East Lothian Butterflies 2025 part 1

I collect the butterfly records from the East Lothian Countryside Rangers and about 40 volunteers. At the end of the season I put together an annual round-up that I send to the volunteers to let them see how their records fit into the big picture. Below is an edited version.

2025 was pretty dry and sunny in East Lothian, but there was often an easterly wind keeping the temperatures down. The general lack of rain and the wind caused the vegetation to dry up, particularly in coastal areas.

We had a couple of very early records. Firstly, a Speckled Wood that was seen on 15th January in Butterdean Wood. I can only assume that it had crawled into a nearby greenhouse as a caterpillar last autumn and was tricked into thinking that spring had arrived.

The next butterfly was a Small Tortoiseshell, which was seen on 28th February. Maybe this wasn't such a surprise as they spend the winter hibernating as adult butterflies, so can make an appearance on a mild day.

There was then a flurry of Small Tortoiseshells and Peacocks on 6th March. Both species had a fairly average year, but at least Small Tortoiseshells bounced back from last year's low numbers.

There were a few Red Admirals seen in March, indicating that they may have survived the winter here. They went on to have an amazing year, with us recording about three times the average number.

The first Comma was seen on 15th March. They went on to have a great year, particularly later in the season, and I received the highest number of records since I started collating them in 2008.

A few days later a Painted Lady was spotted in North Berwick. They also had a good year, with 220 records - a big improvement on last year's 14! Their numbers can be really variable. I would suggest the normal annual average is under 100 records, but the figures are skewed by the 2019 invasion when I received 5395 records!

All four white species had an amazing year. For Orange Tips, Green-veined Whites and Large Whites it was by far the best year since I started recording the butterflies. 

Small Whites also had a fantastic year, way above average, but not quite as high a number as was seen in 2018.

Speckled Wood numbers picked up in April and they also had a very good year. I received records of 1608 of them, which is the second highest number since they reappeared in East Lothian in 2009.

Small Coppers had a fairly average year.

The same could be said for Wall Brown. Their numbers look fairly average, but when you look at when they were seen, they were almost exactly two weeks early and there was a small third generation towards the end of September, with the last one being seen on 7th November.

I will continue this on my next post.

Double Brooders

Last year I tended to take a lot of pictures of butterflies on our land using my phone. I would always have my phone in my back pocket whenever I was working outside and it was easy to take a quick record shot, rather than running to the house to get my camera, only to discover that the butterfly had then flown away!

Imagine my horror earlier this year when I discovered that all my pictures had disappeared from my phone. Luckily Google Photos automatically backs up every picture I take and so I have spent many evenings sifting through them and downloading the better pictures onto my laptop.

Amongst the pictures I was keen to save were some of a hutchinsoni form of the Comma that I saw last August. This is a lighter form of the Comma, Polygonia c-album, which it is thought is a result of the caterpillar developing while the day length is increasing. i.e before mid-summers day.

This form goes on to breed again the same year. Normally, in Scotland, the Comma just has one brood a year. The double brood is more common in England. This is the first time I have seen this form of Comma, but apparently a few have been seen in southern Scotland in the last few years. Possibly another sign of the climate changing, or maybe just a result of the lovely weather we had last spring.

Here is the normal form of the Comma.

And in contrast here is an interesting dark Comma I saw a few weeks later. This gave the impression of being a purple butterfly when it was flying.

Also, in August I found a cluster of Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars.

Here the Small Tortoiseshell, Aglais urticae, is normally single brooded, but further south there are two generations a year. I have never found caterpillars that late in the year and this was definitely a second brood. Again, probably the result of the great spring. I reared one of the caterpillars, which emerged from its chrysalis on 11th September, very much later than the usual early July.

