UK Nature and Environment

The long-anticipated first British records of Southern Small White have occurred this summer, with recent sightings from Cleveland and Suffolk.

Yesterday [2 August 2025], news broke of a female found earlier that afternoon by Will Brame at Landguard NR, Suffolk. On paper, this is the first record for Britain, though it later transpired that one, a male, was photographed in Hartlepool, Cleveland, on 1 July – and it may yet emerge that others have been documented this summer. The Hartlepool individual came on a day of a huge arrival of white species along the English east coast, with a six-figure count of Small Whites made in Norfolk.

Until quite recently, and as its name implies, Southern Small White was restricted to southern – particularly south-eastern – Europe. However, it is expanding rapidly in a north-westerly direction and was first recorded north of the Alps in France and Germany in 2008, and has since steadily extended its range, with the first confirmed sighting in the southern Netherlands occurring in 2015. By 2019, it had been reliably observed near Calais in northern France.