The populations here are part of the larger metapopulation roughly covering from Seven Sisters across to Brynamman and down to Pontardawe. Some butterflies move between sites within this area preventing complete loss of butterflies when one site becomes overloaded with parasites. This demonstrates the importance of connectivity of suitable habitats to enable this movement.
The adults fly from late April through to early June, depending on the weather. They love sunning themselves in on a warm day and are not great flyers so can be counted fairly easily by walking through the field for fifteen minutes. This is the Butterfly Conservation Method would be used which allows for comparison between sites. The caterpillars are dark and feed under webs they spin which disguise them from predators and protect them from adverse weather. Again they like a spot of sunshine! As they get bigger the webs also increase in size. By September they are more easily spotted in the long vegetation so this is when the larval counts take place.
