The weight of a paper clip, the red admiral butterfly is admirably plentiful

’RED Admiral thrives despite wet summer’ runs a headline on Butterfly Conservation’s website. This glamorous insect is doing well in the UK, writes Richard Collins.

The first Big Butterfly Count took place there in 2010 and the census has been held annually since. 60,000 volunteer ‘citizen scientists’ took part in this year’s event. Each one downloaded a butterfly identification chart and chose a location to survey. During sessions of 15 minutes in bright weather, butterflies and day-flying moths were counted at each site.

Over 550,000 individual butterflies and moths, of 20 species, were counted in July and August this year. The average number seen, per 15-minute session, was 10.9, compared to 12.2 in 2016. Numbers have been falling since 2013, but this summer was one of the wettest in the UK for a hundred years.