Find space for butterflies and dandelions this year

ARE you seeing many butterflies in your garden this spring?

- Peter Shirley

It is to be hoped that you are because, following one of the worst summers ever for butterflies in 2024, the charity Butterfly Conservation declared a 'butterfly emergency'.

In a three-pronged campaign they first called on the Government to ban insect-killing pesticides.

Secondly they stepped up the fight for more funding for the research needed to underpin new policies and legislation, and support vital citizen science projects like the Big Butterfly Count.

Thirdly they want more butterfly-friendly wild spaces in towns and cities to be created and managed.

Here in the Midlands, Butterfly Conservation are leading by example with their four-year Butterfly Mosaics project, which has created 60 hectares of new butterfly habitat.

At their Grafton Wood reserve in Worcestershire, they have used robot mowers to help open up clearings to benefit wood white butterflies, while at Prees Heath Common, in Shropshire, scrub and bracken removal favours silver-studded blue and dingy skipper butterflies.

Similar work has been done at Hay Wood in Warwickshire, and bracken has been cleared in parts of Cannock Chase Country Park in Staffordshire.

Rhona Goddard at Butterfly Conservation, said: "I am so delighted with the results of this project: we planted trees for butterflies to breed in, put down stones for them to sunbathe on and even used goats to create wildflower areas.