iRecord

Recording butterflies

iRecord Butterflies is a free app for your smartphone that will help you identify and record any butterfly that you see in your garden. Your sighting will be logged by Butterfly Conservation and added to their records.

The app is really easy to use. You can compare your own photos of a butterfly with those from the app’s picture library, and then filter through species by colour, pattern and size until you have a name for your butterfly. It will show you distribution maps and identification tips for each species.

1. Brimstone 2. Peacock

Once you have identified a butterfly, the app makes submitting your sightings to Butterfly Conservation really easy:

• enter the number of individual butterflies you saw,
• the name of the place where you saw them so that the sightings can be checked on maps,
• and submit.

The app will automatically calculate where you are, using the GPS in your phone, and provide a grid reference for your sighting.

Butterfly Conservation has been keeping records of butterfly populations and distribution since 1968. Their records are used for research, to inform environmental policies designed to protect our dwindling lepidoptera numbers, and to guide long-term planning in a very uncertain future. The more accurate and detailed the records are, the better we will be able to plan for our butterflies.

Two rare species seen in the park: wall brown [3], white letter hairstreak [4].
Header picture: painted lady

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