We’ll be seeing huge numbers of colourful migrants in the UK this summer – in what is widely predicted to be the largest arrival of painted-lady butterflies for 17 years.“We are in the midst of a miracle”, said wildlife writer Simon Barnes in The Observer. Last time there was a painted-lady spike, in 2019, they were seen in their hundreds of thousands. Clouds of the butterflies have already been spotted, as Butterfly Conservation’s annual Big Butterfly Count – the world’s largest citizen-science insect count – gets underway. Large numbers have been recorded along the east coast into northern England and, at Hickling national nature reserve, close to the Norfolk coast, 253 of them have been seen feeding on one patch of brambles.
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