Orange Tip Postcard Surveys 1997 & 2007

The Orange Tip Anthocharis cardamines is not only a striking and distinctive butterfly - at least the male is with its orange tips - but is also one of the first butterflies on the wing in the spring during mid-April and is therfore a good harbinger of spring.

Another feature of the Orange Tip is that it is one of the species which has been spreading north in Scotland over the last couple of decades as the climate has warmed. This trend led to Butterfly Conservation Scotland organising a postcard survey in 1997 to enable people to report their sightings thereby providing a snapshot of the distribution of Orange Tip in 1997. This snapshot can be seen in the first of the distribution charts at 10 km resolution below which includes the observations from the postcards and other Orange Tip records submitted to Butterfly Conservation Scotland. Click on the charts for larger images.

In 2007, the postcard survey was repeated to see how the distribution of Orange Tip had increased from 1997 to 2007. It is obvious that there has been a very significant increase in the distribution of Orange Tip in just ten years, particularly in Argyll, East & West Invernesshire, Moray and and much of Aberdeenshire. The third chart includes all records of Orange Tip submitted to Butterfly Conservation in 2007 and indicates that the postcard survey gave a very similar distribution to the pooled data including the other records.

Postcards + Others 1997	Postcards only 2007	Postcards + Others 2007