Butterfly surveys ... in winter?
Confused? So was I when asked to help with December butterfly surveys. But, these weren't normal butterfly surveys. No, we were searching for butterfly eggs! Although for most butterflies the most obvious way to search for them is in the spring and summer months as adults, for Brown Hairstreaks ( Thecla betulae ), egg searches are the most effective way to record this species and even to uncover a colony. The sites I surveyed have risen from 36 eggs to 186 eggs across only a year or two! Winter hedge habitat for egg searches (Jen Jones) Butterfly lifecycles There are a few habitat specialists which are surveyed in a different way to standard butterfly transects (example recording forms and methods are on the UKBMS webpage). These include the Brown and White-letter Hairstreak egg counts, but also Duke of Burgundy , and Large Blue egg counts and Marsh and Glanville Fritillary larval web counts. Interestingly, the Green Hairstreak is the only UK Hairstreak species to not overw