Butterflies in the Stevenage area

About Me

My first experience of a butterfly that I can remember, was as a little boy seeing a Peacock on the lawn in my grandparents' back garden at Bushey Heath in the 1960s. My passion for butterflies has never wavered since then. In the middle of that decade the family moved to Hove and trips to the nearby downs in the following few years yielded many species which I had not seen before like the Chalkhill Blue.

My secondary education was spent at a boarding school near Newbury where I encountered my first Speckled Wood along the country lanes.

After completing my full-time education I moved to Stevenage to embark on my first professional IT job. Although I joined the British Butterfly Conservation Society, as it was then known, in 1973, it wasn't until 1992 when I decided to take butterfly conservation more seriously. In the following year I took on a new transect to record numbers and species of butterflies over a set route, covering Whomerley Wood, Monks Wood, Fairlands Valley Park south of Six Hills Way and Shackledell Grassland. The transect is walked from April to September almost every week so more than 20 years worth of data to work with!

From 2017, transects covering Knebworth Park and Knebworth Woods are walked as well. Ken King walked the Knebworth Park transect between 1996 and 2010.

Since 2004, I paid regular visits to Norton Green especially in high summer to look for the elusive Purple Emperor. It wasn't until 2011 when I finally saw one perched on top of an oak tree west of Watery Grove. Around this time, the beautiful Silver-washed Fritillary was now gracing the common. Since 2012, I have been searching for Brown Hairstreak at the site. Although there are promising signs that it is present there is insufficient evidence to support such a claim.