A beautiful creature has fluttered into my path. Well, actually, it landed on the doormat with a resounding thud. The Butterflies of Sussex might sound of limited geographical interest but it’s the best new butterfly guidebook in the country.
Newcomers will enjoy the fascinating anecdotes and beautiful photos by lepidopterist Neil Hulme. Obsessives searching for the elusive purple emperor will gobble up the grid references for the “master trees” around which male emperors congregate shortly after midsummer.
When I spoke to co-author Michael Blencowe about this summer, he declared that the cavalry – rain – had turned up just in time. Butterflies thrive in sunny, dry conditions but drought can cause problems by killing the leaves on which caterpillars, which should become midsummer’s butterflies, feed. Blencowe also fears that late frosts, which killed emerging oak leaves, will reduce the number of purple hairstreaks in July.
At least this summer is better than the “new kind of hell” of 2016 – a gloriously sunny July and August with almost no butterflies. This was because a mild winter had proved fatal for many. “Butterflies have been surviving strange weather – snow and cold – for years,” said Blencowe. “But when unusual conditions come for three or four consecutive years, that’s when we’ll lose species.”
Blencowe has recorded big changes over the past five years, mostly because of climate change. The warmth-loving silver-spotted skipper has moved from rare butterfly to Sussex stalwart. “This is the kind of thing I thought would happen over decades, not over the span of a five-year survey,” says Blencowe. “It’s interesting times, but not always in a good way.”
