Thank you, Trevor. Fingers crossed indeed for some February sunshine - after all it's only three (?) winters ago that it reached 20 degrees at the end of that month and the hibernators were all wide awake!
Now for an overview of the year just finishing. I'll start with a general look at my year, and then more detail about my local patch which after all provides the majority of the butterflies I see (though not quite half the species overall).
In 2021 I managed to see (and photograph) 56 species in the UK, and in all likelihood did get a glimpse or two of a 57th in the form of a Large Tortoiseshell down at Portland. I will never be 100% certain, so I feel I can't really count this one! Some of the 56 I only saw on one or two sites, and in the case of the Large Heath (at Fen Bog in Yorkshire) it was just the one butterfly! Other "one-site wonders" were High Browns and Northern Brown Argus at Arnside, Scotch Argus at Smardale, Pearl-bordered Fritillaries in Rewell Wood, Glanvilles at Hutchinson's Bank, Wood Whites at Chiddingfold, and Large Blues at Collard Hill. Everything else was seen at more than one location.
Trying to pick highlights is a tricky business, but one or two outings do spring to mind. The Arnside visit on a day when I somehow managed a couple of hours of warm sunshine between huge showers and saw three species of Fritillary, NBA and Graylings definitely ranks high on the list, and so does the Portland trip despite the inconclusiveness of the LT sightings - there were just so many butterflies. The sheer sociability of the Emperor season down at Chiddingfold always stands out, as well as the butterflies (though the main target was more elusive than usual this year).
On my local patch, I managed to reach 25 species - just. I only saw one Clouded Yellow, and through completely forgetting to seek them out, only one Purple Hairstreak. Ringlets were surprisingly sparse (though they are never numerous here for some reason) with just two seen, and Marbled Whites only managed three. To be fair, they also never appear in numbers and just stray down the Colne valley from larger colonies to the north.
2021's top ten league table looks like this (individual butterflies counted):
1. Meadow Brown
2. Common Blue
3. Red Admiral
4. Small White
5. Small Heath
6. Holly Blue
7. Comma
8. Gatekeeper
9. Peacock
10. GVW
Considering the first Red Admiral didn't appear until June, they did impressively well.
In terms of days on which species were seen (out of 146 days when I saw a butterfly), the list is slightly different:
1. Small White (98)
2. Red Admiral (85)
3. Holly Blue (76)
4. Comma (71)
4. GVW (71)
6. Common Blue (61)
7. Small Copper (59)
8. Small Heath (58)
9. Speckled Wood (53)
10. Peacock (52)
Of course, around half the stats for the Small Copper can be attributed to sightings of one individual butterfly...
The highest number of butterflies seen locally on any one day was over 350 on 22nd July, when Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers were both peaking. The highest species count on any one day was 15, achieved on 25th June, and on 2nd, 6th and 19th August.
Notable peak counts for individual species were:
Meadow Brown 150+ on 10th July
Gatekeeper 100+ on 27th July
Common Blue 51 on 19th August and 43 on 14th June
Red Admiral 48 on 3rd October
Holly Blue 31 on 6th August
Small Heath 31 on 29th June
Peacock 27 on 18th April
Comma 24 on 11th September
Overall, numbers across all species were down on 2020, except for Red Admirals - and Painted Ladies were slightly more frequently encountered. However, Common Blue numbers were not much down, and both Commas and Holly Blues rallied later in the year after a very disappointing spring.
Dave