We have had a wonderfully warm and sunny September over most of the country, and we associate that weather with late summer butterflies in our gardens. These colourful species, including Red 
Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell, Comma, Painted Lady and Peacock are some of our most beautiful butterflies and as long as you have a few of the plants they like to feed on in your garden at this time, especially globe thistles, cosmos or Michaelmas daisies, you can expect to see them around until the first frosts.
But what happens after that? Where do butterflies go in the winter? That is actually quite a complicated question, and the answer is ‘it depends on the species’. All butterfly species must survive the winter in one form or another, or we wouldn’t have them in our gardens in the following spring, but only a few species are able to do this as adult insects. Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell, Comma and Brimstone for example hibernate as fully fledged butterflies in out of the way, dry places. This might be in a cool garden shed, a log pile or in dense vegetation growing against a wall. At the first sign of a steady increase in temperature these adults will be out in your garden looking for nectar from early spring flowers, especially dandelions.
Other familiar species, including the very common white butterflies plus the pretty Holly Blue and Orange Tip, will be spending the winter months as a pupa or chrysalis, usually hidden deep in vegetation somewhere.
But the most hazardous way for a tiny creature to spend the cold, wet winter months is as a tiny caterpillar and many of our native butterfly species do just that, including the lovely little Common Blue. Many don’t survive, especially in a very wet winter, but enough do make it through to start to feed again in the late spring, pupate and then hatch into the stunning little sky blue butterflies we see in our countryside and sometimes in our gardens in May and June.
Once we know how butterflies spend their winters we can ensure that we give them a helping hand in the cold months coming up. A log pile or ivy on a wall or fence can make a good hibernation place for a comma or brimstone. Not tidying borders too much will leave vegetation for orange tips or other species that over-winter as a pupa. And if you have an area of long grass or a wildflower meadow, not cutting it too short will protect tiny caterpillars. Knowing a little about the butterflies that use our gardens can help us to help them.
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