The Big Butterfly Count is a survey to help us find out how well butterflies are doing. It is run by the Butterfly Conservation Trust. It happens every year and this year it runs from 17th July to 9th August.
It’s important to know how butterflies are doing because numbers of butterflies and moths have been going down. Butterflies and moths are beautiful and they are important pollinators and they provide food for other animals. Also, butterflies react very quickly to changes in their environment which makes them good biodiversity indicators. This means that finding out how butterflies are doing helps us find out how nature is doing. If the number of butterflies is going down this means that nature is not going well.
To do the Big Butterfly Count you have to choose somewhere and spend 15 minutes counting the butterflies you see. Then you submit your results to the Butterfly Conservation Trust on the Big Butterfly Count website. There are particular types of butterfly to look for and you can download a sheet to help you spot them.
We did our Big Butterfly Count in Valency Valley in Boscastle, Cornwall.
These are the butterflies we saw.
10 common blues
5 gatekeepers
2 small skippers
10 meadow browns
11 large whites
2 small whites
1 red admiral
7 silver-washed fritillaries
Seeing how butterflies are doing helps them. If you want, you can do the Big Butterfly Count.
Helping the Planet 
I am amazed at the number of butterflies you saw. I tried to do it and saw none, but when I am gardening or looking out of the window I have been seeing quite a lot. Large and small white every day and sometimes brimstone, peacock and red admiral. Granny.
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Wow I wouldn’t be able to identify so many. We have had far fewer butterflies this year, none on the budlea !! We will send in our data anyway.
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We have done our butterfly count but haven’t seen anywhere near as many as you. I am very impressed at how you managed to identify so many. Our numbers seem to be a little down on last year’s total although nothing has really changed in the garden.
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