News Items

As hinted at in the last newsletter, we were hoping that UK Butterflies would be in a position to donate over £1000 to Butterfly Conservation this year. I'm pleased to report that our grand total has come to £1709.46. I'd like to express my appreciation to UK Butterflies sponsor WildGuides as well as BirdGuides, who allowed us to sell some of their books and DVDs with a significant percentage of the sales going towards this total. In particular, however, I'd like to thank Gary Richardson and Lisa Baker-Richardson, once again, for their huge contribution in selling the UK Butterflies calendar and a wonderful array of greetings cards and prints. Their contribution alone came to a shade under £1500.

The UK Butterflies site information is now available through a new integration with Google Maps. The new mechanism is vastly superior to the old mechanism where maps were almost impossible to view if the particular grid square contained a lot of sites. The new mechanisms allows you to dynamically move around the map, zoom in and out, and combine roads with satellite information, for example. Various "push pins" also allow you to see the species (and species rating, if available) for each site.

UK Butterflies had a stand at the Butterfly Conservation National AGM, with all profits going to the society. It was good to meet up with so many UKB members and this was, by far, our most successful event to date. A fantastic day with superb presentations and excellent stalls. Some photos from the day can be found here in the UK Butterflies forums.

The 2009 photography competition voting has now closed and I'm pleased to announce that the winning shot is Sean Browne's excellent photo of a pair of Wood Whites. Sean wins the publication of his choice from UK Butterflies sponsor, WildGuides. Congratulations to all of the category winners and many thanks to all of the entrants for their contribution. Click here to peruse the winning photos.

Another milestone for UK Butterflies was reached as we had our first stand at the annual exhibition of the Amateur Entomological Society at Kempton Park racecourse. It was great to meet so many members there - as well as personalities and authors such as Chris Packham, Nick Baker, Richard Lewington, Clive Farrell, David Newland, Richard Fox and Chris Manley. Many kindly popped along to the stand to give us their regards. Some photos from the day can be found here in the UK Butterflies forums.

BBC Countryfile magazine has voted UK Butterflies as one of its "Top 50" British wildlife websites! Click here to see the complete listing - UK Butterflies is listed under the "Best bug websites" category. Thanks to all of the contributors for helping the website receive such an accolade!