0:00:02 > 0:00:07Some people think nothing of sacrificing personal comfort.
0:00:07 > 0:00:09You get halfway round the side and the rain starts.
0:00:09 > 0:00:11They laugh in the face of adversity.
0:00:12 > 0:00:16Their dedication is second to none.
0:00:16 > 0:00:20You're probably not giving herself indoors as much time and attention as she'd like.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23They do it for love, not money.
0:00:24 > 0:00:27Four amateur naturalists, four creatures,...
0:00:27 > 0:00:28I'll have to chase after it.
0:00:28 > 0:00:30..four inspiring stories.
0:00:54 > 0:00:59Britain's amateur naturalists have studied butterflies for centuries,
0:00:59 > 0:01:03but where the Victorians caught and pinned them,
0:01:03 > 0:01:07our modern-day enthusiasts have a different relationship with them.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15Butterflies have been called aerial flowers.
0:01:15 > 0:01:18They are colourful mascots of the British summer.
0:01:18 > 0:01:22They can be found fluttering all over the countryside,
0:01:22 > 0:01:26but they're far more than vibrant fripperies.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30They are a vital part of the food chain.
0:01:32 > 0:01:38A single blue tit needs to catch 500 caterpillars a day for its family.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43If there is something wrong with our British countryside,
0:01:43 > 0:01:47butterflies are amongst the first to react.
0:01:48 > 0:01:54Studying them takes passion, dedication and patience.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58There's far more to butterflies than you might think.
0:02:04 > 0:02:06Bill Shrieves is out on a walk,
0:02:06 > 0:02:10but this isn't any old relaxed stroll in the countryside.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13His walks have rules.
0:02:13 > 0:02:15Lots of rules.
0:02:18 > 0:02:23They need to imagine themselves in a five-metre-square box.
0:02:23 > 0:02:26You must only count the butterflies inside that box.
0:02:26 > 0:02:30You must put out a thermometer.
0:02:30 > 0:02:33Record a percentage of sunshine,
0:02:33 > 0:02:36also the wind speed.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46Before I start the walk, I must remember to take my thermometer and
0:02:46 > 0:02:49put it in the shade to measure the temperature.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52Also I have to remember to pick it up at the end.
0:02:52 > 0:02:55I've lost a lot of thermometers that way.
0:02:57 > 0:03:01Sticking by the rules means that these walks are highly scientific
0:03:01 > 0:03:05and so can measure the ups and downs of British butterflies.
0:03:05 > 0:03:09In many ways, butterflies are like the miners' canaries.
0:03:09 > 0:03:16A lot of effort is put into studying birds, but birds react
0:03:16 > 0:03:23much more slowly to ecological and manmade changes than butterflies do.
0:03:23 > 0:03:27Largely because butterflies are at the bottom end of the food chain.
0:03:27 > 0:03:29Birds eat caterpillars,
0:03:29 > 0:03:33and so, butterflies are the first to show that all is not well.
0:03:35 > 0:03:41Bill is part of what he jokingly calls a Dads' Army of walkers across Britain.
0:03:42 > 0:03:46Their results are fed back to Butterfly Conservation headquarters in Dorset.
0:03:46 > 0:03:53They show how butterfly numbers are changing and that many species are in decline.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56Here's my first butterfly to go down on the list.
0:03:56 > 0:03:58That's an Adonis Blue and another one there.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01So that's two dots to put down.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04Adonis Blue, quite the best blue butterfly.
0:04:04 > 0:04:09It's this beautiful greenish-blue colour with thick white fringes
0:04:09 > 0:04:16of little black kind of subtraction signs crossing them, quite majestic.
0:04:16 > 0:04:18An absolute dream of a butterfly.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27There's another one here. Was it the same one?
0:04:27 > 0:04:31Goodness knows, but I'm going to take another one down anyway.
0:04:31 > 0:04:33So that gives us a count of four so far.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36We've hardly gone any distance at all.
