The Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey is the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme‘s large-scale nationwide study, similar to the BTO’s Breeding Bird Survey. So similar, in fact, that you can walk your own BBS 1-km square looking for butterflies and submit that.

There are a couple of differences between the survey methods – here you also record the percentage of sunshine per section and take an average temperature reading as well.

You will already have mapped the habitat for the BBS, and this plus the birds found in previous visits may throw up some interesting correlations for the scientists at the two organisations.  Each year’s findings get published in a Newsletter.

Sadly, these intriguing birds don’t appear in the Cotswolds: we have little lowland heath or clearfell to interest them. The nearest sites are over the Severn in the Forest of Dean.

Andrew B of our sister organisation the Gloucestershire Naturalists Society recently led several excellent evening walks near Cinderford; see his account and video.

The walk at Crabtree Hill last week had not just Nightjars churring and hunting, but families of Wild Boar roaming around. Fortunately the piglets were old enough for their parents not to be concerned about human intruders.

The picture above is local artist Jackie Garner‘s artwork from The Birds of Gloucestershire, which Liverpool University Press have re-printed after the first print-run sold out.