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Which butterfly should you be on the look-out for this summer?

A patterned orange, brown and white butterfly on a pink flower.Butterfly Conservation/PA

Painted-lady butterflies are known for their patterned wings

Conservationists are telling the public to keep an eye out for a particular type of butterfly this summer - the painted-lady.

It's because this year, there's A LOT of them in the UK.

And the public are being urged to go out and count them as part of the Big Butterfly Count.

It's a survey that aims to helps experts understand how butterflies are doing here in the UK.

A painted lady butterfly on a purple flower.Butterfly Conservation/PA

A painted-lady summer only happens around every 10 years so it's a pretty big deal!

People are calling it 'painted-lady summer' because so many of the butterflies have arrived here.

The charity Butterfly Conservation are not 100% why these summers happen but they said warm weather across Europe has probably helped.

Clouds of butterflies have been seen and their baby butterflies are now emerging around the country.

Butterfly Conservation said this year is on track to be the third best year for painted-lady numbers on record, after 1996 and 2009.

Last year, people around the UK reported a total of 15,856 painted ladies but the last time there was a painted-lady summer, in 2019, the total was more than 420,000.

painted lady butterflyAndrew Cooper/Butterfly Conservation

If you want to sport the painted lady, here's what it looks like, according to the Wildlife Trusts:

  • Mainly orange above, with black tips to the forewings that are adorned with white spots, and black spots on the hindwings and forewings.

  • The small tortoiseshell is also orange with black spots, but has distinctive yellow spots on the forewings and blue spots along the wing margins.