Many people around the town are looking out for butterflies, they are taking part in the Big Butterfly Count, a citizen science project organised by Butterfly Conservation. Each year volunteers spend 15 minutes at a time recording how many butterflies they see in their gardens, parks or out on countryside walks.
The project centres on easy to identify species to allow more people to take part, which is why some of our most common butterflies, the Skippers, are not included.
If you go for a walk through Margaret’s Meadow in the Byes, Alma Field on Salcombe Hill or the park of the Knowle at this time of year you are almost guaranteed to see small dark orange butterflies darting about in the long grass. These will be Skippers probably, but which ones?
There are eight different Skippers in the UK but you are only likely to see two of them in Sidmouth, the Large and Small Skipper, but they are very difficult to tell apart. Unless they are sat side by side, the size difference is not much help, Small Skippers can be 27-34 mm while Large Skippers are usually 33-34mm across. If the butterfly sits still long enough, there are subtle differences on the wing markings, but you don’t often get close enough to see.
The Dunscombe cliff top area near the Donkey Sanctuary is home to the Dingy Skipper, an uninviting but apt name for this small mottled brown and cream butterfly. There have also been a few records of the Grizzled Skipper, another uninviting name but a brighter sight, dark brown with an array of white spots across the wings. The antennae of both species have striped brown and white markings.
Across the country other butterfly counters will see the Essex Skipper, so called because it was first identified in Essex in 1889 but now it has been recorded across much of southern and central England and is likely to be found around here in the next few years if enough people are looking closely.
The Essex Skipper is almost identical to the Small Skipper, the main difference if you can call it that is that the Essex Skipper has black tips to its antennae, the Small Skipper also has black tips but only on top, the underside of the antenna tip is orange, it is no wonder people took so long to notice the difference.
The Big Butterfly Count is a large enough project to reveal meaningful data on the state of the UK butterfly population, and it is quite easy to take part. Volunteers from the Sid Valley Biodiversity Group collate local results to see how well our local butterflies are doing. There will be a report on this year’s results in September. Last year was a good year by modern standards, you can read about it on the group’s website https://sidvalleybiodiversity.org/a-good-year-for-our-butterflies/. Better still, why not join in this year, just Google Big Butterfly Count, it is easy to do and a pleasant way of spending your time.
Ed Dolphin
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