Highlights of the Butterfly Atlas Project: Year One
- Hundreds of Sussex BC members have joined in with our atlas survey and taken part in conferences, training workshops, single species surveys or just recorded the butterflies in their garden. So far they have contributed over 40,000 records to the project.
- With more people than ever before surveying butterflies in Sussex in 2010 we have received a lot of new records for some of our rarest species. New sites were recorded for nationally rare species such as Wood White, Pearl-bordered Fritillary, Silver-studded Blue and Small Blue
- Targeted surveying has given us a clearer picture of the distribution of elusive species such as Purple, Brown and White-letter Hairstreak. It appears they’re not as uncommon as we thought.
Top of the Tetrads
We need to survey 1023 tetrads squares in the county between 2010-14. Some of our commoner species which we’d expect to find in every tetrad have already been recorded in almost 50% of Sussex – whereas other species are destined to be found in just a handful of sites.
Small White | 503 |
Meadow Brown | 499 |
Large White | 490 |
Orange-tip | 476 |
Gatekeeper | 469 |
Speckled Wood | 431 |
Common Blue | 430 |
Red Admiral | 422 |
Peacock | 397 |
Comma | 382 |
Holly Blue | 314 |
Small Tortoiseshell | 311 |
Brimstone | 309 |
Green-veined White | 291 |
Small Copper | 277 |
Ringlet | 239 |
Large Skipper | 233 |
Purple Hairstreak | 221 |
Small Skipper | 220 |
Small Heath | 205 |
Silver-washed Fritillary | 179 |
Marbled White | 147 |
Brown Hairstreak | 141 |
White Admiral | 137 |
Painted Lady | 130 |
Brown Argus | 101 |
Wall | 71 |
Dingy Skipper | 71 |
Grizzled Skipper | 65 |
Chalkhill Blue | 60 |
Green Hairstreak | 51 |
Adonis Blue | 50 |
Essex Skipper | 45 |
Small Blue | 44 |
Dark Green Fritillary | 44 |
White-letter Hairstreak | 39 |
Silver-spotted Skipper | 29 |
Purple Emperor | 26 |
Clouded Yellow | 25 |
Duke of Burgundy | 10 |
Silver-studded Blue | 10 |
Pearl-bordered Fritillary | 9 |
Wood White | 7 |
Grayling | 2 |
Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary | 2 |