Somerset and Bristol news

Somerset Wildlife Trust has now successfully completed its year-long ‘Making Space for Butterflies in Mendip’ project with Aggregate Industries, which worked to improve butterfly habitat and food sources in the Mendip Hills area

Wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation celebrates six years of the incredibly successful ‘Bog Squad’ initiative this March.

Butterfly Conservation are shocked and deeply saddened at the recent murders of Mexican butterfly activists Homero Gómez González and Raúl Hernández Romero.

The long-awaited publication of a landmark Agriculture Bill in parliament is a crucial piece of legislation which will have profound implications for the butterflies, moths, wildlife and wider environment of England.

Our work seeks to help the development of new land management support schemes by combining the latest scientific evidence and Butterfly Conservation’s practical experience of working with farmers and land owners on the ground.

The campaign for the Westminster General Election is now well and truly in full swing! This time it feels different, and not just because of the intense debates around Brexit. After years of trying to secure political attention, the environment has finally burst through onto the political stage.

Scientists from Britain and Ireland who have been involved in compiling the newly published Atlas of Britain and Ireland’s Larger Moths have revealed that our moths are on the move.

As gardeners, we always tend to have one eye on the present, while looking forward to the future. It rarely stops, except in the depths of winter when everything that can be done, is done.

Scientists have discovered why climate change may be contributing to the decline of some British butterflies and moths, such as Silver-studded Blue and High Brown Fritillary butterflies.

No place like home: species are on the move, but many have nowhere to go.

The Butterfly Effect. In Gloucestershire, we've borrowed a term associated with Chaos Theory, a curious idea that postulates that a butterfly flapping its wings in one place could cause a massive storm elsewhere.

The UK’s wildlife continues to decline according to the State of Nature 2019 report. The latest findings show that since rigorous scientific monitoring began in the 1970s there has been a 13% decline in average abundance across wildlife studied and that the declines continue unabated.

Numerous recent sightings of a moth that became extinct in the UK in the 1960s, suggest that it has recolonised and is now breeding across southern Britain.

A report from Lucy Cunningham about her time with the Munching Caterpillars project in Bristol.

Lucy Cunningham has been working for the Somerset & Bristol Branch since early 2019, delivering ‘Munching Caterpillars’ education sessions in schools in Bristol and attending community events. As her contract comes to a close, she shares her experiences with us.

In just three weeks this summer, nearly half a million Painted Lady butterflies were counted as part of the 10th UK-wide Big Butterfly Count, run by Butterfly Conservation and sponsored by B&Q.

UK wildlife charities have teamed up with England’s government advisor on natural environment to persuade local councils and landowners to help save our pollinators.

Climate change is causing a striking butterfly from southern Europe to appear in record-breaking numbers across the south of England, wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation can reveal.

Winnie the Pooh is encouraging families to enjoy the great outdoors this summer by joining Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count.

A beautiful blue butterfly which has been struggling for the last 40 years could be making a comeback.

Chris Packham is urging wildlife lovers to take part in the world’s largest insect citizen science survey to help reveal if the UK is experiencing a once in a decade butterfly phenomenon.

A previously extinct butterfly has bred successfully in an English woodland for the first time in more than 40 years as part of the ambitious conservation project, Back from the Brink.

A Butterfly Conservation project working across Exmoor, Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor has been shortlisted for a national award following exceptional work to rescue butterfly populations in the South West.

Somerset and Bristol BC branch, in collaboration with the Devon BC branch will be funding ‘The Blackdowns Butterfly Project’ which will be looking at four species of butterfly.  

We are keen to try to prevent any further decline or loss to the Duke of Burgundy and the Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary and to see if it is possible to re-establish the Marsh Fritillary and the Wood White in the Blackdown Hills

Somerset & Bristol branch has a new Transect Coordinator.  Committee member Peter Bright has taken over from Liz Marsden.

UK butterflies bounced back in 2018 following a string of poor years, thanks in part to last year’s heatwave summer, a study has revealed.

Somerset Wildlife Trust has received a grant of £22,000 from Aggregate Industries through their Local Partnerships Fund to improve habitats for Mendip butterflies. The project, ‘Making Space for Butterflies’, will involve woodland management work at Cheddar Wood and grassland and hedgerow restoration in East Mendip around Aggregate Industries’ Torr Works Quarry site.

One of the UK’s most highly threatened and unusual beetles has been discovered in a number of new locations in the Cotswolds thanks to an innovative conservation scheme.

Street lighting operating all night can alter the natural pollination of a common wildflower, a study involving Butterfly Conservation (BC) has revealed.

In July 2018 Prime Minister Theresa May announced that the Government would bring forward an Environment Bill. Butterfly Conservation (BC) understand that Defra are working on the draft of the Bill, to cover England and reserved matters in devolved countries, and this will be published before Christmas.