We have had a record number of sightings sent into this website this week. Tuesday 18 July saw 352 reports via our Recording Form, more than we’ve ever had on one day before.

We’ve also been hearing of high counts on some of our transect (butterfly monitoring) walks. Brian Arnold walks the Durlston East transect (near Swanage) and on 17 July counted over 900 butterflies. He says the mating pair of Small Skippers above were determined to be counted, climbing onto his offered finger and not being easy to remove, though this was done gently by putting his hand by a flower and waiting for them to move onto it.

We are hearing of lots of butterflies, particularly Red Admirals, being sighted, which will be being brought here by suitable winds, which are also bring in Hummingbird Hawk-moths.

Hummingbird Hawk-moth. Mark Pike

We can’t have too many records, so please keep them coming! If you need help with identifying what you see, try our Species pages and remember it’s also time for the Big Butterfly Count, though please do not report the same sightings to that and to our website – we receive the Butterfly Count records, so it would give us duplicates.