The Big Butterfly Count has started!

"May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun, and find your shoulder to light on, to bring you luck, happiness and riches, today, tomorrow and beyond." - Irish blessing

The annual Big Butterfly Count has started!

The Big Butterfly Count is a UK-wide citizen science survey aimed at helping us assess the health of our environment simply by counting the amount and type of butterflies (and some day-flying moths) we see.

Butterfly Conservation is warning that time is running out to save some of Britain’s best-loved insects with the latest Red List assessment of butterflies published in May 2022 revealing a 26% increase in the number of species threatened with extinction.

Using data gathered by volunteers through the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme and Butterflies for the New Millennium recording scheme, scientists from Butterfly Conservation have put together the new Red List which assesses all the butterfly species that have bred regularly in Great Britain against the rigorous criteria of extinction risk set out by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Of the 62 species assessed, 4 are extinct in Britain with 24 (41% of the remaining species) classed as “Threatened” (8 “Endangered”, 16 “Vulnerable”) and a further 5 (9%) classed as “Near Threatened”.

This year's Big Butterfly Count will run from the 15th July to the 7th August.

More information on how to participate can be found here .... Big Butterfly Count

I took part in the Big Butterfly Count last year and I will do so again this year by submitting records from my local patch sites around St. Nicholas Church and at Noak Bridge Nature Reserve.

Slava Ukraini! …. Glory to Ukraine!

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Stay safe, stay well, stay strong, stay connected with nature