There was a fantastic response to our online survey of the Humming-bird Hawk-moth and Painted Lady butterfly in 2009.

Just under 15,000 reports were received - a huge increase on the 1000 sightings logged in 2008. The vast majority of sightings were from the UK, but we received records from all around the world; many from other European countires and a scattering from North Africa, the Middle East and North America. Many thanks to everyone who sent in a sighting in 2009!

The Painted Lady invaded the UK in spectacular numbers during late May and early June. They arrived primarily in the south-east of England but, within days, had spead throughout the land. Many of these immigrants laid eggs and there was a massed emergence of 'home grown' butterflies, perhaps a billion of them in total, in late July and August. A second, large 'home grown' generation followed in October. The map (right) shows the distribution of Painted Ladies recorded by the online survey during 2009. Each dot represents the presense of one or more (often many more!) Painted Ladies in a 10km x 10km grid square of the Ordance Survey National Grid.

Not surprisingly, many of the online sightings were of Painted Ladies. Over 12,700 records of the butterfly were submitted by 9152 people during the year. May had the most reports, but October was a surprise in second place. Sightings continued regularly throughout November and a few were even reported in December.

In comparison, we received 1986 reports of Humming-bird Hawk-moths from 1836 participants. Nevertheless, this still represented a substantial increase on the c. 500 observations of the moth in 2008.

The distribution of 2009 records is shown on the map (left) at 10km grid square resolution. The moth was seen widely across southern Britain, but was much more scarce in the north and no records were received from Orkney or Shetland this year. Nevertheless, the species was recorded on the north coast of mainland Scotland.

'Hummers' were seen from 9 February through to 24 November. Although many arrived in mid to late June, the peak of sightings was in August, as it typical for this species.

Thanks again to everyone who took part in the 2009 survey. The survey continues during 2010, when we hope that it will be the turn of the Humming-bird Hawk-moth to wow the nation! Please continue to log all your sightings of both these incredible, inter-continental insects.