0:04:41 > 0:04:43Two down there, look, side by side.
0:04:43 > 0:04:47And another three, and another female.
0:04:47 > 0:04:49This is beginning to look good.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54Oh, there's a female. Lovely.
0:04:54 > 0:04:58Bill's interest in butterflies goes right back to childhood when
0:04:58 > 0:05:03he was allowed to keep his bedroom light on at night to attract moths.
0:05:03 > 0:05:08You always need a kind of eureka factor which gets you going
0:05:08 > 0:05:10and one night, about midnight,
0:05:10 > 0:05:14a giant moth swooped in and when it was finally identified,
0:05:14 > 0:05:18it turned out to be a moth called the bedstraw hawk-moth which had barely
0:05:18 > 0:05:27been seen in Dorset and that got some of the more professional entomologists interested.
0:05:29 > 0:05:33The enthusiastic school boy became a history teacher.
0:05:33 > 0:05:38Now he's retired, he's teaching people how to butterfly walk,
0:05:38 > 0:05:41passing on his passion to dozens more walkers.
0:05:41 > 0:05:44So why do they all do it?
0:05:44 > 0:05:51If you talk to people, I think by far the most important reason is the
0:05:51 > 0:05:58feeling that they're getting kind of back in touch with the natural world.
0:05:58 > 0:06:03There's always something happens, a roe deer will suddenly break cover
0:06:03 > 0:06:04or you'll see a stoat
0:06:04 > 0:06:09and it just keeps you in touch with all that kind of thing.
0:06:09 > 0:06:13I wonder if they mind having such a big audience. Apparently not.
0:06:14 > 0:06:20On top of that, there's now a huge buzz factor that the data is not
0:06:20 > 0:06:25just of local significance, it's of global significance.
0:06:27 > 0:06:32This is late May and this is really very exceptional
0:06:32 > 0:06:35because usually in late May,
0:06:35 > 0:06:38these Adonis Blues are not out yet
0:06:38 > 0:06:44and this is typical of what butterfly walkers are finding all over the country,
0:06:44 > 0:06:49that the season is starting earlier and earlier.
0:06:49 > 0:06:54Bill has noticed plenty of changes since he started studying butterflies,
0:06:54 > 0:06:58not least the number of species that have been lost.
0:06:58 > 0:07:03The one which particularly upsets me is the pearl-bordered fritillary
0:07:03 > 0:07:10because when I was a kid, most woodlands had pearl-bordered fritillaries
0:07:10 > 0:07:15and to think that there's not a single wood in Dorset where the butterfly still flies,
0:07:15 > 0:07:20it's kind of like your whole idea of spring and early summer
0:07:20 > 0:07:22has just kind of turned on its head.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25And I find it really quite painful there,
0:07:25 > 0:07:30which is a slightly silly thing to say, but it seems a terrible loss.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34Like a lot of other creatures, the pearl-bordered fritillary
0:07:34 > 0:07:38has suffered from loss of the right type of woodland.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42The remaining butterflies are monitored by Bill and his friends.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45Butterfly walks are really taking off
0:07:45 > 0:07:48and not just in Dorset.
0:07:48 > 0:07:52Walking has now spread out of Britain,
0:07:52 > 0:07:56first of all into Belgium and Holland, who have got the most to lose with global warming,
0:07:56 > 0:08:01with rising sea levels, so they need really good indicators of what's happening.
0:08:01 > 0:08:05And amazingly, walking is going on all over the world
0:08:05 > 0:08:10and at this very minute, there's probably someone out in the Gambia
0:08:10 > 0:08:15doing a butterfly walk, using exactly the same procedures as I am here.
0:08:16 > 0:08:19Bill's afternoon strolls have snowballed.
0:08:19 > 0:08:23The volunteers are all doing their bit to help butterflies.
