Painted lady stars in bumper Big Butterfly Count

Numbers of top five species up on last year while small tortoiseshell moves north

It has been a painted lady summer. Nearly half a million of the migratory creatures were counted in British parks and gardens as part of the biggest butterfly survey in the world.

The painted lady topped the charts of the annual Big Butterfly Count with 420,841 recorded during high summer after their first big influx on British shores in a decade.