Red Admiral spotting: desperately seeking a British butterfly revival

It was a damp day on Denbies Hillside in the North Downs, but is the outlook now better for the insect?

By any standards, it was a poor day to count butterflies. Denbies Hillside, on the south-facing flank of the North Downs - supposedly a summer haven for lepidopterists - was swept by wind and heavy showers. Butterflies, like humans, take a poor view of such conditions and had made themselves scarce.

Such are the discomforts of involvement in the Big Butterfly Count. The national survey has seen thousands of members of the British public counting butterfly species across the nation. It has been a damp and cold process on occasion.