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 […]
Tag: Patrick Barkham
Butterfly obsessives go on the trail of the elusive purple emperor
“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 […]
Warm summer helps butterflies bounce back in the UK
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 […]
On the trail of the large tortoiseshell, the UK’s most elusive 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 […]