www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

First sighting for me of a common blue in the Bath Golf course quarry yesterday - very early again. Picture below.

In fact, I now have:

Dingy skipper: 25 days earlier than last year
Small Heath: 25
Small Copper: 16
Common Blue: 22

I did a quick analysis of the first sightings data on the butterfly conservation web site and came up with the following for the cumulative number of species sighted:



Things overall seem to be three weeks early, as at my local site. We've also past the halfway mark in terms of species sighted. Are you all keeping up?

Simon C

Thats someting. proves global warming does'nt it? The weather latley feels like summer weather. I mean 15-21 degrees C in spring? Thats something. Nice pic btw. Next thing to look out for would be the Large Tortoiseshell being early.

Excellent analysis Simon! Yeah - my "calendar" for seeing the various species this year has been well and truly obliterated

Cheers,

- Pete

The common blue isn't a one off for the region. I found a male on my local patch at Longwell Green near Bristol yesterday.

I've updated my plot of the earliest sightings data from the Butterfly Conservation list. It clearly shows how things ground to a halt around the start of May, but that they have picked up again since and we're still a couple of weeks ahead of last year.

On that basis it must be worth a trip to Warleigh soon for SWF.

Simon