0:08:23 > 0:08:29They have discovered that whilst some British species are doing well, others are in desperate straits.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37Whilst Bill's busy with the big picture,
0:08:37 > 0:08:42one man in Cornwall has his sights set on one butterfly in particular.
0:08:42 > 0:08:47Barry Offield has been painting butterflies of all kinds for years.
0:08:47 > 0:08:52But recently he's turned his hand to another kind of reproduction -
0:08:52 > 0:08:56lovingly growing heath fritillary butterflies in his greenhouse.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59Right, here's the caterpillars.
0:08:59 > 0:09:03This one is about three quarters grown.
0:09:03 > 0:09:06He's obviously still looking for food.
0:09:10 > 0:09:12This is one of the slower ones.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16Why that happens, I really don't know.
0:09:16 > 0:09:18I suppose it's like people.
0:09:18 > 0:09:21Some get big and some stay small.
0:09:22 > 0:09:28The greenhouse at this present time has larvae still feeding.
0:09:28 > 0:09:33It has pupae and it has living butterflies.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36One's emerged from the chrysalis.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38He's just climbing up that leaf.
0:09:38 > 0:09:41So we've now got seven.
0:09:44 > 0:09:48Barry's devotion to the butterflies is all part of a larger plan
0:09:48 > 0:09:51to save the heath fritillary in the Tamar Valley.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55With the demise of traditional woodland management,
0:09:55 > 0:09:59the heath fritillary got into a near terminal tailspin.
0:10:01 > 0:10:06By 2001, it was teetering on the brink.
0:10:10 > 0:10:16Early May and nearly all of Barry's caterpillars have now blossomed into butterflies.
0:10:16 > 0:10:19Today, you won't believe it, in this weather, we're going
0:10:19 > 0:10:22to go and take the butterflies to Blanchdown Wood,
0:10:22 > 0:10:26where we're going to release them into the wild.
0:10:26 > 0:10:32The reason we have to do it is because we don't want to continue keeping them in captivity.
0:10:32 > 0:10:37So, despite the weather, which is awful, we have to go and release them today.
0:10:39 > 0:10:42Time to transfer them, ready for release
0:10:42 > 0:10:45and Barry's come up with a novel way of doing this.
0:10:45 > 0:10:50A good method of taking them out of there without handling them
0:10:50 > 0:10:52is to cut the stems of the flowers
0:10:54 > 0:10:57and stick it in the oasis.
0:11:02 > 0:11:04Twelve.
0:11:11 > 0:11:13Just let those go.
0:11:15 > 0:11:18And there's the 100th.
0:11:18 > 0:11:20So he gets a prize.
0:11:51 > 0:11:55Barry meets Caroline Bulman of Butterfly Conservation
0:11:55 > 0:11:59at the chosen release site, Blanchdown Wood.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07I'm going to open the cage and, hopefully, release them,
0:12:07 > 0:12:11but I don't think they're going to fly because it's cold and it's wet.
0:12:11 > 0:12:15So we'll have to just see what happens.
0:12:16 > 0:12:18There we are.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24Heath fritillary butterflies in the Tamar Valley crashed
0:12:24 > 0:12:29from a population of thousands to just a handful by 2001.
0:12:29 > 0:12:35Barry's hope is that releases like this will help return them to their former glory.
0:12:35 > 0:12:40When they've finished, I think they're over there.
0:12:40 > 0:12:42It's a long way down there.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47Yeah, that's the last one gone.
0:12:47 > 0:12:51It's disappointing, because had it been a fine day,
0:12:51 > 0:12:55- these would be flying around here enjoying themselves, wouldn't they, Caroline?- Yes.
0:12:58 > 0:13:02And we won't know until next year if this one's been successful,
0:13:02 > 0:13:04but we hope it will be.
0:13:10 > 0:13:14It is terrific that people have done all this work for a butterfly.
0:13:14 > 0:13:17We are a bit wet now.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20'People do all sorts of things.'
0:13:20 > 0:13:24Why do bird watchers watch birds?
