Wall seems such a bland name for this stunning butterfly, though the name does describe where it’s often to be found, sitting on a stone wall – or just a large boulder, soaking in the sunshine.

The UK Butterflies website gives a list of all the different names our butterflies have been given over the years; the Wall started out as the ‘Golden Marbled Butterfly, with Black Eyes’ – a bit of a mouthful but wonderfully descriptive, has been the ‘Great Argus’ and the ‘Orange Argus’, and also ‘Wall Brown’, a name many people still use.

I found my first Walls in six years in the quarries on the Isle of Portland last week, at Broadcroft Quarry Butterfly Reserve (which was actually quite a disappointing location as it is very overgrown and so not the ideal habitat for most butterflies), at King Barrow and Tout Quarries (both excellent).

Though it was once found at sites throughout Britain, the Wall has suffered a severe decline in population in recent decades, and is now restricted mostly to coastal locations. In Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, author Peter Eeles explains that this seems to be due to the changing climate. The warmer summer and autumn temperatures can encourage the butterfly to attempt to breed a third generation, which subsequently fails to mature before the weather turns colder.