Butterfly Numbers Boosted By Hot Summer

It’s probably something that most of us would guess might be a by product of a hot summer, but has now been officially confirmed by a nationwide survey.

Butterflies bounce back during heatwave

It appears that Britain’s butterfly numbers have increased as a result of scorching times just gone by, as revealed by data that has just been made public from the popular annual Big Butterfly Count. A record 46,000 participants took part, and between them their sterling efforts resulted in the best part of 830,000 insects being spotted.

These figures have been accompanied by a sigh of relief from conservationists, who are still twitchy after the washout summer of 2012.

Organised by the charity Butterfly Conservation, the survey invited the public to count how many of 21 common species they can see in a 15 minute period and ran from 20 July to 11 August. Both butterflies and day flying moths benefited from perfect conditions.

"Put simply, butterflies are cold-blooded creatures that rely on the warmth of the sun in order to be active," said Butterfly Conservation's survey manager Richard Fox. "The hot summer this year meant that some butterfly species, which were in their early life cycle stages when the heatwave began were able to capitalise on it giving rise to high numbers of adults during the count in late July and early August."

The small white, the large white and the peacock led the way, while sightings of small tortoiseshells and peacocks rose by a staggering 388% and 3,500% respectively on 2012 figures. The warm weather also saw an increase in the number of visitors from the Continent including the clouded yellow, painted lady and silver Y moth. Only four species had decreased sightings: the ringlet, marbled white, meadow brown and six-spot burnet moth.

Mr Fox commented that the life cycles of these butterflies could offer an explanation for their low numbers. "Each of those four species have a single generation each year, so the meadow brown, ringlet and marbled white butterflies and six-spot burnet moths that were counted this summer were the direct offspring of the ones that were counted last summer," he said.

"Although the numbers of these 'parents' were high last year, their breeding success may have been poor because of the bad weather. Although conservationists are positive about the survey results this year they warn that "the weather will not solve the problem for us".

"UK butterflies are in long-term decline. Long-term studies going back to the 1970s show that three quarters of UK butterfly species have declined in range and many have also decreased in abundance," said Mr Fox. "The only way that we will be able to halt and reverse the long-term declines of these beautiful creatures is by redressing the damage that has been done to wildlife habitats across the UK landscape."

                                         http://www.bigbutterflycount.org/2013mainresults