Hello Everyone, With grey concrete coloured skies across the County since the 29th of October 2024, it was a nice surprise to get sightings of the Red Admiral in Derbyshire on the 10th of November 2024 during a small period of hazy sunshine. First of all Martin Hall saw an individual in his West Hallam garden at lunch time and this was followed by another sighting of the species in the Darley garden of Alf Bousie. Later in the day Ruth Frudd noted a Speckled Wood in a woodland clearing at Woodville – just shows how important some sunshine is, even if it is hazy, for or butterflies to get mobile. Then the next day (11th of November 2024) I saw a relatively fresh Speckled Wood in Darley Park – just as I was about to take a photo it was spooked by a falling leaf! The lack of sunshine has been the problem during our so called Summer of 2024 in this part of the UK – only 40% of the transect days had a suitable supply of sunny conditions to help our butterflies get mobile and start mating.
Thanks go out to all the transect walkers and the data inputters on to UKBMS for me this year – unfortunately it looks like butterfly numbers were down by 42% overall on transects in Derbyshire (64,000 from 110,000) compared to 2023 – Nationally overall butterfly numbers were down about 36% overall (1.6m from 2.5m) Further details will be given on my Derbyshire Report that I will present at the Butterfly Conservation East Midlands AGM and Members Day on Sunday the 24th of November 2024 – details are as per Update no 43 (dated the 28th of October 2024)
Finally attached is another batch of stunning photos that were taken in Derbyshire by some of our intrepid volunteers – just a quick reminder that we did have some decent sunny days for photography during 2024.
