Big Butterfly Count results – Wales
• In Wales 50,412 individual butterflies and moths were counted during the three-week Big Butterfly Count. A total of 5,196 counts were undertaken by 4,124 participants.
• The biggest winners were Large White and Small White. This is great news for these two species which suffered declines of -54% and -55% respectively in last year’s Count. Large White has gone from 7th position to 1st place in the rankings, experiencing an impressive 80% increase in abundance. Small White has gone 5 places up the rankings to second place having experienced a 17% increase on 2019 levels.
• Holly Blue also showed a welcomed bounce back with abundance of this butterfly up by 80% on 2019 numbers. Despite a promising and early start to the 2020 season, all of the other species counted during the Big Butterfly Count were down on 2019. The average number of individuals counted in Wales was down by -51% compared with the previous summer.
• Painted Lady was the biggest loser, although this is not surprising considering the phenomenal numbers that arrived into the UK during the 2019 Big Butterfly Count.
• Some of the ‘browns’ appear to have fared relatively poorly this year, Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper, Ringlet, and Marbled White all fell in abundance. However, the average numbers of these individual species seen per count were generally greater than the 2018 levels.
Big Butterfly Count 2020: Wales
|
Species |
Abundance |
Ave per Count |
% change from 2019 |
|
|
1 |
Large White |
9,066 |
1.74 |
80% |
|
2 |
Small White |
8,048 |
1.55 |
17% |
|
3 |
Meadow Brown |
8,010 |
1.54 |
-8% |
|
4 |
Gatekeeper |
6,294 |
1.21 |
-28% |
|
5 |
Peacock |
3,856 |
0.74 |
-62% |
|
6 |
Red Admiral |
2,599 |
0.50 |
-55% |
|
7 |
Small Tortoiseshell |
2,224 |
0.43 |
-50% |
|
8 |
Speckled Wood |
1,971 |
0.38 |
-26% |
|
9 |
Ringlet |
1,559 |
0.30 |
-6% |
|
10 |
Common Blue |
1,484 |
0.29 |
-27% |
|
11 |
Green-veined White |
1,168 |
0.22 |
-17% |
|
12 |
Comma |
994 |
0.19 |
-47% |
|
13 |
Six-spot Burnet |
978 |
0.19 |
-37% |
|
14 |
Holly Blue |
747 |
0.14 |
80% |
|
15 |
Small Copper |
638 |
0.12 |
-32% |
|
16 |
Painted Lady |
386 |
0.07 |
-99% |
|
17 |
Silver Y |
150 |
0.03 |
-52% |
|
18 |
Brimstone |
131 |
0.03 |
-50% |
|
19 |
Marbled White |
109 |
0.02 |
-30% |
|
|
Total |
50,412 |
9.70 |
-51% |