UK butterflies-you remember them?

[gordon.ramel]

Hi, 
   I have been unsuccessfully looking for a Hoverfly in bogs on Dartmoor, Meadow Browns, Ringlets and Large Skippers seem OK but Nymphalids seem down and only one Marbled White, Next Saturday I lead a butterfly walk at a spot where we hold it each year so this should give a better idea.

Yours Naturally
                          Gordon J. L. Ramel

        <G.J.L.Ramel at exeter.ac.uk or Gordon.Ramel at bbsrc.ac.uk>
        < http://www.ex.ac.uk/~gjlramel/welcome.html>
        < Phone work = +44 (0)1837 82558 ext. 173>
        < Fax work = +44 (0)1837 82139>
        < c/of I.G.E.R. North Wyke, Devon, England.  EX20 2SB.> 
                  
                  Children are the guardians of the future,  
     knowledge should neither be inflicted on, nor withheld from them.   

                 "felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas"   

I wonder how this miserable summer is affecting the native UK butterfly species.Certainly obserrvation has been very difficult because if the constantly changing weather and many field trips must have been abortive.Colleagues who work all week have sometimes seen little or nothing. 
>From my local sites in West Yorkshire some of the satyridae(browns) such as Meadow Brown(jurtina) and Ringlet(hyperanthus) seem little affected, and of the hesperiidae(skippers) Small Skipper(lineola) can still be seen in some numbers. But the Northern Brown Argus(artaxerxes) has so far failed to show on one of its sites, and Common Blue(icarus) and Small Heath(pamphilus) on another. 
Dave