Big Butterfly Count
Partway through the Big Butterfly Count I downloaded the app as a way to identify butterflies, without realising that an active count was going on.
I took a look at the dates, realised it was an active survey and decided that contributing would be a great way to learn a bit more about butterflies. Armed with the app, this app, and this book, we learned enough to be able to contribute the following sightings:
- Gatekeeper: 25
- Small white: 3
- Brimstone: 2
- Speckled Wood: 3
- Comma: 1
- Meadow Brown: 2
We saw more butterflies than that, but if we couldn’t identify it with certainty, we didn’t submit it. And butterflies are speedy things so sometimes by the time I’d got an app open to compare it, it had fluttered off.
Most of our sightings were in St Leonard’s Forest, but I also got to contribute a couple of sightings from my garden, and from my trip to Borde Hill Garden last week.