Wing's of hope

Where have all the butterflies gone? Ahead of 2025's Big Butterfly Count, Richard 'Bugman' Jones looks at the fate of the UK's winged wonders and how we can all help to bring them back from the brink

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One of our most well-known butterflies,the small tortoiseshell's abundance has plummeted by 86% since the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme began in 1976

The first small tortoiseshell I've seen this year has just fluttered past - and my heart soared. This is one of those iconic common and widespread butterfly beauties that reminds me of my childhood roaming semi-feral across the South Downs and Sussex Weald in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

With its black-and-yellow spiky caterpillars feeding on stinging nettles in every hedgerow and its habit of sunning itself in the middle of a footpath, it was so familiar to me that I usually passed it by with little more than a glimmer of recognition and acknowledgement. So many sad ironies now rear their ugly heads.

You don't see many small tortoiseshells these days, that's for sure. I'm not just being some sentimental 'old boy', as my uncle used to call the gnarled fellows who picked cherries and apples on his North Kent farm - I am genuinely now one of the lucky ones. Many people will not see a single small tortoiseshell this year. According to the latest reports, 2024 was the butterfly's worst year since records began. And it is not alone. Those records, collected through the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme since 1976, have amassed a vast database following the annual ups and downs of the 58 butterfly species generally regarded as being native to the British Isles, and a few irregular migrants. Mostly these have been downs.