🦋📉 14 butterflies disappearing from the Mediterranean landscape
#3 Black-eyed Blue (Glaucopsyche melanops)
It has a single spring generation and inhabits open scrublands, grasslands and dry orchards, from low elevations up to around 1,000 m.
🔗 More information: catalanbms.org/en/especies/lycgme/
Als je als akkerbouwer een mozaïek creëert van verschillende gewassen, afgewisseld met kruidenrijke stroken en stoppels, dan gaat de biodiversiteit er enorm op vooruit. Zo blijkt nu al uit de zesjarige pilot 'Biodivers Akker Mozaïek' (BAM-akkers), die in 2024 begon.
Ecologist and butterfly expert at Vlinderstichting and Butterfly Conservation Europe
Chris van Swaay
NatureTodayNL
With numbers of Painted Ladies (distelvlinder, V cardui) rising on Dutch Butterfly Monitoring transects, it's a good moment to put this invasion in perspective. The graph shows a small influx, comparable with 1996 and 2003, and smaller than 2009 and 2019. But lets see how it continues.
Occupancy-trend of the Chequered Skipper (bont dikkopje, C palaemon) in NL. After a long period of gradual decline distribution in 2024 and 2025 fell by almost 50%, esp. small populations were abandoned. Helas 2026 showed little recovery as far as we can tell now.
Hornet moth (Sesia apiformis) in Wageningen floodplains (NL). We see them every year, but still fun.
Hoornaarvlinder (Sesia apiformis) in Wageningse uiterwaarden. We zien ze elk jaar, maar het blijft leuk.
This year sees an early arrival of Painted Ladies (distevlinder, V cardui) on Dutch Butterfly Monitoring transects. These butterflies come from the Mediterranean and migrated north through France. In some years the can be very abundant (eg 2009 and 2019), in other years almost missing.
As May progresses we slowly sink into a few weeks with low numbers of butterflies in NL. We used to call this the June-dip, but more and more of it occurs in May as a result of climate warming. Spring butterflies are almost gone, and summer butterflies start emerging around mid June.
Although the Holly Blue (boomblauwtje, C argiolus) is often seen in gardens, on Dutch Butterfly Monitoring transects by far the highest density is counted on heathland, where Common Heather (Calluna vulgaris) is an important foodplant.
Het boomblauwtje wordt vaak gemeld uit stad en dorp, maar de transecten van het NEM meetnet dagvlinders laten zien dat de hoogste dichtheid op heide wordt gevonden, waar struikhei een belangrijke waardplant voor de rups is.
Enjoy this 5min film (in English) on how a potato field in N NL was transfered into a butterfly haven: vimeo.com/292261901
Geniet van dit filmpje van maar 5min over hoe een aardappelveld is veranderd in een vlinderparadijs door Willem van Hemmen: vimeo.com/292261901
82 year old Willem bought an remote potato farmfield back in 1980 and transformed it into a butterfly paradise. For almost 40 years he works the land with shovel and scythe in order to preserve the bu...
