All About Butterflies!
Welcome to ButterflyPages.com – a website devoted to butterflies.
I’ve enjoyed seeing butterflies all my life so I decided to gather together a collection of poems, stories, quotes and pictures all about them. I’ve also just added a page for butterfly videos featuring clips of butterflies in gardens and in the wild. You can also discover how to create your own butterfly garden and find books and posters.I am constantly updating butterflypage.com with more information and facts about butterflies, so keeping checking back to find out all the latest happenings.
Get Started: Butterfly Stories | Butterfly Poems | Butterfly Quotes
Butterfly Pages News & Updates
March 10th, 2020 – Warmer Winters are a Risk to Butterflies
Warmer winters are starting to confuse many species around the world including butterflies. Butterflies rely on seasonal cues to know when to come out of hibernation. This year, Peacock butterflies and Red Admiral butterflies have already been spotted in the South of the UK, far earlier than is normal. This raises concerns that other butterflies species might be similarly effected. This is bad news because there will not be the normal amounts of food available for the butterflies if they wake up early. This will also have ramifications up and down the food chain.
June 4th, 2019 – The Big Butterfly Count
The Big Butterfly Count is just weeks away! From the 19th July – 11th August, Butterfly Conservation UK will be conducting a nation wide butterfly count in the United Kingdom. If you live in the UK you can take part in the count and do your bit to help butterfly conservationists gather data on butterfly populations all over the country. To join in visit the Big Butterfly Count website and download their helpful butterfly identification chart. Then all you need to do is choose a place to watch for butterflies for 15mins during the days of the count. Record all the butterflies you see and submit the results on the website. Good Luck!
December 24th, 2018 – Butterflies Need You
Butterfly conservation is an important issue. Just like bees, butterflies are under threat. Read my guide to butterfly conservation. It’s the perfect introduction to conservation and includes practical suggestions to help you make a difference. Winter is the best time to plan your approach to protecting butterflies. If you have a garden, start thinking about what you are going to plant in the Spring to provide food and shelter for your local butterfly population.
June 18th, 2018 – New Website Launch
After more than a decade of using the old, conked-out website design, I’ve finally gotten around to launching a shiny new one! Its going to take me a few days to get everything up and running and to transfer all the old content to the new site, so please be patient. Thank you.
Old News from ButterflyPages.com:
ButterflyPages.com is on Twitter
March 9th, 2012: Hello everyone, I hope you are all having a good New Year. I just want to let you all know that Butterflypages.com is now on twitter – Follow @Butterfly_pages I will be posting lots of butterfly related updates on the account so please follow butterfly_pages to keep up!
Poweshiek Skipper
November 14th, 2011: Saddening reports suggest the Poweshiek Skipper, a tiny butterfly once commonly found in Iowa, may be near extinction. One expect blames the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for not adding the butterfly to it’s list of endangered species sooner.
The revelations came after butterfly expert Frank Olsen examined 26 different sites for signs of the butterfly during 2007 and only found the species at one of the locations.
The Poweshiek Skipper has now been counted as one of many endangered species in the U.S.. Hopefully this will raise awareness and encourage conservation schemes to prevent the Poweshiek Skipper from going extinct.
South African Butterfly Count
October 18th, 2011: Covering South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho, the Lepidopterists Society of Africa will be conducting their latest butterfly count this coming weekend.
The society hope to use the information collected as a metric by which to judge the effect of land use and climate change on pollinators. For example, the butterfly the Table Mountain Beauty is the only pollinator of the Red Disa Orchard, therefore, if the butterfly no longer exists neither will the plant.
If you would like to help with the count visit the Lepidopterists Society of Africa’s website here and sign up.
Butterfly Calander
October 17th, 2011: Houston’s Holocaust Museum has been collecting butterflies for it’s 2012 Butterfly Project Calendar to commemorate the children who lost their lives during the Jewish genocides of World War II. They recently announced they are now half-way to achieving the goal thanks to Astronaut Rex Walheim.
Walheim offered a butterfly drawing he did during the final shuttle mission, and will be presenting it to the museum tomorrow, Tuesday 18th October. His contribution to the calendar will become one of 800,000 butterflies collected by the museum thus far. Like Rex’s many of them are drawn, but others have been sculpted or created from materials.
The calendar is due to be revealed in full during Spring 2014. If you would like to contribute a butterfly of your own here are the museums guidelines:
1. Butterflies should be no larger than 8 inches by 10 inches.
2. Butterflies may be of any medium the artist chooses, but two-dimensional submissions are preferred.
3. Glitter and all glitter-related products should not be used.
4. Food products (cereal, macaroni, candy, marshmallows or other perishables) also should not be used.
5. If possible, e-mail a photograph of your butterflies, to butterflyproject@hmh.org.
The butterflies need to be submitted by June 30th, 2012 complete with the following info.:
Your name,
Your organization or school,
Your address,
Your e-mail address, and
The total number of butterflies sent.
You can then mail them to this address:
Holocaust Museum Houston
Butterfly Project
Education Department
5401 Caroline St.
Houston, TX 77004
USA
Have fun creating your butterflies!
The Big Butterfly Count
September 22nd, 2011: This year the UK reported its coldest summer for 18 years. This is said to have caused an 11% decrease in butterfly numbers. The stats were gathered by the Big Butterfly Count, in which 34000 people participated. The event was organised by the Butterfly Conservation charity and has long been supported by important environmental figures such as David Attenborough (See below for information about an interview David Attenborough gave to the BBC on the topic).
However, despite the overall bad news for butterflies, not every species was a loser. The UK’s Red Admiral is reported to have increased its numbers by 98% since last year. Also, the Small Tortoiseshell is said to have made something of a rebound after years of poor turnout. This year it was the most frequently counted butterfly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. The species has been declining in Southern England for some years and scientist believe, given its resurgence in the northern regions of the UK, this is due to climate change.
The most commonly recorded butterfly species during the Big Butterfly Count was the Gatekeeper, with 52368 sitings in total.