The Big Butterfly Count in Royal Pavilion Gardens: ‘Take Nature’s Pulse’

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The Big Butterfly Count is a nationwide survey aimed at helping to assess the health of our environment.

It launched in 2010 and has rapidly become the largest survey of butterflies in the world! Brighton Museum needs your help to assess the health of the butterfly population in the Royal Pavilion Gardens which provides an urban retreat for many pollinators. We will then add your data to this nationwide survey.

The beautiful Royal Pavilion Gardens in full bloom

Butterflies taste with their feet!? More butterfly fun in MuseumLab

When you have counted the butterflies in the Gardens come up to Museum Lab in Brighton Museum and add your data to the count. MuseumLab will be packed out with fun activities celebrating all things butterfly. Learn how butterflies see, hear and taste the world around them. See butterflies from the Booth Museum of Natural History up close under the microscope, create butterfly artwork for our displays, take home seeds from the Royal Pavilion Gardens and much more!

A drawer of Butterflies from The Booth Museum. The Booth Museum houses over 400,000 moths and butterflies in its collection

Why save our Butterflies and Moths?

Butterflies and Moths not only bring so much beauty to our gardens and green spaces, they and their caterpillars also play an integral role in many different ecosystems. The adults pollinate countless plants and the caterpillars provide food for much loved vertebrate species including many birds and bats.

Six-spot Burnet moth, a beautiful day-flying moth which is found in Sussex

We can all play an important role in helping to keep up the butterfly and moth populations by not using pesticides. Also by planting natural features in our gardens and filling green spaces with nice nectar plants. These plants include many herbs we can use in the kitchen like marjoram, mint and thyme along with beautiful flowers like buddleia which will breathe life back into your garden.

Butterflies and moths are an essential part of our ecosystem. We can all help save these wonderful creatures by taking part in the Big Butterfly Count, but don’t take our word for it, take Sir David’s…