Checklist for Butterfly Walkers

F	Indicators and Effects	Speed mph (kn)
1	Slight smoke drift	1 - 3
2	Wind felt on face leaves rustle	4 - 7
3	Leaves and twigs in slight motion	8 - 12
4	Dust raised; small branches move	13 - 18
5	Small trees in leaf begin to sway	19 - 24
6	Large branches move telephone wires whistle	25 - 31

WALK TECHNIQUES:

Do not record butterflies more than 5 metres ahead, behind or on either side of you. Keep strictly to the agreed walk route. Try not to count the same individual twice. If you have to go back to identify a species, do not start recording again until you return to the point where you turned back.

END OF THE WALK:

Add up and fill in the totals for each Section and for the whole walk. Make sure all figures are clear and dots and dashes are overwritten clearly with the numerical total. Check you have filled in any additional data on ovipositing, nectar etc on the back. Send in your record sheets by the 2nd week in October but preferably as soon as you have completed a walk. Please find a replacement walker or ring the organiser if you find you cannot do your walk.

COUNTRY CODE:

Many of the walks are not on public footpaths and it is only with the owner's permission that we are allowed to carry out the monitoring of the butterflies. It is therefore doubly important to observe the Country Code, keep your dogs under control, shut any gates and not leave any litter.

FILLING IN THE BUTTERFLY FORM:

Filling in this form is quite straightforward. Ignore the small boxes numbered 1 to 32, Shown is an example of a filled-in form. Fill in your Name, Walk Site, Date and Week Number. When you begin the walk fill in the Start Time. At the end of the walk, fill in the End Temperature in °C in the shade.

The week number (in the top RH corner) is useful when sorting forms and can be found in the walking plan for the year and the walkers’ rota. They are numbered consecutively from April 1. Shade temperature is measured at the end of the walk. Wind speed is estimated from the movement of tree branches. Estimate the percentage sunshine in each Sector as you leave the Sector. If the sun casts a shadow, it is out. Also record the time you leave the Sector. Combining these percentages and times, one can calculate (or guess) the overall percentage of sunshine. However when the sheet is computer processed it will calculate the average percentage sunshine for the Walk. At the end of the walk, please total up the Sector boxes and species counts. This is most important if you, as many of us do, just put down a dot as we see something.

The butterfly order follows the modern accepted classification, as found in Thomas' book. The code numbers relate to an alphabetical list of European species (Latin names) and can be ignored for our purposes. Clearly record observations in your 5 metre square sighting area in the Species/Sector boxes, filling in the total for each Sector. Diagonals enable males and females to be noted and totalled separately.

Where species are present but not within counting range, they should be recorded on the back of the Form along with other important observations. They include all the obvious such as the state of the ground (wet or dry), grazing, recent weather, invasion of scrub, abundance of mosquitoes, as well as more difficult observations like butterfly eggs, caterpillars, egg laying, nectar plants etc. It could be useful to an analyst in 5 years time to suddenly realise from your notes that your walk was the third week of a drought.

WALKING PLAN FOR THE YEAR:

The Transect Year starts on April 1st and ends on September 30th each year. Each week is numbered 1 to 26.

Each walking week begins on whichever day of the week April 1 happens to fall; the walking week does not automatically start on each Saturday or Sunday.

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