The Sussex Butterfly Atlas

The Sussex Butterfly Atlas project was launched in 2010. It is our aim to map the distribution of the butterflies of our county over the five year period 2010-14. The results will give us a greater understanding of each species distribution and, in many cases, will inform our conservation work. We will publish a full colour Butterfly Atlas after the recording period.

In order to do this we need to find out which of our 45 butterfly species are present in each 2km x 2km squares (a 'tetrad') – and there's over 1000 of these tetrads in Sussex.

A big thank you to everyone who has helped us out so far.

As the records arrive they are entered into our Mapmate database and each week the distribution maps become larger.

Remember every butterfly record is valuable; whether it's a Peacock on your patio in Polegate or a Purple Emperor perched on some poo in Petworth - we want to hear about it!

There are many ways of getting involved in the atlas:

The records sent in to our sightings page will all be entered into our atlas database - so please remember to include a grid reference for your sightings.

Throughout the year we will be posting taget species and target squares on our sightings page.

If you'd really like to get involved contact us and we'll send you details of areas near you which need some extra recording effort.

Michael and Clare Blencowe

'Woodstock', 11 Orchard Close,
Small Dole, Henfield
email: recording@sussex-butterflies.org.uk
tel: 01273 495519

Please mail me with any questions or records: sussexgrayling@aol.com

Michael Blencowe

Sample maps of data already collected:

Sample maps from 2010 and 2011