0:13:24 > 0:13:26Why do people fish?
0:13:26 > 0:13:29Probably to catch it and eat it. We don't eat butterflies.
0:13:29 > 0:13:34It's just a fascination that is developed in one's mind
0:13:34 > 0:13:40and I'm doing a very small portion to put something back.
0:13:40 > 0:13:45If I can get the heath fritillary re-established,
0:13:45 > 0:13:48then I shall have achieved my objective.
0:13:50 > 0:13:53Two years of Barry's tender ministrations
0:13:53 > 0:13:56have re-established the butterflies at two Tamar Valley sites.
0:13:58 > 0:14:02From near-extinction, they are now on their way back up.
0:14:06 > 0:14:10It's easy to understand the lure of colourful butterflies.
0:14:10 > 0:14:15Quintessential symbols of our British summer.
0:14:27 > 0:14:32Their cousins, the moths, are far more tricky to study.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35They're just as beautiful, but they're mostly nocturnal.
0:14:35 > 0:14:40There are more species and they are harder to identify.
0:14:42 > 0:14:46Mike Bailey in Somerset thinks they're well worth the extra effort.
0:14:49 > 0:14:53In my garden, I ran a moth trap pretty well every night of the year.
0:14:53 > 0:14:56I mean, if it's a really cold freezing winter night, I won't,
0:14:56 > 0:14:58but generally, I run it most nights of the year.
0:15:03 > 0:15:05This is what we normally do,
0:15:05 > 0:15:10stand here and then as a moth comes in, we'll try and catch it.
0:15:10 > 0:15:14They're actually looking and searching for mates.
0:15:14 > 0:15:19Here's our first moth. This is a Brimstone moth, a yellow one.
0:15:19 > 0:15:21On an extreme night,
0:15:21 > 0:15:26it could be in the thousands, and with a hundred-odd species,
0:15:26 > 0:15:28an uncomfortable number of moths.
0:15:28 > 0:15:33but on a typical night, you would get sort of 200 moths.
0:15:34 > 0:15:38This one is called a square spot rustic.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51We use this sheet to paint our shed,
0:15:51 > 0:15:56so all these brown splodges are sometimes mistaken for moths.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05Not exactly buzzing, is it?
0:16:05 > 0:16:10Dusky thorn fluttering his wings, he'll probably take off soon.
0:16:11 > 0:16:13There we are. There you go. He's gone.
0:16:13 > 0:16:15There's a large yellow underwing.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23I shall obviously leave this trap running overnight
0:16:23 > 0:16:26and presumably, there'll be moths coming in until dawn.
0:16:26 > 0:16:28I've never stayed up overnight,
0:16:28 > 0:16:32but I'm sure there are some of my friends that have.
0:16:32 > 0:16:38Mike's off to bed, leaving his moth trap to chug away overnight.
0:16:40 > 0:16:45Catching moths in his back garden is a far cry from his London childhood,
0:16:45 > 0:16:48but the love of nature was always there.
0:16:48 > 0:16:52When we were growing up in west London, in Acton,
0:16:52 > 0:16:56it wasn't really a very wildlife-friendly place,
0:16:56 > 0:17:00but if you were taken to see a relative or something, there'd be that obligatory
0:17:00 > 0:17:05five minutes when they asked you about yourself and you'd say, oh, yes, birds were your interest.
0:17:05 > 0:17:11I had friends that were also interested in birds and we used to, whenever we could, get the Tube
0:17:11 > 0:17:16or cycle out to edge of London and go for country walks.
0:17:17 > 0:17:22For the last 20 years, Mike has developed a fascination with moths.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26Studying them for so long has revealed some interesting trends.
0:17:31 > 0:17:35You do see that there's a change
0:17:35 > 0:17:38and it happens in various ways.
0:17:38 > 0:17:43There's some moths which you actually see their numbers going up and down in cycles.
