Introduction

Finding and photographing butterflies are skills that anyone can develop. It takes time and effort, but the rewards are huge.

If you just wander randomly around the countryside hoping to see butterflies you are likely to be disappointed - each species has very specific requirements regarding both the caterpillar's and adult butterfly's foodplants. Almost all species breed only in a very restricted range of habitats and have special requirements regarding temperature, humidity and shade-tolerance. Consequently even within a butterfly's normal range of distribution, it will occur only in localised areas where these criteria are met.

Finding butterflies therefore is a matter of learning about their foodplants and preferred habitats, studying and reading about their behaviour and ecology, and putting this information to practical use. It also requires the ability to train your eyes to search, rather than to wander; and a lot of patience and dedication.

The newcomer to butterfly-watching often expresses amazement or even disbelief when an experienced lepidopterist turns over a leaf and shows them a tiny butterfly egg. How on Earth can someone find something so tiny and insignificant amongst the millions of leaves in a woodland ?

With experience it's not as difficult as it might seem - the fact that butterflies have such strict requirements about where they lay there eggs actually makes it much easier to predict which leaves they will use. It's just a matter of watching butterflies over a period of time, and learning how they behave, e.g. where they go to fulfil activities such as nectaring, courting, roosting and egg-laying.

It helps a great deal if you develop the art of lateral thinking, and try to put yourself in the same position as the butterfly you are hoping to find.

To illustrate this point, let's take a fairly extreme example, and imagine that you want to find a hibernating Brimstone butterfly in mid-winter. An impossible task ...?

The solution is to think like a butterfly !  Winter is approaching, and you need somewhere safe to rest. Being a Brimstone, you have pale green leaf-like wings, so you need to spend the winter hidden amongst green leaves to take advantage of your camouflage and avoid being discovered by the hordes of birds that want you for dinner !

During the winter all the deciduous leaves have gone from the trees and bushes, and most of the herbaceous plants have died. There are a few evergreen plants with leaves though - ivy, yew, pines, privet, bramble and holly to name a few. The wings of the Brimstone would be well camouflaged amongst ivy or bramble, but less so amongst the other plants.

You want to be sheltered from the rain and wind, which means hiding under a leaf, on a plant growing in a position where it is sheltered from the wind. This means your choice of over-wintering sites is narrowed down to a choice between hiding amongst ivy on the leeward side of a tree, or resting under a low growing bramble leaf....

Another example - let's try and find a hibernating Comma !

Some hibernating Nymphalines such as the Peacock have plain and blackish undersides, so they tend to hibernate in places where there is little or no light - consequently they hide away in hollow tree trunks, or amongst log piles. The Comma however has a jagged wing-shape and cryptic pattern on the underside, which help to disguise it as a dead oak leaf. It's likely therefore that it will hibernate out in the open, amongst dead leaves.

There are of course billions of dead fallen leaves on the forest floor amongst which it would be wonderfully camouflaged, but it wouldn't make much sense to hibernate on the ground, where the butterfly could find itself underwater, get trodden on, or be eaten by foraging birds or mammals. It's more likely therefore that it would hibernate on a tree, and probably low down, where it would be sheltered from the worst of the winter weather.

The observation and experience of the butterfly-watcher now comes into play. Commas habitually gorge themselves on fermenting blackberries in the late autumn, to provide them with the nourishment they need to survive the winter. They are unlikely to want to waste excessive energy at this time, so logically the hibernation site is likely to be close to a bramble ( blackberry ) bush. Another observation helps narrow things down even further - when the butterfly wakes up in early spring it will be cold, and it will need to spend a lot of time basking in order to raise it's body temperature. Commas habitually bask on sunlit paths or tree trunks.

In autumn 2007, I noticed that a Comma was basking on a particular tree trunk, close to a bramble bush in a sheltered and sunny glade in my local wood. So, in January 2008, on a very cold but sunny day, I visited the same spot, gambling that it had awoken from hibernation and would be basking on the tree. It wasn't, but there were several small coppiced trees close by, and a 5 minute search around the base of these revealed the Comma at roost under a low branch.

On dull days, or at dawn and dusk on sunny days, it is quite easy to locate roosting butterflies such as the Dingy Skipper and Marbled White. Cooler temperatures at these times also mean that the butterflies are placid, making it easy to get close enough for ultra close-ups like the Essex Skipper pictured below.

On sunny days, timing is very important - different types of activity take place at different times of day. Emergence normally takes place in early morning, while courtship and copulation most commonly takes place in mid-late morning, although there are exceptions such as Small Tortoiseshells which mate at dusk. Early morning and late afternoon, when temperatures are cooler, are the best times to find butterflies basking. Late afternoon is also a good time to watch butterflies as they seek out roosting sites.

The more time you spend watching butterflies, the more you'll learn about their habits. Most species have particular nectar sources that they favour, e.g. Common Blues are strongly attracted to fleabane and marjoram, Silver-washed Fritillaries favour thistles and bramble blossom, and Black Hairstreaks like privet flowers. Some butterflies such as Purple Emperor never visit flowers - look for them instead at carrion, dung or tree sap.

Some species such as Wall Brown and Speckled Wood habitually bask on paths, but each prefers different types of habitat. Wall Brown is primarily found at coastal grassland sites where there is a lot of exposed chalk, while it's close relative the Speckled Wood - as it's name suggests, is a woodland butterfly. It habitually settles on paths in areas where dappled sunlight filters through the foliage of trees.

Many butterflies spend most of their lives at the top of bushes or trees, and rarely settle below eye-level - examples include Black Hairstreaks on blackthorn bushes, White-letter Hairstreaks at the top of wych elms, Purple Hairstreaks around the crowns of oaks.