What if I already record garden butterflies?

There are several different schemes, locally and nationally, to record butterflies. We don't want you to enter your garden butterfly sightings more than once. Not only is this extra effort for you but it also creates duplicate records. So, if you take part in the Garden Butterfly Survey you do not need to put the same sightings into other recording systems. Your Garden Butterfly Survey records will be passed on to Butterfly Conservation's local branches and County Recorders, and made accessible to Local Environmental Records Centres.  Our advice is to choose one scheme for your garden sightings.

An exception is the Big Butterfly Count – you may want to take part in this annual snapshot survey from within your garden. Please do, but don’t enter the same count into the Garden Butterfly Survey as well. Or alternatively you could take part in the Big Butterfly Count from other locations.