Where are all the butterflies?

When was the last time you spotted a butterfly and had the time to just observe its routine? Or have you even seen butterflies lately? Are we too busy with our daily lives or is there simply less butterflies nowadays.

The findings are alerting. Washington Post states that some butterfly-species across United States have been disappearing during the last two decades. Same goes for UK. Britain’s Butterfly Conservation latest analysis provides further evidence of the serious, long-term and ongoing decline of UK butterflies, with 70% of species in declining in occurrence and 57% declining in abundance since 1976.

So it is not just imagination. There are a lot less butterflies now than forty or even ten years ago.

The major reason for this seems to be, as Laurie Davies Adams, the executive director of Pollinator Partnership phrases it:

“If you don’t have a place to nest, if you don’t have a place to lay eggs, if you don’t have a place to get the floral resources you need, because they’re absent because of drought or early bloom, you’re in trouble”.

It is not the butterflies we are hurting – it is the environment where they live. We rip apart woods and meadows for housing developments and bug-spray our lawns. There simply is less space to live for the butterflies.

Is there anything we individuals can do to help?

Of course we won’t all have the time, energy or want to go full-frontal on saving the butterflies, but it is the little things we all can do to help.

Jeffrey Glassberg, the president of the North American Butterfly Association, gives great advice:

“It would be really easy for people to make a significant difference in the environment just by the way they planted their suburban yards. Many butterflies would be increased by planting your yard with the right native plants.”

With a quick search we found a list of plants that butterflies favor:

Sticky Catchlys
Lilacs
Jasmine Tobaccos
Coneflowers
Oreganos
Sweet Williams
Dame’s Rockets,
Scarlet Beebalms,
Dense blazing stars and
Coneflowers

The list goes on longer and choosing different plants will attract a wider variety of species. One thing is clear: butterflies are not too picky when it comes to sources of nutrition.

Planting the kind of flowers that butterflies prefer is just one of the many ways to attract and help these beautiful pixies. If we still want to enjoy observing the routine of these wonderful creatures after the next twenty years, let’s begin to help them by small steps.

Later on in our blog we will dig in deeper into how to plan and create a butterfly haven in our own garden.

Belightful-team

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