East Lothian Butterflies 2019 Part 1

There was a very clear correlation between the weather and number of butterflies seen in East Lothian in 2019. After a reasonably mild winter there was an unseasonably warm week at the end of February with temperatures reaching 16 degrees. Then it was cold again until the end of March. At the end of April we experienced an even warmer week with temperatures of 26 degrees. However, we still experienced a few hard frosts in May. The remainder of the year was quite reasonable, but it was interspersed with very heavy rain showers. The butterfly season ended abruptly at the end of October when the weather turned cool and wet.

Other than a couple of hardy Peacocks that appeared in January, the warm week in February brought out a flurry of species. We had seen seven species before the end of February, which must be a record for East Lothian. Things then went very quiet until the third week in March when the butterfly season truly started. Most species did very well in 2019, probably as a result of the very good weather in 2018 allowing the early stages of the butterflies to survive in good numbers. However, from July through to September there were occasional very heavy periods of rain which had a dramatic impact on butterfly numbers.

Despite having fewer people recording butterflies than the last few years we had a record 20,598 butterflies recorded in 2019 (16,875 in 2018). This was helped considerably by the enormous number of Painted Ladies that arrived on our shores in June and July, but even without them we had almost as many butterflies as in 2018.

Peacock, Aglais io

The first butterfly recorded in East Lothian in 2019 was a Peacock seen at Aberlady Local Nature Reserve on 11th January. A second Peacock was seen at Levenhall Links three days later. Peacocks have been recorded in increasingly high numbers over the last seven years, with 2019 being the best year yet. Numbers peaked in mid August, but then dropped very quickly again to single figures by the start of September.

Small Tortoiseshell, Aglais urticae

The Small Tortoiseshells waited until the warm week in February to show, with the first record being on the 17^th. They have been declining in numbers over the last few years. However, 2019 saw a bit of a revival in numbers when the new generation emerged towards the end of July. As usual, they quickly disappeared with many of them heading into hibernation surprisingly early in the season.

Comma, Polygonia c-album

The number of records of Commas has gradually been increasing since they were first recorded in East Lothian in 2001. However, they declined significantly 2016 presumably as a result of the lousy summer. Since then they have been picking up and in 2019 the recovery continued. The first Comma was seen on 25th February and, like the Small Tortoiseshell, their number peaked for a week at the end of August and then very quickly they disappeared. It will be interesting to see how many return next spring after their hibernation.

Painted Lady, Vanessa cardui

The big story of 2019 was the arrival on our shores of an enormous number of Painted Ladies. These came in two waves. The first at the beginning of June when we were amazed at the number of Painted Ladies being seen. But that was nothing compared with the number that arrived at the end of July when they were seen in their hundreds. Some of these would have been the young of the previous arrivals, but most of them were seen flying in from the sea. They were also noted flying in a very

definite westerly direction and records were received from all over Scotland including the Outer Hebrides.

I was interested to learn that Painted Ladies had done similarly well in the USA in 2019. So, on both sides of the Atlantic conditions must have been just right throughout the lives of four or five generations of butterflies.

I received records of 5395 Painted Ladies in 2019, a big difference from an average of about 80 over the last six years.

Speckled Wood, Pararge aegeria

The exceptionally mild week in February also brought about a remarkably early record for the Speckled Wood. In fact two were seen on February 26th basking in the sun on the coast at Prestonpans. There was another record on 22nd March. We normally wouldn't expect to see a Speckled Wood here until the middle of April, which is when we started to see them again in 2019. I can only imagine that the three early records were individuals that had benefited from the long summer of 2018 and had formed chrysalises late in the autumn.

The spring populations appeared in higher numbers than in previous years and I was expecting to see bumper numbers later in the summer. However, the heavy rains that we experienced appeared to knock Speckled Woods quite hard.

There were fewer Speckled Woods recorded in 2019 than in the previous year, but they are still doing well in East Lothian.

Small White, Pieris rapae

After such a great year for Small Whites in 2018 I was expecting to see great things in 2019. And it was a good year, but just not as good a year as last year! In 2018 we had records of almost 3500 Small Whites, but in 2019 we recorded 950. However, this is still good when compared with the average for the previous five years of about 360.

