Butterflies count!
Have you been out for the Big Butterfly Count this year?
Heath Hands’ volunteers have been busy counting the butterflies on Hampstead Heath’s newly planted wildflower meadows. Not only is it a fun and free activity to do with the kids over the summer holidays (the count runs till 4th August), but by taking part you’ll be contributing essential scientific information: the data gathered in this nationwide survey will help scientists understand how well our butterflies are faring and assess the health of our environment and the effects of climate change to boot!
Heath Hands volunteers do the Big Butterfly Count. Photo: Conrad Blakemore
It may sound surprising, but counting butterflies is a bit like taking nature’s pulse. Because butterflies and moths (a group of insects known as Lepidoptera) have short life cycles, they react quickly to environmental changes. Their limited dispersal ability, caterpillar foodplant specialisation and close reliance on the weather and climate makes them excellent ‘indicator species’ for the health of our ecosystems, and therefore other species and habitats too.
Launched by Butterfly Conservation in 2010 as a nationwide citizen science survey, the charity now says the Big Butterfly Count is the largest butterfly survey in the world, which is good news for our climate, because monitoring butterflies also helps us to understand how climate change is affecting the distribution of different species, many of which are moving further northward to cope with a warming climate.
UK Red admiral butterfly numbers increased three-fold last year.
For example, migratory red admiral (Vanessa atalanta) butterflies are now classed as a resident species in the UK because they are successfully hibernating and surviving British winters, which likely accounts for their three-fold increase in number last year. Similarly, Londoners were treated to an influx of exotic-looking Jersey tiger moths (Euplagia quadripunctaria) last year, where previously they would only have been seen in the Channel Islands and south-west England.
Jersey tiger moths move in to London.
Here on Hampstead Heath, City of London rangers have been monitoring butterflies since 1977 as part of a much larger monitoring scheme called the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS). This type of monitoring is rather more involved than the Big Butterfly Count, as it requires volunteers to walk the same route (known as a transect) once a week from the beginning of April to the end of September.
Five years ago, Heath Hands set up a second butterfly transect on the Heath, primarily to demonstrate how the newly planted habitats surrounding the Highgate chain of ponds have improved biodiversity (our butterfly and dragonfly monitoring data show they most certainly have!). And last year, a third transect was ‘revived’ on the Kenwood Estate in collaboration with our friends at the London Natural History Society and English Heritage, following a number of years’ monitoring inactivity.
In having three active butterfly transects encompassing a range of the Heath’s rich and diverse habitats, the Heath’s Ecologist is able get a clearer picture of the health of the Heath’s habitats, which in turn helps to inform sympathetic conservation management and the creation of new habitats on Hampstead Heath. Want to find out more? You can find our latest monitoring report on butterflies (and other species) on our ecology page.
Who knew counting butterflies could count for so much?
To find out how you can get involved with the Big Butterfly Count, click here.
If you’d like to support the conservation work of Heath Hands, click here.