0:17:43 > 0:17:48Then there's others, like the migrants, that suddenly one year you get a phenomenal number of them
0:17:48 > 0:17:51and then the next year, you hardly see them at all.
0:17:51 > 0:17:55There are only 57 species of British butterfly
0:17:55 > 0:17:58and they're easy to identify.
0:17:58 > 0:18:01But there are 2,500 species of moth.
0:18:03 > 0:18:07These large ones, these are all the large yellow underwing.
0:18:08 > 0:18:12Visually, there's quite a few hundred of the large ones
0:18:12 > 0:18:13that you get to know.
0:18:13 > 0:18:19This is the angle shade, shuttle-shaped dart and a green carpet.
0:18:21 > 0:18:23The willow beauty.
0:18:23 > 0:18:27That's disappeared up into your camera lens as well.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30Get rid of him.
0:18:30 > 0:18:31That's it. He's gone.
0:18:31 > 0:18:37Quite often, it's a matter of getting the moth and the book and comparing the moth with the illustration.
0:18:37 > 0:18:39HE COUNTS
0:18:39 > 0:18:41Thirteen.
0:18:41 > 0:18:46When you really can't identify one, there's only one way forward.
0:18:49 > 0:18:51You have to reveal the moth's genitals.
0:18:51 > 0:18:57So Mike's taught himself to do painstaking dissection work by microscope.
0:18:59 > 0:19:05What I'm doing, I'm taking the skin away, using forceps
0:19:05 > 0:19:08until I've got the claspers at the end.
0:19:08 > 0:19:12It's not something I feel happy about doing,
0:19:12 > 0:19:15but it's the only way of actually recording the data.
0:19:15 > 0:19:21So it's with a bit of a heavy heart that I have killed some moths and dissected them.
0:19:22 > 0:19:27It's a matter of looking at this and then comparing it with the illustration here
0:19:27 > 0:19:32to see which one it is and the one that it matches is this one,
0:19:32 > 0:19:37which is the cloaked minor, here.
0:19:37 > 0:19:42So what does Mike's wife think about the amount of time he spends with moths?
0:19:42 > 0:19:46Inevitably, if you've got some active interest, then you know, you're probably
0:19:46 > 0:19:50not giving herself indoors as much time and attention as she'd like.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56But at least Mrs Mike isn't being neglected in vain.
0:19:56 > 0:20:00Her husband's work will be used in the first-ever
0:20:00 > 0:20:05Comprehensive Guide to the Moths of the Greater Bristol Area.
0:20:05 > 0:20:11There's a team of us, a sort of an editorial panel that have written it all.
0:20:11 > 0:20:15So it will represent hundreds of man hours of work.
0:20:15 > 0:20:19Mike's even doing the illustrations.
0:20:19 > 0:20:23Yes, really, one can get sort of quite carried away in just happily
0:20:23 > 0:20:28sitting here putting in your dots and making up the darker bits.
0:20:28 > 0:20:32I actually do them quite large so that they can be reduced.
0:20:32 > 0:20:34So you're actually not sort of drawing an actual size.
0:20:34 > 0:20:38You're doing it ten times life size,
0:20:38 > 0:20:42but that's thousands of little dots to make a black area,
0:20:42 > 0:20:47but it seems to give the sort of texture that I like.
0:20:47 > 0:20:52The atlas follows on from a series and so there's already
0:20:52 > 0:20:56a Flora of the Bristol Region and the Butterflies of the Bristol Region.
0:20:56 > 0:20:58So this is the next one in the series.
0:20:58 > 0:21:01- When's it going to be finished? - Well!
0:21:02 > 0:21:04It's a bit of a joke, really.
0:21:04 > 0:21:10We always say next year, but, I mean, we're hoping it will be out in 2008.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13The end of the atlas won't be the end of Mike and moths.
0:21:13 > 0:21:17He's hooked for life.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20So what does it take to be a moth fanatic?
