For the first time, March’s newsletter has broken the 100 page barrier! While I appreciate that reading the entire document is now a fairly onerous undertaking, I believe we should all embrace the volume of news being generated in the field of African butterflies; this is a big story and it needs to be told!

Welcome to July’s newsletter! July marks the sixth anniversary of the LepSoc Africa newsletter: the 36th edition of ABN. During this period, we have published nearly 2 500 pages, incorporating more than 2 000 articles by over 200 different authors. There have been more than 700 000 words and, incredibly, in excess of 3 500 000 letters or punctuation characters. Thanks to everyone who has contributed!

Welcome to November’s newsletter! After an initial flush of early spring butterflies on the Highveld, the weather reverted to the new normal: excessively hot and excessively dry. Fortunately, rain has been experienced over much of South Africa since late October, and there have been lots of butterflies. The Butterfly Index recorded its highest average October score, countrywide, since the commencement of the project five years ago.

Welcome to September’s newsletter! On the Highveld at least we’ve experienced a long, but relatively mild winter - not that it is necessarily over yet. Anyway, our local butterflies are already flying in fair numbers and it’s time to dust off your nets and cameras and to get out into the field! A reminder that the LepSoc Africa Annual General Meeting will be held, via Zoom networking only, on Wednesday 14 September at 18h00 South African time. If you haven’t yet done so, please drop me an email at jchdobson@gmail.com and I will send you a link a couple of days before the meeting.

I don’t think many people will look back on 2022 with great fondness, but at least we were allowed out after the “wasted” Covid years! South Africa lurches from crisis to crisis and there seems to be almost unprecedented doubt and concern worldwide, but we are in the midst of a pretty good butterfly season in SA, so let’s focus on that! There have been a couple of noteworthy discoveries regarding rare and endangered butterflies (refer elsewhere in this newsletter) and there is plenty of news regarding African lepidoptera to report on. I wish you all a happy and prosperous 2023, filled with wonderful butterfly-related memories.