Welcome to the Yorkshire Branch of Butterfly Conservation  

Butterflies are not only beautiful and fascinating creatures but are also highly responsive to the environment. David Attenborough described them as  'A thermometer of the health of our natural world'  Many species of butterfly are in decline and a quarter are facing extinction.  We have lost more than 98% of our traditional meadows and woodland in recent times so it is crucial  we raise awareness about the threats facing our butterflies, moths, their habitats and our natural environment.  Yorkshire Branch  work in partnership with land owners, local authorities, conservation bodies, businesses and the local community to achieve this. Here in Yorkshire  the Duke of Burgundy and Pearl Bordered  Fritillary are particularly vulnerable due to habitat loss and increasingly susceptible to extinction. Yorkshire also has the only remaining colony of the  Dark Bordered Beauty Moth in England, on Strensall Common and is on the brink of extinction.  

Become a member today and help us save butterflies, moths and their habitats. There are many rewarding roles volunteering in recording and conservation just take a look at our Branch leaflet HERE . We have a real challenge when 60% of children in the UK have never seen a Peacock butterfly according to a YouGov Survey and  78% of parents are concerned that children don’t spend enough time interacting with nature.  Founded in 1981 Yorkshire branch has more than 1800 members and nearly 100 transect walkers go out each week in summer  to monitor  butterfly sites across the county while dozens more join work parties to maintain habitat for our rarest species.

Your Guide to the Website

Menu Headings

DIARY

First Sightings 2024

First sightings comparison

 We are on the TELLY!  The wonderful late Susan Stead and our Nick Hall talk to Michael Portillo for The BBC’s Great British Railway Journeys. at Shipley Meadow + Denso Marston NR episode no 5 in series 14  released on iplayer HERE 

News 

15th August : The full affects of 2024's  poor weather are now becoming apparent in  early results from the Big Butterfly Count. Numbers  down 41% in the UK and 43% in Yorkshire. 

 The better results in 2023  came from migrants having a big impact particularly Red Admiral which came in top while this year they are down  80% to 7th.  Worryingly  many other species down nearly half.  However the count is dominated by 7  of our most common species:  Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown, Large White, Small White , Peacock, Ringlet and Red Admiral making up 4 in every 5 butterflies but were also down 30% compared to 2023.

 2nd worse was Holly Blue down four fifths and Common Blue down two thirds being absent from many of Yorkshire's  favourite butterfly sites. Small Tortoiseshell down again for the third year.  Some of the most worrying results are from our scarcer species with Dark-green Fritillary being completely absent from well known sites like Brockadale and  Silver-washed  Fritillary down 80% in Bishop Wood. We have to suspect the biggest culprit was mortality of caterpillars in the wet along with a poor flight period last July, reducing eggs.  3 Species did better in 2024 including that damp loving Ringlet . 

Since Big Butterfly is a three week slot and since flight curves vary from year to year and north and south care is needed in interpreting. For example Gatekeeper flight was only mid way this year but almost over last year.  The true picture of our  our summer should come from our transects  in a few weeks time.. Watch this space!

31st July :  BC are recruiting  a Leeds Wild Spaces Project Officer They will work closely with Leeds City Council to oversee creation of 8 new areas of wildflower meadow and train volunteers to look after them beyond the duration of the project. Wild Spaces is Butterfly Conservation’s flagship engagement programme. It provides a simple and easy way for everyone to get involved and make a difference to help butterflies and moths. If you have experience of habitat creation, working with local communities and of delivering change for nature on the ground - matched by a natural enthusiasm for engaging and inspiring people from a diverse range of backgrounds - we would love to hear from you; more HERE

21 July A new article published in holland looks at Oviposition strategies in Pieridae butterflies and the role of an egg-killing plant trait . In the evolutionary arms-races between Pieridae butterflies and Brassicaceae plants, some plant species have evolved another defence against the pierids: egg-killing. Underneath the eggs, leaves develop a so-called hypersensitive response (HR)-like cell death. Whether some butterflies have evolved oviposition strategies to counter-adapt against egg-killing remains to be studied. In this study, we assessed the oviposition site location of Pieridae butterflies on their natural host plants. We described the plant tissue on which we located the eggs of the most common Pierids 

21th May  Day Flying Moth ID course  now available on YourTube HERE . Why not expand your knowledge of those mysterious day-flying moths we can't identify.  We will cover 32 commonly seen species from 8 families with tips on how to tell similar species apart.  We want to encourage everyone to start identifying moths as they are 30 times more species of moth than butterfly with equally exquisite lives and  equally colourful.

Twitter Feed

Facebook Feed