0:21:20 > 0:21:25I think you do need to be the sort of person who likes to apply yourself and probably, you know,
0:21:25 > 0:21:30the sort of person who likes to get a list and keep a record.
0:21:30 > 0:21:33It's very much a boy thing, I think.
0:21:35 > 0:21:41Long-term studies like Mike's keep a finger on the pulse of British moths.
0:21:41 > 0:21:45These unassuming creatures play an important role
0:21:45 > 0:21:48as pollinators and as fast food.
0:21:49 > 0:21:54Moths have declined by 40% in the last 40 years.
0:21:54 > 0:21:59A drop in numbers that is already having an effect on bats.
0:22:02 > 0:22:04Over the same time,
0:22:04 > 0:22:08British butterflies have declined by nearly 80%.
0:22:09 > 0:22:13Many have been affected by loss of habitat.
0:22:13 > 0:22:18If where you live changes, you have to adapt or die.
0:22:19 > 0:22:24Sometimes, though, habitats can be rescued in the nick of time
0:22:24 > 0:22:26and then the butterflies can flutter back.
0:22:28 > 0:22:32Andy Barker has been getting his hands dirty
0:22:32 > 0:22:36getting the landscape just right for one butterfly.
0:22:36 > 0:22:40It's just such an exquisite colour to see in a countryside otherwise green and browns.
0:22:40 > 0:22:44So to see the blues, it's such a special thing to see.
0:22:45 > 0:22:52Today, Magdalen Hill Down is one of the best places in Britain for the rare Chalk Hill Blue butterfly.
0:22:52 > 0:22:5420 years ago, it was a very different story.
0:22:54 > 0:22:58It had almost disappeared from here altogether.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04The Down was being strangled by uncontrolled scrub.
0:23:04 > 0:23:08In 1989, Butterfly Conservation took over the site
0:23:08 > 0:23:12and Andy joined the volunteer army to save the Chalk Hill Blue.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18This slide gives a very good impression of the extent of the scrub.
0:23:18 > 0:23:24This eastern half had been cleared, whereas you can see the western half is very densely covered with scrub.
0:23:24 > 0:23:27So the Chalk Hill Blue which really likes short grassland
0:23:27 > 0:23:31wouldn't have enjoyed that situation at all, so we got there just in time.
0:23:33 > 0:23:36And this is just in the early days, with a few of the volunteers,
0:23:36 > 0:23:40the sheep seem quite interested to see what we're up to.
0:23:40 > 0:23:45Their hard graft has let the butterflies make an impressive comeback.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51Andy's off and out to check on them.
0:23:55 > 0:24:00Putting your foot down a rabbit hole, I think, is one of the things you need to guard against.
0:24:01 > 0:24:02Here's a Chalk Hill Blue.
0:24:03 > 0:24:05And here's another.
0:24:05 > 0:24:11This is absolutely pristine condition with the dark edge. Really nice.
0:24:11 > 0:24:16The sun's just coming out now, this is nice, because there's quite a few now.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23Here we have the female Chalk Hill Blue.
0:24:23 > 0:24:27It's the same sort of size as the male, but brown.
0:24:27 > 0:24:32On a cool day, you can just gently put your finger in front of a butterfly and it will often crawl on,
0:24:32 > 0:24:36because your own body temperature is nice and warm and they'll open their wings.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39See, like this one's doing here, because they'll find, oh, well,
0:24:39 > 0:24:41that's a nice warm surface, I'll sit here.
0:24:41 > 0:24:43I always like doing this.
0:24:43 > 0:24:49You sort of feel the butterfly's quite happy in your company and that they'll happily sit there for ages.
0:24:50 > 0:24:52There you go, she's opening again.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58It's a lovely thing to do, actually. When you show children how this works, they love it.
0:24:58 > 0:25:01Oop! There she goes, she's flying.
0:25:01 > 0:25:06It was as a child himself that his passion for nature was kindled.
