All you need to know can be found at https://bigbutterflycount.butterfly-conservation.org/.
One butterfly you might see is one of the Skippers; of the eight UK species locally at this time we see Large, Small and Essex. Generally found in grassland, they are all small fast-flying butterflies, with brown-marked golden wings which, when perched, they hold in an angled position as if they are about to take off, a feature that distinguishes them from our other butterfly species.
So, go out and look for butterflies and help build our understanding of them so we can ensure they keep brightening our countryside.
For information, news and views on local wildlife, follow NWT’s South Notts Local Group on Facebook, or contact [email protected]