Britain may have a spectacular new butterfly: dozens of continental swallowtails have been spotted along the south coast after being filmed emerging from pupae in gardens and allotments for the first time. Unprecedented footage, which will be broadcast on Springwatch tonight, shows the first British generation of this charismatic, colourful butterfly hatching out in an […]
The Lulworth skipper is the only British butterfly with a geographically accurate name – it is found flying around Lulworth cove in Dorset and along a small section of the south coast. It is one of our rarest butterflies, and my 1980s field guide says it emerges in July. Last year it was first seen […]
An army of exotic migrant moths has invaded Britain under the cover of darkness, encouraged north by the gentle southerly breezes and balmy evenings of an Indian summer. The unprecedented autumn influx of rare insects includes the rosy underwing, the crimson speckled and the sinister death’s head hawkmoth, with another rare migrant moth, the Clifden […]
A dozen strong men to dig. A dozen good dogs wearing collars and bells to work underground. A large spade. Broad and narrow picks. Wood and iron shovels. A stout pair of long-handled tongs. Hessian sacks. Half a dozen rugs to lie on. Indian game fowls, hams and beef tongue to eat. Flagons of booze. […]
Puffin numbers in one of Britain’s best-known habitats have risen after the population fell under difficult conditions in previous years. A team of 11 National Trust rangers has carried out a full census of the puffins on the Farne Islands, something that happens only once every five years. There are now just under 40,000 pairs […]
“It’s like a living stained-glass window,” enthused the broadcaster Nick Baker, as a group of naturalists bowed down before a purple emperor swooping through the oak trees. Two teams of butterfly obsessives on Friday took to battered Land Rovers in a hair-raising race to woods, meadows, chalk downland and an industrial park to find as […]
The Azores high is seeing small tortoiseshells and meadow browns returning to gardens and the countryside in heartening numbers after butterflies suffered their worst year on record in 2012. People are being urged to help measure how these insects are bouncing back in the sunshine by joining the Big Butterfly Count, the world’s largest butterfly […]
It was, joked Matthew Oates, a “lunatic fringe” mission. Scouring the hedgerows for the caterpillar of a butterfly that has been extinct for more than half a century might not be most people’s idea of fun, but Oates, a National Trust naturalist, has spent 50 summers tracking down the most elusive British butterflies. I joined […]