The first Small White seen in 2019 was on the 27th February. A good five or six weeks earlier than we would normally expect. The rest of the season was much as expected with a summer population about five times as great as the spring population.

Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta

The first Red Admiral record of 2019 was on 27th February. This was most likely an individual that had survived the mild winter. There were a few more records in March and April, but it was the first week of June when they started to arrive on our coasts, about three days ahead of the first wave of Painted Ladies. There was another spike in numbers at the end of August, which could have been the next generation. Red Admirals continued to be seen in good numbers until the end of October.

Orange Tip, Anthocharis cardamines

Orange Tips did very well again in 2019. This was probably a result of the great year they had in 2018. They were fortunate that their flight period was before the heavy showers started, so the weather was kind to them.

The first Orange Tip of 2019 was seen on 31st March, about a week earlier than normal.

Green-veined White, Pieris napi

The first Green-veined White was also seen on 31st March. The spring population was a lot larger than average, with the summer generation just being a little more than normal.

Large White, Pieris brassicae

The Large White has never been as numerous as the Small White or Green-veined White. 2019 was a fairly average year for them, which is a little surprising considering how well they did in 2018. The first record was on 11th April and they were recorded through to the 28th September.

I'll continue with the rest of the butterflies seen in 2019 in my next post.

5-Year Comparisons

I have mentioned in my previous couple of posts how things have changed for Speckled Woods and Wall Browns over the last five years in East Lothian. These two species have both extended their range northwards and only arrived in the county within the last ten years.

I have been comparing 2017 figures with the previous four years for all of the species occurring here and it is apparent that some species have done very much better than others. I had my own perceptions of how well each species had done, but it is interesting to see the combined records from all of the volunteers.

The problem with doing a comparison like this is that each year I have had more people send in their records  to me, so you would expect to see more records for each species. However, this hasn't been the case with many of them.

For instance, when looking at the Large White, Small White and Green-veined White, there is a marked difference in how they did in 2017. These three species that share very similar life cycles, with a spring generation and a summer generation. It is odd that the Small White apparently had a poor second generation, but the other two species did as well as ever.

In the graphs below the red line shows the 2017 records. The blue line is the average figure for the last five years.

I had thought that there had been fewer than normal  Peacocks around in 2017, but when I looked at the records received they appeared to have done better than normal.

This is in contrast with the Small Tortoiseshell, which seemed to have a very poor year. I was surprised to see that there were more records than I expected.

2017 was an amazing year for Red Admirals. They have been increasing in numbers over the last few years and it is thought this is because they are now able to survive the winter in the UK. Whether this is because the temperatures are warmer than in previous years, or if they have adapted to our climate is unknown. It will be interesting to see how the very cold winter we are experiencing just now will impact on their numbers later this year.

What I find most interesting is that the species, such as the Wall Brown, Speckled Wood and Small Skipper, which have all moved into East Lothian in the last nine or ten years, have continued to increase in numbers, while some long-established species have been declining.

Most people who submit butterfly records to me it was felt that 2017 was a poor year for butterflies. As I mentioned previously we may be showing a falsely rosy picture of how the butterflies did, as we had more people sending in records. However, the differences between the species is valid. 

It will be interesting to see what happens in the years to come.

East Lothian Butterflies 2017 - Part 1

2017 was a strange year for butterflies. It started off reasonably well, but the summer butterflies were rather disappointing. Luckily there was a late autumn resurgence of Speckled Woods and Red Admirals, which boosted the overall number of butterflies seen.

We had a good spring in 2017 after a mild winter with only one dusting of snow. From the end of March until mid-June we had decent weather, but then we had a period of very heavy rain. This seemed to impact on many species of butterflies (and I am told some species of birds). Certainly I saw a batch of Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars wiped out by the rain in June and also an enormous group of Peacock caterpillars perished after three days of continuous rain in July.

