A thorny problem for our butterflies

The first butterfly of the year is noted by most in the countryside as one of the heralds of summer. There are 59 species found in the UK on a regular basis. Two of those are non-breeders here, simply common visitors, which are the painted lady and the clouded yellow. Sadly, along with far too many species, our butterflies are in decline with a 52% reduction in abundance in the past 10 years alone. Equally worrying is that the number of sites they are being found at has also reduced by 47% in the same period.

Those facts are bad enough but they come on top of large-scale losses