Jeremy Clarkson says he is 'alarmed' by how few butterflies are around his Diddly Squat farm and warns 'something is afoot' as weather is blamed for drop in sightings

Jeremy Clarkson has said he is 'alarmed' by how few butterflies there are around his Diddly Squat Farm.

The Top Gear presenter turned farmer took to social media this week to express his concern over the lack of butterfly sightings while walking around his Cotswolds farm.

He posted on 'X': 'Just been for a walk round the farm and I’m a bit alarmed by how few butterflies there are. Something is afoot.'

The Butterfly Conservation Trust has said the drop in butterfly sightings is down to colder temperatures and heavy rain the UK has been experiencing. 

The Trust said around 12 per cent of participants in its annual Big Butterfly Count reported no sightings at all in the first week.

The Count is a UK-wide survey aimed at helping to assess the health of the environment. Between July 12 and August 4 each year, participants are asked to record the number and species of butterflies they spot in a 15-minute period. 

England had 97per cent of July's average rainfall between July 1 and 15 this year, Wales had 65 per cent, Scotland 49 per cent and Northern Ireland 47 per cent.

Met Office spokesperson Nicola Maxey said that two or three heavy downpours often caused much of a location's July rainfall totals, rather than a prolonged period of wet weather.

Tony Juniper, the chairman of Natural England, told The Telegraph that the drought in 2022 may also have played a part in the drop in insect numbers this year.

He told the newspaper: 'A lot of food plants that insects relied on died during that very severe drought and heatwave, so there's probably some quite long-term factors in here.'

He also said that the drop in butterfly numbers was noticeable because of a decline in insect numbers going back decades.

A 2022 report by the Butterfly Conservation Trust revealed that 80% of butterflies in the UK have declined since the 1970s.

Habitat loss across the UK has led to dramatic declines in species that require flower-rich grassland, heathland, and woodland clearings to thrive, the report said.

Specialist species have, on average, decreased by more than a quarter (27% decrease) in abundance and lost over two-thirds (68% decrease) of their distribution since 1976.  

The report revealed that butterfly species that can breed in the farmed countryside and urban areas have fared less badly, but as a group they have still declined by 17% in abundance and 8% in distribution. 

Head of Science for Butterfly Conservation, and lead author of the report, Dr Richard Fox, said at the time: 'This comprehensive stock-take of the state of the UK's butterflies reveals the huge scale of the challenge to halt and reverse the decline in butterfly populations in the years ahead. 

'Thanks to tens of thousands of people who contribute sightings through projects such as the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme and Big Butterfly Count, we have amazing data to plot the changing fortunes of our butterflies. 

'What is needed now is a step-change in government support to bring butterflies and other wildlife back to the UK's nature reserves, farmland, forests and built-up areas. 

'We know that where conservation action is carefully targeted and sustained in the long-term it has real impact.'