Butterfly Conservation

Count is not great news, a report by Julie Curry.

The results of Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count are in and show that 2026 was a very good summer for butterflies.

However, the charity fears the real cost of the summer's dry weather may not be felt until next year when drought-stressed caterpillars should be emerging as adults.

Professor Richard Fox, Butterfly Conservation Science Chief, said, This has been one of the hottest, driest summers on record.

The figures certainly suggest that was good news for many of the widespread butterfly species monitored by the count.

In fact, it was the second best year in the 16-year history of the Big Butterfly Count.

The large white was in second place with 4,679, followed by the red admiral on 4,000, the peacock on 3,887 and the green veined white on 2,618.

This year, many of the plants that caterpillars depend on had withered or died before caterpillars had finished feeding on them and the charity fears the impact on populations will become fully apparent in 2027.

Uh, this was quite a big headline.

So I think last year, um, was when the Butterfly Conservation Trust, uh, put out their State of Butterfly Report, and I... 2024 was a particularly bad year, and I think last year was when they published the results, and it made headlines about how much of the UK's populations were in decline.

Uh, 2025 was actually a much better year for them, so it always goes up and down.

Yeah.

Um-

Yeah, I, I've been reading good stuff about the fact that it's been a very good year for butterflies.

It, it was-- I think I watched a video, and it probably was by the Butterfly Conservation Trust, about the Big Butterfly Count, and the fact that it's a very- Uh, weather-dependent activity.

And so sometimes the warmer summers get better numbers because people are more likely to go and do it-

Um, if you see a load of butterflies in your garden, do a butterfly count.

Send it into, um, Butterfly Conservation.

If you do, um, a moth trap, you can send in your, send in your records to your county recorder.

If you're helping in that aspect of just growing databases of what you're seeing, um, that is another way, if you're not able to physically get to somewhere like a main reserve, just doing the records from your garden, putting your garden on the map, and saying, "This is what I have in my area.