0:25:06 > 0:25:08Like many amateur naturalists,
0:25:08 > 0:25:11Andy was out exploring wildlife from a young age.
0:25:11 > 0:25:16His early experiences growing up on a farm have shaped his adult life.
0:25:16 > 0:25:24Been born and brought up on the farm, we were just in the countryside all the time and so you just were
0:25:24 > 0:25:29very keen and observing things as all children are, very inquisitive about what's around them.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33We would just see loads of Ringlets and Meadow Browns and Common Blues
0:25:33 > 0:25:38but as a boy, I think you just remember the great years when you just saw loads
0:25:38 > 0:25:41and it was always the summer holidays when you saw most
0:25:41 > 0:25:45and of course, it was sunny all the time, as far as you remember.
0:25:45 > 0:25:47Well, this is the more typical weather
0:25:47 > 0:25:50that we get when we're trying to do the monitoring of the butterflies.
0:25:50 > 0:25:54You find it's a sort of bright sunny day and then by the time you've driven to
0:25:54 > 0:26:01the site, the clouds have started to appear and then you get halfway round the site and the rain starts.
0:26:01 > 0:26:03Hopefully we'll still get some brightness.
0:26:11 > 0:26:13We've been really lucky now.
0:26:13 > 0:26:15The rain's just eased
0:26:15 > 0:26:20and there's a mating pair of Chalk Hill Blue,
0:26:20 > 0:26:22so this rain has only been slight
0:26:22 > 0:26:25and they're able to go about their business as normal.
0:26:25 > 0:26:29You can see, here's the two
0:26:29 > 0:26:31and the female's the one on the right.
0:26:31 > 0:26:35Can you see how brown she is on the underside?
0:26:35 > 0:26:37Hopefully, they've been successful
0:26:37 > 0:26:42and she'll keep the population of Chalk Hill Blues going for next year.
0:26:42 > 0:26:46This is what it's all about for Andy and his compatriots.
0:26:46 > 0:26:51Thanks to their hard work, the butterflies have gone forth and multiplied.
0:26:51 > 0:26:58When we did the first year of regular monitoring, the total for a series of weeks was 300.
0:26:58 > 0:27:02Whereas now, for the same route that we take and for the same period,
0:27:02 > 0:27:06you get about 3,600 in a year, so it's more than a tenfold increase.
0:27:08 > 0:27:12I mean, it's exceeded our expectations and we've been very pleased and proud that it has
0:27:12 > 0:27:15worked out so well, but I don't think anybody could
0:27:15 > 0:27:18have wished for more and it's great to see them doing well.
0:27:20 > 0:27:24Andy has devoted thousands of hours to his passion for butterflies.
0:27:24 > 0:27:26By getting the habitat just right,
0:27:26 > 0:27:31he has helped bring Chalk Hill MagdalenBlues back to Hill Down.
0:27:33 > 0:27:39Barry, Bill, Andy and Mike are all doing their own bit in their own way
0:27:39 > 0:27:42to help British butterflies and moths.
0:27:42 > 0:27:47Through the work of our amateur naturalists and others like them, more is known about butterflies
0:27:47 > 0:27:51and moths in Britain than anywhere else in the world.
0:27:53 > 0:27:57If you want to find out more about getting involved with butterflies and moths,
0:27:57 > 0:28:02go onto bbc.co.uk/nature.
0:28:04 > 0:28:09Next time on Born To Be Wild, one man scales the heights.
0:28:09 > 0:28:11Some people say I'm a bit like a mountain goat.
0:28:11 > 0:28:13Another dives into the depths.
0:28:13 > 0:28:17A couple spend hours on a windy cliff top
0:28:17 > 0:28:20and one man is rallying his whole community.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24We'll probably go in the house and they'll be jumping around like anything.
0:28:24 > 0:28:29Join our amateur naturalists as they watch over the coasts of Britain.
0:28:47 > 0:28:49Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:28:49 > 0:28:51E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk