Michael Blencowe from the Lost Woods team shares his love of butterflies and how you can get involved in a survey to find seven species of woodland butterfly this Summer.

One of the wildlife highlights of my year is taking a stroll through my local woodland in the summer sunshine as beautiful butterflies rise from flowers and glide and swirl around me. There’s just something about encountering dancing butterflies in a woodland setting which is extra exciting, magical and uplifting. Maybe it’s because I might catch a glimpse of an elusive rarity, or maybe it’s simply because it makes me feel like a Disney princess.

Whatever the reason, July is the best month to head into your local woodlands to look for some of our amazing butterflies. There are around 60 species of butterfly in the UK but most of them prefer to stay away from woodlands, instead seeking out the warmth and nectar of sunny flower-rich meadows and grasslands. But a handful of species have adapted to life in the tree-tops, in sunlit glades or along wide woodland paths and, in my view, these woodland specialists are Britain’s most fascinating butterflies. " 

Join the survey

As part of the Lost Woods project, we are asking people within the project area in Sussex to look out for and report ‘The Lost Woods Seven’ – seven key species that can be found in the summer in southern woodlands. As well as giving us information on the distribution of these butterflies in the Lost Woods project area, these sightings are also a good indicator of the health of a woodland.

Most butterflies lead relatively short lives and are highly dependent on the quality of their environment. Their populations adapt quickly to the physical changes in their habitat. If woodlands are managed to include open glades, wide rides and a rich diversity of plants, we can see butterfly numbers rise year upon year. But where woodlands are abandoned and overgrown, shade soon reduces floral diversity and butterfly populations suffer.

Woodland butterflies require light, warmth and a variety of plants and flowers to provide food for adult butterflies and their caterpillars. Dark, shaded woodlands provide none of these. Managing a woodland through coppicing is a great way to improve a woodland’s potential for butterflies and other wildlife.

Coppicing is a traditional woodland management method which harvests wood on a long rotation, allowing open areas to be created within the woodland. This ‘opens up’ the woodland, light floods in encouraging floral growth which attracts butterflies, bees and other insects. If managed correctly coppicing can create a diverse, successional structure throughout a woodland which benefits all wildlife. You can read all about coppicing on our project partner the Small Woods' website here.

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Look out for the Lost Woods Seven

You can download an identification guide here to help you spot them. Don't forget to send me your sightings, including location, by emailing lostwoodsteam@ruralsussex.org.uk. I'd also encourage you to send in your sightings and take part in the Big Butterfly Count this July.

Speckled Wood

I’ve always viewed the Speckled Wood as the ‘true’ woodland butterfly. While other butterflies skitter around the woodland fringes, you’ll find the Speckled Wood venturing deep amongst the trees. As long as there is a shaft of sunlight penetrating the canopy and creating an oasis of light you may well find a Speckled Wood aggressively defending his kingdom against rival Speckled Woods.

On the butterfly’s open wings you’ll find a row of eye spots with white ‘pupils’. These patterns are designed to deflect a bird’s attack. Birds will peck at these false eyes which are located at the furthest point from the head – the business end of the butterfly. A predatory Great Tit will end up with a beakful of butterfly wing while the Speckled Wood lives to fight another day. Butterflies can still fly surprising well after losing a chunk of their wing, but they can’t fly too far without a head.

Ringlet

When it comes to employing eye spots to confuse and deflect an attacker the Ringlet is taking no chances. The wings of this attractive chocolate coloured butterfly are adorned with rows of black eyes accentuated with a beige eye ring. These eye spots are subject to extreme variation.

In some individuals they can be large and distorted, while in others they are hardly there at all. The Ringlet’s dark wings allow the butterfly to warm up rapidly, so it’s not unusual to see it active on those cooler summer days. I’ve often seen them flying through light drizzle. Look for them in woodland glades where they lay their eggs on a variety of grasses.

Brimstone

On sculpted, vibrant yellow wings the male Brimstone makes his elegant entrance in our woodlands early each year. Amazingly the spring Brimstones you see would have emerged as adults the previous summer. So, with a lifespan of up to 10 months, this makes the Brimstone the grandaddy of the butterfly world, an insect OAP.

Admittedly, for most of their long life they will have been asleep, avoiding the winter by tucking themselves away under the cover of Holly or Ivy. Each Spring they’ll emerge, mate and lay their skittle shaped eggs on Alder Buckthorn bushes. In summer look for the new Brimstones as they emerge and prepare for their big sleep – you may see the very same butterfly again if you return to the same woods in March 2025.

Silver-washed Fritillary

On a summer walk through the woodlands of Southern England, you may be lucky enough to see this impressive butterfly as it glides along wide, sunny rides in search of nectar. If you are really lucky, one will alight on the bramble flowers giving you get close views of its intricate orange upperwings and its tiger-striped underwings. And for the seriously lucky out there, you will see a pair performing their elaborate courtship flight; the female flying with short, stuttering wingbeats while the male flies in furious loops around her showering her with perfumed pheromones. It’s quite a spectacle!

White Admiral

This striking butterfly is one of my favourites. It’s always a special day when the two-tone wings of the White Admiral as it gracefully ‘flap-flap-glides’ past you in a woodland clearing. If it alights on a leaf to survey its territory, you’ll be treated to glimpse of the exotically patterned underwing. In the summer the females seek part-shaded honeysuckles where they lay their eggs. The funky caterpillars that develop are covered in spiky turrets – not the sort of thing any bird would want to put in their mouth.

Purple Hairstreak

This beautiful little butterfly with iridescent purple wings is a lot commoner than you think. In the Lost Woods every suitable oak tree will have its own colony of Purple Hairstreaks. The trick to observing them is to find an oak tree that is bathed in the fading sun’s rays in the late afternoon of a July day, grab your binoculars and wait. Purple Hairstreaks are mainly active after 6pm, long after most butterflies have gone to bed. Look high in the tree-tops for the silvery underwings of a small butterfly with a jittery flight as it patrols the canopy engaging in frequent, swirling aerial battles with its neighbours.

Purple Emperor

Draped in resplendent robes of iridescent amethyst, obsidian and ermine, the Purple Emperor has earned its place among butterfly royalty. Aside from their alluring appearance emperors also possess that combination of rarity and elusiveness which has elevated them into an almost mythological figure; a butterfly bigfoot.

Purple Emperors spend almost all their time on lofty thrones high above our woodlands. If we’re lucky we may glimpse the glide of a wide-winged silhouette as we stare sore-necked and squinting at the skyline.

Yet in complete contrast to its aristocratic high life the male emperor has some dirty habits which drag him down to the filthy forest floor where they seek salts in dog poop and other disgusting items. It’s like finding the King rummaging through the bins at the back of Tesco. Look for them high in the canopy (but also watch where you’re stepping!).

Moths

There are only a few dozen butterfly species in the UK but there are over 2500 species of moths. Butterflies and moths belong to the same group, the lepidoptera, and there is no real difference between a butterfly and a moth.

To me, butterflies are just weird moths (but with better PR agent). Our woodlands are filled with hundreds of moth species – many of which are more colourful and visually stunning than their butterfly relatives. Confusingly some woodland moth species will also fly in the day. Many of our moths have amazing colouring and patterns, quirky behaviours and weird life cycles – but I’ll save those stories for another time.