Overall, participants of the Big Butterfly Count enjoyed seeing more butterflies this year than in the previous four summers. In total, over 1.5 million butterflies and day-flying moths were recorded from 14 July - 6 August. After an all-time low in 2022 of just nine individual butterflies spotted per Count, this year saw an increase to 12 butterflies recorded on average per Count. have been a fan of Harriet Evans books right since the beginning and especially enjoyed last year’s release A Place for Us and its follow up short story A Winterfold Christmas. Now Harriet takes on a new journey to a special, mysterious place which holds numerous secrets that have been passed down from generation to generation. This unique house Keepsake and its grounds are very difficult to find as the house prefers to remain hidden from the public allowing its residents both human and flora and fauna to flourish unnoticed by the outside world. But now the time is coming when Keepsake must reveal itself to someone who had no idea of its existence or the significance of the news she is about to hear. Nina Parr is about to discover a story/family legacy that has affected the women of the Parr household for hundreds of years and now she must be the one to put history to bed firmly for once and all or either embrace what so many struggled to cope with long before Nina was born. To begin with The Butterfly Summer was exciting and refreshing, the cryptic storyline pulling you in and not letting go. However from the midway point it began to considerably slow down and become rather dull, stale. Nina is such an interesting character that, by contrast, the snippets (rather extensive ones) about Teddy’s past were difficult to plow through. Lepidopterists, specialists in butterflies and moths, are also concerned that the drought this summer could affect next year’s numbers, particularly butterflies such as the ringlet, whose caterpillars feed on grasses in late summer. “Egg-laying females might not have found anything suitable to lay their eggs on because their food plants were dry and desiccated,” said Randle. Nina grew up not knowing much about her father’s side of the family. He died when she was six months old. When things about her family are revealed out of the blue Nina finds herself digging for clues, determined to understand what’s going on.

Butterflies need a place to live. If they can feed, breed and shelter, they can thrive. By creating a Wild Space in your outdoor area you can help to reverse the massive losses of wildlife-friendly habitat and start to turn around the fortunes of our declining butterflies." Let's create more space for butterflies! I never tell too much about a book I review but urge you to read this one; its well written, hauntingly sad in places but satisfying in it's conclusion. I did guess the outcome but it does not really become obvious until the last few chapters at least it didn't for me. I enjoyed the journey of these females as they accepted responsibility of their inheritance and the burden that it bought them. But there were 161,987 gatekeepers counted in 2019, and yet it was only the fourth most common butterfly that year.In the UK there are currently 57 resident species of butterfly and two regular migrants. Of these, it is estimated that 76% have declined in abundance, occurrence or both over the past 40 years. Almost all of these losses can be attributed to man-made changes such as habitat destruction and pollution, along with larger patterns of weather and climate change. It tool me a few days to get into The Butterfly Summer but once I did I enjoyed it. I liked that Nina and Teddy’s stories were told in between the other so it wasn’t all told at once and left you wanting more while you learned more about one of the women. And even though I figured out Teddy’s secret it didn’t make me like the story any less. I had actually guessed the answer to one of the mysteries before unravelling it, and was indeed spot on about it, which is just a wonderful feeling when you are reading a book and then suddenly you have this amazing realization come to mind, that is a real sign of a truly amazing book!

Mary Emily Bradley (1835-98) writes here about her daughter finding a ‘baby butterfly’ or chrysalis. However, her daughter will die before she gets to see the butterfly grow and fly away. What can Bradley learn from this tragedy? She ponders the ‘secret’ of it in the poem’s final stanza. Other mysteries begin to crop up from this moment forth. Nina hears of a woman named Teddy who she apparently looks like, and learns that the mansion from her favourite childhood book is a real place. But how are these things connected to Nina’s father? This is a really unusual book – haunting and poignant in turn and a real trail to find out the truth of the past. I admit I found the idea intriguing from the beginning – like how one butterfly flapping its wings can change things and how we over the years try to make things right, change the course of events and the things we do to keep family together.

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The plot is much alike a minestrone (rather than a gourmet dish), only, one cooked with whatever was left in the fridge. Unplanned, or made up along the way in a rush, by throwing in a pot ingredients, attempting to create its flavour. It never pays off. Many species only have one generation each year and so the impact of a mass caterpillar die-off last summer will only be visible this year for butterflies such as the marbled white, meadow brown and small skipper. These grass-feeding species may be particularly vulnerable after last summer’s grasslands were parched in the drought. Overall, the data reveals that 2022 was an average year for butterflies although Fox described it as “a year of two halves” with good numbers of butterflies in early summer but then greatly reduced abundance after the heatwave and drought. The “beast from the east” and chilly February and March may also have helped the survival of eggs, caterpillars and chrysalises, which rot or are parasitised in mild winters. Dr Richard Fox concluded: “Nearly 137,000 Big Butterfly Counts were recorded this summer and if every single person who helped with the Count creates a Wild Space, we can build a UK-wide network of spaces for butterflies to feed, breed and shelter. By creating a Wild Space everyone can make a difference and help butterflies and moths thrive.”

But the dry weather affected caterpillars that feed on grasses that withered and died prematurely in the hot, dry conditions. The gatekeeper, small skipper and Essex skipper all fell by more than 20% on the previous year.

Here’s a sad poem which draws on the parallel between a young girl and a butterfly developing from its chrysalis. Grasslands are an incredibly valuable habitat for many of the UK’s moths and butterflies. Semi-natural grassland, pasture, arable land, urban parkland and any areas with rough unmanaged grass will all support a variety of butterfly species. In the height of summer these areas can be teeming with Skippers, Common Blues, Ringlets and Meadow Browns. Be sure to inspect any flowering plants (particularly thistles and knapweeds) as these can act as vital nectaring points for many butterflies. Pay close attention for the fast and subtle movements of smaller species as these can often disappear against such a busy environment. A prime example of this is the Small Copper which is notoriously hard to spot due to its minute size, fast flight and discrete colouration (when its wings are closed). LOOK OUT FOR: One example is the wood white, a delicate butterfly found in woodlands in a few parts of southern England and the West Midlands, where it can be seen fluttering along woodland rides and the sheltered edges of clearings. Although higher temperatures should in theory allow the wood white to shift its range northwards, its inability to cross large swathes of unsuitable habitat means that it is unable to take advantage of a warming world. With butterflies emerging so early, many species could go on to have a second or third brood in the autumn. This is not necessarily a boon for some because it can create a “developmental trap” with the autumn butterflies’ offspring unable to cycle through egg and caterpillar stages so late in the year. According to Oates, the demise of the wall brown butterfly is linked to a late brood in which the species’ offspring die off as winter sets in. Unlike in 1976, today most British butterfly species are in decline, and therefore the negative effect of seasonal droughts could be more long-lasting. According to the 2022 State of the UK’s Butterflies report by Butterfly Conservation, 80% of species have declined in abundance or distribution or both since the 1970s.