The Last Butterfly

I walked my two butterfly transects for the last time this year - the end of 26 consecutive weeks of butterfly surveying (but not necessarily the end of butterfly blips for the year). I haven't had time to look in any detail yet but the headlines are that on the woodland transect I recorded 787 butterflies - that's more than double the number we had last year and the first time in six years of recording that we've passed 600 let alone 700. The number of species was also up, from 21 to 24.  More impressive from my point of view is that I recorded a further 546 butterflies (in 18 species) on the heathland transect which is only 14 hectares (less than half the size of the woodland one). This is a new transect so I don't have anything to compare it with but it certainly felt like a lot. By coincidence the last butterfly I recorded on both sites was a small copper. Now to write the reports.