Britain’s butterflies enjoy bumper 2009
December 28, 2009
A National Trust study has shown that 2009 was a very good year for the U.K.’s butterfly population. A mild summer saw around one million Painted Lady butterflies make their annual trip up from the north of Africa. Experts were particularly excited to notice that this year, for the first time ever Painted Lady offspring were also making the trip back home to Africa where they will spend the winter months. In Gloucestershire the Duke of Burgundy butterfly was recorded as having a second batch of offspring during August. This has only started happening in the county over the past five years. The Purple Emperor butterfly was also one of the year’s winners having its best year since 1983.
Not so welcome was a thriving wasp population who coped extremely well with the good spring and summer weather. Unfortunately the cold winter was not so good for the country’s daddy long legs population. According to the National Trust the sound of the cuckoo is less likely to be heard as its population has been on the wane for the past fifteen years. During that time cuckoo populations have dropped by around forty percent and it is now on the U.K.’s Red List which charts the country’s most vulnerable fifty-two species. However spokesman for the National Trust, Matthew Oates has pointed out that although there have been some species that have not done so well a return to more traditional weather over the past year has actually meant that some species may have been saved.
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