East Scotland news

Wildlife charity, Butterfly Conservation, launches plea to the public to help measure impacts of climate change while its scientists are in lockdown.

As lockdown continues and we all abide by the Government’s advice to stay safe in our homes over the four-day Easter break, anyone with an outdoor space will be making the most of the sunny forecast this weekend.

The summer of 2019 boosted UK butterfly population to give them their best year since 1997 according to a study.

Dr Amir Khan, star of Channel 5’s ‘GPs Behind Closed Doors’ and keen conservationist has joined forces with two leading UK wildlife charities to urge people to become ‘Nature Doctors’ in their own gardens by planting for pollinators this year.

You can do things in the garden to help butterflies and bees almost all year round, but a crucial period is in early spring.

The wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation Scotland warmly welcomes the Scottish Government’s refusal of the application for a golf course on Coul Links, near Dornoch in East Sutherland.

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.

Butterfly Conservation has received a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant of £74,200 for a new project, which will help get volunteers creating meadows for butterflies in central Scotland.

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.

Butterfly Conservation’s East Scotland Branch has launched a new small grants scheme. They will be awarding five grants of up to £200 each to assist the creation of pollinator habitat. 

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 in Scotland.

Butterfly Conservation Scotland are calling on nature enthusiasts to look for the Small Tortoiseshell and other species at Edinburgh's last peatbog -  the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Red Moss of Balerno reserve.

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.

Since the Hibernating Herald project began in December 2016 people from across Scotland have been visiting dark places in the depth of winter to seek out overwintering moths. 

Children across Scotland’s towns and cities are being given the chance to reconnect with nature as part of a new project by wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation (BC).