Every natural historian must have noticed that over this past summer in the UK there have been much reduced numbers of our normally commonest butterflies: peacocks, red admirals, small tortoiseshells, painted ladies. We’re told this was due to the wet, cold, windy spring, although the general decline in most species is a long-term trend, related to habitat loss, pesticides, and (in some cases) climate change.

There are years when one particular species appears to perform especially well. Thus in 2019 there was a plethora of painted ladies – a phenomenon which supposedly occurs roughly once a decade, maybe something to do with their extraordinarily long and multi-generational migration route, nearly twice as long as that of the monarch butterfly. In 2023, in Scotland at least, red admirals were plentiful, partly because – and here is perhaps a rare positive effect of climate change – many of them were overwintering here rather than migrating to Africa and thus were on the wing and breeding earlier.

There was one notable success story this year – a butterfly which in the words of a Nottinghamshire entomologist is “bucking the trend.” The phenomenon was borne out by my own experience, too.

I live in a development close to the sea in Ayr, south-west Scotland, with a communal garden graced by two large buddleia bushes which many of my neighbours regard with a jaundiced eye despite their normally being a magnet for butterflies. The garden backs onto a piece of land belonging to the NHS, consisting of grass – not properly mown this year because they had a boardwalk across it to give access to a wall they were mending – surrounded by an eclectic mix of mature trees. I’ve counted 15 different species of tree in that area alone. At the base of the trees are beds of brambles and nettles.

My eye was caught by a small butterfly with a curious habit of making spiralling aerial displays. I managed at last to get a close-up view and identified it as a speckled wood – drab but quite beautifully marked. A book on insects informs me that the male drives intruders of the same species away from its territory by means of these airborne battles. I’d never observed such behaviour before which may suggest the butterfly’s numbers are indeed on the rise.

The holly blue doesn’t seem to have suffered particularly either. There are plenty of them flitting around among the undergrowth here, and I dare say cabbage whites are just as much of a nuisance to gardeners as ever.

Of the colourful species mentioned above, I only saw a peacock butterfly three times this year, perched on the warm buff sandstone walls of my house, too quickly gone to be photographed.

So instead I’ve created some images in chips of coloured tile – a peacock, a painted lady and a red admiral. I’d do more, but have no more wooden place-mats in the size series (12cm x 12cm) to glue the pieces to, plus it takes a great many hours of extremely fiddly work!