How are butterflies doing on our farms so far this year?

Our Lark Rise Conservation officer Vince Lea reports. 

2024 was a disastrous year for butterflies, with long spells of wet weather, particularly in the spring, and generally cloudy conditions and frequent rainfall making it hard for adult butterflies to fly. 

These vital pollinators are dependent on warmth and sunshine to raise their body temperature sufficiently to fly, as their broad wings get weighed down by water if it is raining. 

It was the worst year on record for many species individually. We therefore do not expect 2025 to be great, because fewer butterflies flying in the previous year means opportunities to mate and lay eggs were reduced, and there sadly won’t be many caterpillars turning into butterflies this year. 

But a good start for butterflies for 2025 

However, 2025 started well for butterflies, with long spells of warm sunny weather from March through to May, enabling whatever butterflies had survived the winter as hibernators to emerge early and complete their lifecycle – Small Tortoiseshell, Comma, Peacock and Brimstone are all in this group.  

Many came out before the start of the official counting period, which begins on April 1st, a date set up in 1975 when population monitoring of butterflies began using a standardised transect recording system.  

Peacock, in particular, did well with counts of up to 20 per hour. Once these adults have laid eggs, they soon die and so it won’t be until their offspring emerge that we will know how well they are doing, but it is good to report that some adult small tortoiseshells have already been seen from the summer generation of this species, and some large clumps of peacock caterpillars have been spotted on nettles at Lark Rise Farm in Cambridgeshire. 

The second group of butterflies to emerge are the ones that spend their winter as pupae (chrysalis) and these were also very early to appear, with green-veined, small and large whites in early April, soon followed by orange tip, holly blue and speckled wood. All were in low numbers but not worryingly low.  

An exciting spot 

A very exciting addition to the Lark Rise butterfly list was made on 11th April when a green hairstreak appeared briefly around one of the hedges. This has never been recorded before in the 27 years of recording, making it the 30th species on the farm list. It’s likely to be a wandering individual from a colony elsewhere but whether the first of a population that might get established or just a chance encounter with a passing individual, only time will tell! 

The next group to emerge spend their winter as caterpillars, and small heath is the first of this group to be seen; it is always scarce at Lark Rise but has been seen. Pleasingly, we have also recorded a couple of small coppers, never common at Lark Rise and only a couple were seen all year in 2024 so this may be a good sign that it can reproduce and repopulate – both these species have multiple generations during the year, so a few early in the spring can potentially lead to many by the autumn if conditions are favourable.  

By mid-May up to a dozen species were recorded on a single transect visit, with all the above plus brown argus and common blue seen on one visit.  

These latter two were badly affected in 2024 as their flight times coincided with the worst weather, and only very small numbers have been seen so far in 2025. The skippers are the last of this group to emerge and so far just a few large skippers have been seen. It is too early to know how they will do but the lush grass growth from the wet weather in 2024 should suit their caterpillar development. 

Migrant butterflies 

One other category of butterflies are the migrants. These may not be able to survive British winter conditions at all (although more and more are starting to manage this as the climate warms) but can travel hundreds of miles to reach us.  

We have already recorded our first painted lady of 2025, after a complete blank in 2024, and there have been quite a few red admirals, so it may be that we get a boost to numbers from butterflies that have bred on the European mainland – or even North Africa, in the case of some painted ladies – and the long spell of warm sunny conditions has enabled them to fly north and reach our countryside. 

We are only just into the time when the most abundant groups of butterflies appear, the ones which overwinter as tiny caterpillars or eggs. The first meadow brown has been seen, but hopefully it is the first of many. July is the peak month for butterflies and many of these depend on good quality grassland to lay their eggs. We are hoping that the long spring drought has finally come to an end and there will be enough rain to reinvigorate the grass and support the next generation of the ‘browns’ and ‘skippers,’ which largely feed on grass leaves as caterpillars.  

One thing is for certain; the climate turmoil of recent years is making things extremely difficult for butterflies. Their short life cycle makes them very responsive to changes, and they are an excellent indicator of environmental conditions. 

Herefordshire Conservation Officer Ruth Moss reports on Awnells and Turnastone Court Farms. 

Overall, at Turnastone and Awnells, the number of different species encountered has been greater this year than for the same period in 2024. However, the abundance of changes for these species seems to be a mixed picture.  

This year is looking better for some species on the Herefordshire farms, like speckled wood which was recorded in low numbers on both farms last year.  

In April and May 2024 at Awnells Farm, there were only two records of speckled wood, compared to 13 so far this year (650% increase).  

The latest ten-year trend for speckled wood across England shows a 10 per cent decrease so the low numbers last year may somewhat be a reflection of this, although this was mostly due to the rainy weather coinciding with their flight period meaning fewer were recorded. 

Nationwide, green-veined white had their worst year on record in 2024 and on Awnells Farm the species was recorded in very low numbers too. So far in April and May, we have had more records of green-veined white than we did during last year’s entire survey period put together.  

Awnells Farm has shown low numbers of common blue so far, as seen at Lark Rise and Turnastone, although it is already better than this time last year and the same is seen for large skipper and holly blue. 

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