Butterfly numbers remain low as UK habitats face continued decline, but local efforts offer hope, reports Lucia Rios Steele.

butterfly on a leaf — Photo: David Clode/Unsplash

This summer with a keen group of novices from the Friend’s of West Ham Park, we undertook a season of butterfly surveys. As a community group, we work together to improve our local green space. Learning about and improving the biodiversity in the park is one of our top priorities.

In recent years, the park has been leaving selected spaces to grow wild, extending ‘no mow May’ throughout the spring and summer months – just letting the land go back to nature.

Sadly, the UK has lost 97 percent of our flower-rich meadows since the 1930s (a statistic that was first published in a paper in Biological Conservation in 1987). Gone with them are vital food sources needed by pollinators like bees and butterflies. By letting these spaces go back to nature we are working to replace some of that loss.

In West Ham Park, we have seen a rapid increase in daisies, clover, buttercups and dandelions this year. We also have several areas where stinging nettles have taken over, by no accident, as they are the main food plant of caterpillars of several of our largest and most colourful butterflies, including the Comma, Peacock, Red Admiral and Small Tortoiseshell.

We know that our butterflies are in trouble. The Butterfly Conservation reports that three-quarters of British butterflies are in decline. The Government has recognised that butterflies and moths are key indicators of biodiversity. This is a time to act in the interest of our delicate, winged friends.

The data we’ve collected in the park shows that we have a variety of common butterflies but, unfortunately, not in very high numbers. We can now consider what actions need to be taken over the next few years to increase butterflies. Moving in the autumn, according to Dr. Chris Cockel, Kew UK Conservation Projects Coordinator, it is the perfect time to sow UK-native wildflower seeds, so let’s get planting.

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