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The Big Butterfly Count

The Big Butte rfl Friday 17th July to Sunday 9th August

During Lockdown while trying to engage my children in schoolwork I discovered that there is a society called Butterfly Conservation. They have organised a nationwide butterfly count every year since 2010. Butterflies are good indicators of the health of our environment because they react very quickly to change in their surroundings. This makes them excellent biodiversity indicators. The survey counts butterflies and day-flying moths from across the UK, which assists in identifying trends in species. This helps Butterfly Conservation plan how to protect butterflies and understand the effect of climate change.

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To take part you need to sit in your garden, a park, a wood or forest, or your school field for 15 minutes on a bright sunny day and simply count the butterflies are at the adult stage of their lifecycle, and hopefully there is more sunshine, so they are more likely to be seen. Count the maximum number of each species that you can see from your vantage point at a single time. So if you see three Peacock butterflies on the same bush at the same time record it as 3, but if you only see one on a bush at a time then record it as 1, even if you saw one on several occasions. This is so that you don’t count the same butterfly more than once. You can also count while on a walk. Simply add up the number of each butterfly species that you see during the 15 minutes. You can submit separate records for different dates at

you see. July and August are when most butterflies the same place, and for different places that you visit during the counting period. Even if you don’t see any butterflies or moths your count is still useful. For more information visit www.bigbutterflycount.org Download identification apps for Android or IOS – search for Big Butterfly Count. Sarah Davey

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