More than 500 small blue butterflies have been spotted at a single site in Scotland – a record-breaking number for one of the UK’s most threatened butterflies.
Butterfly Conservation volunteer Richard Aspinall logged 523 small blues in just 90 minutes at Balnagown Estate near Invergordon. It more than doubles last year’s total and marks a hopeful sign for the species’ future, say conservationists.
The count comes as part of Small Blue Week (31 May–7 June), an annual celebration of this delicate insect and the work being done to protect it.
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Years of hard work paying off
The small blue (Cupido minimus), with its 2–3cm wingspan, is the UK’s smallest butterfly. It’s also one of the most vulnerable, having lost much of its habitat over the past few decades. Since 2005, numbers in Scotland have dropped by nearly 40%. But this year, things are looking up thanks to a combination of warmer weather and focused conservation work.
Balnagown Estate has been a key part of the recovery story. Since 2020, Butterfly Conservation has worked with landowners and volunteers to restore habitat – particularly for kidney vetch, the only plant the butterfly’s caterpillars eat.
“It has genuinely been astonishing to see these numbers of small blue on the wing,” says Tracy Munro, Species on the Edge project officer at Butterfly Conservation.
"To record over 500 at a single site is staggering and really highlights the benefits of our work with landowners and volunteers to create habitat for this charismatic wee butterfly.”
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Small blues on the rise across the Highlands
Elsewhere in the north, signs of the small blue’s recovery are also being seen. At Nairn Beach, 31 butterflies were counted – up from just 13 last year. In Lossiemouth, the number rose from 16 to 72. The butterfly has even been seen as far north as Wick and as early as April, which is highly unusual.
Aspinall, the volunteer who carried out the Balnagown count, says "it is a rare experience now, but a real pleasure, to see such abundance coming from dedicated conservation and land management efforts.”
Butterfly Conservation is encouraging the public to report any sightings using the iRecord Butterflies app, to help track this unexpected boom. Meanwhile, children at Ardersier Primary School have been helping by planting butterfly-friendly flowers, proving that everyone can play a part in protecting this special species.
Tom Prescott, Butterfly Conservation’s head of conservation in Scotland, adds: “We’re absolutely delighted to see the small blue having such a brilliant year in Scotland, and it’s fantastic to know our team are helping it – but it’s a complicated picture.”
Threats such as habitat loss and climate change remain, warns Prescott, but with continued conservation efforts, the future looks a little brighter for this tiny Highland resident.
Main image: small blue at Balnagown. Credit: Geoff Ballinger
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