Results of this year's Big Butterfly Count revealed - Butterfly Conservation
- Results of this year’s Big Butterfly Count revealed
- Gatekeeper takes top spot
- Good news for the blues, with increases for Common Blue and Holly Blue
- Garden favourite the Comma making a comeback
The general decline continues though, with fewer butterflies spotted overall
Butterfly Conservation has released data on the number of butterflies and some day-flying moths recorded across this UK during this year’s Big Butterfly Count, which ran from 15th July – 7th August.
The Gatekeeper, a species often found along hedgerows and woodland rides, as well as in gardens, in the southern half of Britain, was the most spotted butterfly during this year’s Big Butterfly Count. This is welcome news, as the Gatekeeper experienced its second worst Big Butterfly Count result in summer 2021, and it’s the first time since 2017 that this species has had the top spot overall.
It was good news for the blues as well – with both the Common Blue and the Holly Blue species faring well in the 2022 Big Butterfly Count. Having had their worst results in 2021, these species bounced back, with the numbers reported increasing by 154% for the Common Blue and 120% for the Holly Blue.
Another winner for the 2022 Count was the Comma, a popular species often found in gardens, that saw an increase of 95% compared with last year. The Comma has been making a slow comeback from its low point in the 1910s and expanding its range rapidly northwards.
An increase in range – a result of climate change – accounts for many of the sightings of these species in the north of the UK. The Holly Blue butterfly, for example, had only occasionally been recorded in Scotland prior to the 2000s, but after becoming firmly established in Edinburgh from 2006 and in Ayr from 2008 the species has subsequently spread across swathes of Scotland.
Overall, the trend for butterflies across the UK remains a declining one, with the results of the Big Butterfly Count 2022 showing an average of just under 9 butterflies seen per Count, which is once again an all-time low in the thirteen years since the citizen science project began.
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Posted On: 07/10/2022