Britons to vote in inaugural contest to find nation’s favourite butterfly

Butterfly Conservation poll is open until 7 June with choice of 60 species from small tortoiseshells to purple emperors Will it be the rapidly disappearing former garden favourite, the small tortoiseshell? Or the poet John Masefield’s “oakwood haunting thing”, the charismatic purple emperor? Or perhaps the brimstone, the ultimate harbinger of spring? The question of which is Britain’s favourite butterfly is being put to a popular vote for the first time. The charity Butterfly Conservation is ...

By Patrick Barkham