GFFOE volunteers count butterflies instead of sheep.

​Each week between the start of May 2022 and the end of September GFFOE volunteers are spotting butterflies at Abbey Meadows Country Park near Titchfield.
We are taking part in The United Kingdom Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS). This is one of the longest running insect monitoring schemes in the world. The scheme began in 1976 and now records data on over 2,000 sites per year. The resulting UKBMS dataset is one of the most important resources for understanding changes in insect populations. It is important that data is collected and recorded in a particular way so the results can be compared with other sites across the country.
Abbey Meadows is managed by Mark Trigwell, the Countryside Officer for Fareham Borough Council. Mark has selected 5 routes that we walk each week and the number of each butterfly species within 2 metres of the path is recorded. We also record other data such as wind speed, cloud cover and temperature. The routes are designed to reflect the wide diversity of habitats which Mark has produced by careful management of the site which comprises several fields with wildflower meadows, hedgerows, ponds and a play park. Taking part in a project like this has not only improved our butterfly identification skills it has also opened our eyes to how the species of butterflies change as the year goes by, reflecting their different life cycles and food plants. This week (20 th June) was our best week so far with over 80 individual butterflies and 8 different species.
If you haven’t been to Abbey Meadows yourself we would recommend a visit. Find more information at http://bitly.ws/spbw . If you would like to do some butterfly monitoring on your own patch you could take part in the Big Butterfly Count. It takes just 15 minutes any day between the 15 th July to the 7 th August:
https://tinyurl.com/big-butterfly-count