Wiltshire Branch welcomes your butterfly sightings and anyone can take part: children, butterfly beginners and experienced recorders.
Records collected by volunteers are vital. They enable us to monitor butterfly populations, conserve threatened species and check the overall health of the environment. You can give as much or as little time as you like and below are some of the ways you can help. Guidance to identify a butterfly is available on the Butterflies page. If you need help with recording, Mike Fuller (Wiltshire County Butterfly Recorder) would be pleased to offer advice.
Whichever method you choose please register each record once only to avoid duplication.
Flexible recording ‘as and when’
For butterfly recording with no special commitment you can register sightings at any time on the Wiltshire Branch website. You can also submit sightings to the Butterfly Conservation website, or with your smartphone using the iRecord Butterflies app.
Butterfly recording for children
Children love taking part in the Big Butterfly Count which takes place every year in July and August. We also have family fun activities to download.
Recording in your garden
If you like to record the butterflies that visit your garden you can take part in the Garden Butterfly Survey. The Survey monitors how butterflies are faring in the UK’s gardens and participants should be committed to recording throughout the year.
Transect walking
Transect walking involves monitoring butterfly abundance by walking a fixed route (the transect) through an area at least once a week from 1st April until the end of September. If you would like to become involved please contact Mike Fuller (Wiltshire County Butterfly Recorder), and for more information see the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. The current list of Wiltshire transects can be found on the Wiltshire Branch website.
Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey (WCBS)
The WCBS monitors trends in butterfly populations by random sampling across the countryside as a whole. If you have reasonable identification skills and can walk up to 3 km on a couple of sunny days in July and August, Janet Crittenden (Wiltshire WBCS champion) would be delighted to hear from you.