A video by Ken and Gillian Elsom showing the butterflies seen during their various trips to Corfu

You may be aware that we are in the deep analysis phase of the data generated by the Corfu Butterfly Survey. Whilst doing this we have discovered a mystery in the data that we need your help to solve this spring!

In a few spots monitored by our most dedicated recorders, we see the Southern Festoon every single year. But in many other places—even where huge numbers were once seen—the record has gone totally silent.

To the friends and recorders of the Corfu Butterfly Atlas. We have been looking closely at our maps of the Southern Swallowtail (Papilio alexanor), and a fascinating mystery has emerged. On the slopes of Mt. Pantokrator, this beautiful butterfly seems to be "playing hide and seek." Our records show it is doing well near the coast, in the mid-altitudes around 400m, and again up near the summit. But in between these areas—specifically around the 200m and 600m marks—there is a strange silence. We have almost no sightings at all.

Is it a Gap or a "Blind Spot"?

The 3rd Trevor Davenport Photographic Competition is now open and ready to accept your butterfly, moth and life cycle photographs!

This competition is part of Ionian Butterfly Conservation's popular Festival of Butterflies which is held every May. The aim of this event is to encourage a greater awareness of the amazing biodiversity of the Ionian Islands region's lepidoptera.

In June 2025, Dave Cook photographed a tortoiseshell butterfly in Roda and, quite naturally, assumed it was the Large Tortoiseshell. However, members of the Corfu Butterfly Conservation Facebook group later spotted from the photograph that it was in fact a Yellow-legged Tortoiseshell! This became the first recorded sighting of the species on Corfu and the newest butterfly species to reach the island since the appearance of the Millet Skipper a few years earlier.