About the event

Butterflies are one of the great wonders of the natural world. People love butterflies, seeing them takes you to wonderful places and their presence indicates a healthy environment.

This one-day beginners’ course will introduce you to some key concepts about butterflies and the habitats they use. 

There will be a classroom session in the morning where your tutor, Bill Downey, will show you how to identify butterfly species found in Surrey, as well how you can record them. This will also cover the relationship between butterflies and flowering plants and what you may be able to do to help them – for example by encouraging butterflies into your garden.

In the afternoon we will take an investigative walk to a nearby chalk grassland site. 

This will be weather dependant as the warmer and sunnier the day, the more likely we will see more species flying.  If it is raining there will be no butterflies about.

Tutor Profile - Bill Downey

Bill is Vice Chair of the Surrey and Southwest London Branch of Butterfly Conservation. He is the Transect Coordinator overseeing butterfly monitoring in our area, one of the co-leaders of the Small Blue Conservation Group, one of the County Butterfly Recorder’s Verification group and the Species Champion in Surrey for the White-letter Hairstreak.

He has been in some of these roles now for over ten years but began his interest in butterflies as a boy.