Tag Archives: Thornton Farm

Orange butterfly with black and white vertical stripes on top edge offore-wings

Small Tortoiseshell. Photo: Rob Morrison

Rob and Cath very kindly walked one of our ‘white hole’ km squares at Thornton Farm, Sturminster Newton and recorded this Small Tortoiseshell.

They were very pleased to see it as they leaned only that morning from Dr. Martin Warren that sightings of this species were very short in July.

White holes are km squares where no butterflies have been recorded , but need to be if we want to fill the gaps in our knowledge of what has been seen and where,thus enabling us to include the recorded sightings in an Atlas.

Butterflies are recorded nationally over a five year period, eg. 2015-2019 so if anyone can help fill in some gaps, please take a look at the Map of White Holes  and details of how to record on our website, under’ Recording’.