Last year at Runnymede no less than 19 different species of butterfly were spotted during surveys. Surveys are undertaken by our dedicated volunteer Cathy, who walks a transect through Runnymede every week between April and September. Everything she spots she records, and this information is all fed into a countrywide database run by the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. The transect passes through all the different habitat types, and different species tend to be spotted in different locations depending on where they can find their main foodplants.
First signs
The first species of the year normally appear around March – a welcome sight indicating spring has arrived after the long cold winter. These early appearances usually come from the brimstone, peacock, comma and small tortoiseshell as the adults of these species all hibernate here through the winter and emerge as soon as the weather is warm enough.
It doesn't always follow a pattern, though - last year at Runnymede a red admiral was spotted by one of our rangers on an unusually warm and sunny day in January. Until recently, red admirals have rarely overwintered in the UK, preferring to spend the winter on the continent where it is warmer, but climate change has led to more of them successfully surviving the winter here. Other butterflies spend the winter either as eggs, caterpillars or a chrysalis.
Spring flutters
By April, a bigger variety of adult butterfly species can be spotted. Orange tips and small white can often be seen in the hay meadows surrounding Langham Ponds, while speckled woods are found fluttering around in the dappled sunlight of Coopers Hill Woods and the wet woodland along the River Thames at Ankerwycke. By May the common blues have appeared, enjoying the meadows where the distinctive yellow bird’s-foot trefoil wildflowers are plentiful.