News Items

This is Paul Wetton's latest DVD offering - click here to read the review. From the author: Our trip began in Sofia during the last week of June. We searched for certain large enigmatic species such as the Camberwell Beauty, Poplar Admiral and Freyer's Purple Emperor. We found small butterflies found only in eastern areas such as Eastern Baton Blue and Little Tiger Blue plus the only definite record of Grass Jewel, new for South Western Bulgaria. Other Eastern specialities included Ottoman Brassy Ringlet, various Anomalous Blues along with Nicholl's and Bulgarian Ringlet all found in some spectacular riverine and mountain scenery.

The 2012 UK Butterflies Outstanding Contribution Award has been won by Seth and Sami Gibson who spent their honeymoon walking the length of Britain in aid of Butterfly Conservation. Seth and Sami received a copy of Richard Tratt's Butterfly Landscapes, the The Video Guide to the Butterflies of Britain and Ireland (DVD) kindly donated by BirdGuides, and a UK Butterflies calendar. More details here.

Butterfly Conservation has just released its Landscape-scale Conservation for Butterflies and Moths - Lessons from the UK report that is the culmination of several Butterfly Conservation projects over the last few years. It's a superb piece of work and can be downloaded from the Butterfly Conservation website here. It is full of examples of how some of our rarest butterflies and moths are now flourishing thanks to Butterfly Conservation's work.

A few more trip reports have been contributed by UKB members, including a superb report by Paul Wetton from his trip to Bulgaria, part 2 of Tony Davison's trip to south-east Bulgaria (part 1 is here) and a butterfly report from Cyprus by Gary Hulbert.

Lynn Fomison has written a precis of Matthew Oates' fascinating and excellent article from British Wildlife magazine, which is entitled Adventures with Caterpillars - The larval stage of the Purple Emperor butterfly. Click here to read the precis.

From the publisher: This book is a celebration of meadows and their wildflowers. Once common-place and familiar to all, not many now remain and their typical flowers are rapidly becoming a folk memory. Stylised meadow flowers, evoking a by-gone era of rural idyll and permanent summer sunshine, are used to sell everything from tea-towels to china plates and cups. Here we reveal their true beauty with close-up photography of flower detail and more distant shots setting them in their meadow context. Click here to read the review by Lynn Fomison.

From the publisher: This new double-DVD set from BirdGuides presents close-up footage of all of the butterflies found in Britain and Ireland. Running for over three hours, this broadcast-quality production offer comprehensive accounts of all 59 species with superb moving film and covering identification, distribution, habitat, behaviour and all life-stages. The video is narrated by TV presenter Nick Baker. Engaging and illuminating interviews have been filmed with knowledgable butterfliers from all over the country, including Jeremy Thomas, Richard Lewington, Martin Warren and many other individuals involved with Butterfly Conservation. Click here to read the review.

This report provides a summary of the butterflies observed on a trip made to south-west Switzerland from 9th to 15th June 2011. The members of the party were Chris Manley, Dave Shute, Gary Richardson, Lisa Baker-Richardson, Lynn Fomison, Peter Eeles and Tim Norriss. Our guide for the trip was none other than UK Butterflies team member (and a resident of Switzerland), Guy Padfield. Click here to read the report.