In a normal year, by late September chances of seeing many butterflies on the wing are slim.

Our five species of hibernating adults should be tucked up somewhere while others overwinter in egg, caterpillar or chrysalis stage.

But this has not been a normal autumn with September the driest and one of the warmest on record.

On 7th October I walked on a pebbly Sussex beach at the top of which was an area of scrubby grass and fading ragwort. The afternoon was warm with not a cloud in the sky; the calm sea sparkled and real autumn still refused to begin.

Large and small white butterflies, red admirals and Tortoiseshells whizzed about feeding on the ragwort.

But the stars of the show were clouded yellows. Occasional migrant visitors flying in during some years but absent in others, I always think of them as roaming free spirits.

Given the continuing good weather, with numerous yellows and whites around there could have been a late migration from the continent or perhaps the butterflies were offspring of an earlier influx.

Two days later I was in a Wimbledon park surprised to see brand new male common blue butterflies, way beyond their normal flight period so they were no doubt individuals of a third brood, unusual, but in a warm year an extra generation can occur.

Then, as an added bonus, in the same park was one of Britains rarest butterflies, namely the pale clouded yellow (pictured). They cannot tolerate our cold wet winters so as the rain and gales set in on the following day their survival rate together with the whites and blues would have been very limited. Only the hibernators will survive, snoring out the winter.