This year, we had more people than ever sending in records. This has given a bit of a false impression of the number of butterflies that there were around. One thing I noticed this year was that there were very few records of large numbers of butterflies being seen.

I have looked back over the last five years' worth of records and noticed a worrying trend in that the number of butterflies per sighting has been steadily reducing each year.

Below is a summary of how each species did in 2017.

Peacock, Aglais io

A really early sighting this year, the first Peacock record I received was on 16th January on an unusually warm and sunny day. They were recorded every month through to November, with numbers peaking towards the end of August. Peacocks did reasonably well this year, unlike the Small Tortoiseshell, which has a very similar life cycle.

Small Tortoiseshell, Aglais urticae

The first Small Tortoiseshell was spotted on 25th January. They had a very poor year this year and despite the record number of butterfly records sent in, we had our lowest number of Small Tortoiseshells recorded for five years. What I found interesting is that the first Small Tortoiseshell recorded hibernating was on 17 August, only a couple of weeks after it must have emerged. More hardy Small Tortoiseshells were seen flying until 14th September.

Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta

The first Red Admiral recorded was on 9th March. I would speculate that this was an individual that had spent the winter here. They were seen every month after that right through to December, with numbers peaking in September. This was our most commonly recorded butterfly this year, and it did very well all over the UK. This is a butterfly that only a few years ago was considered as a migrant, but which has now firmly established itself here.

Comma, Polygonia c-album

The first record of a Comma this year was on 12th March. The Comma has never been a particularly common butterfly in East Lothian. Since first being recorded here in 2001 their numbers have picked up each year, peaking in 2015. For some reason 2016 was a terrible year for them and in 2017 there have been a few more seen, but still worryingly low numbers.

Green-veined White, Pieris napi

The first Green-veined White was recorded this year on 1st April. They seemed to have a fairly average year, but I think in reality numbers were lower than usual (given that we had more people recording butterflies). Certainly, the number recorded on the transects was lower than average.

Orange Tip, Anthocharis cardamines

The Orange Tip was first recorded on 6th April. The number recorded was a little higher than average, as expected. The adult stage of this butterfly usually flies between April and mid June, so they missed the terrible weather just after that.

Speckled Wood, Pararge aegeria

The first Speckled Wood was seen on 8th April. There are generally three peaks in population of adult Speckled Woods throughout the year. Possibly the first to appear had spent the winter as a chrysalis. The second peak, in June, could be those that spent the winter as caterpillars. This year the number of records received in June was much greater than in previous years, but the later generation was not so spectacular, although there were a great number of records received in late September, making this the second most numerous butterfly recorded in East Lothian in 2017.

Small White, Pieris rapae

The Small White was also first recorded on 8th April. I think that the Small White is generally a little unrecorded, as it is difficult to identify unless it lands. 2017 started off reasonably well for the Small White with normal numbers being seen in the spring. However, the summer generation was very reduced, presumably as a result of the heavy rain during June and July.

Large White, Pieris brassicae

The Large White would normally follow a similar pattern to the Small White. The first record for 2017 was on 8th April and thereafter the Large White had a fairly average year. More were recorded this year than the previous three years, but remember there were more people recording them. Why the Small White struggled and the Large White didn't appear to be affected by the weather is a mystery to me!

Wall Brown, Lasiommata megera

The Wall Brown was one of 2017's success stories. First recorded here in 2010 the Wall Brown has since been spreading westwards around the coast and to several inland sites. In 2017 the first record was on 20th April and the first generation continued to be seen until  3rd June. The second generation started on 5th August and it was recorded through to the 19th September in much greater numbers than in previous years.

Small Copper, Lycaena phlaeas

The Small Copper has been fairly consistent in East Lothian over the last five years. 2017 wasn't very different from the average. 

I will continue with the remaining 12 species in my next post.