6 ways to rewild your garden and help save butterflies

How to make your outside space a haven for our fluttering friends

Ringlet on zigzag clover (Tim Melling/PA)

It’s a worrying reality that many of our native butterflies are in decline, as highlighted in a recent study of European species.

The research, published in the scientific journal PNAS, noted that overall numbers have declined by 50% since 1976. Indeed, seven out of 10 British species of butterfly are declining, many of those very rapidly, and some which were previously common, including grass feeders such as small skipper, common blue, small blue, small copper and small heath, according to the charity Butterfly Conservation.