NATURE conservation charities are appealing for help to look for one of the region’s most elusive and threatened butterflies.

Durham Wildlife Trust (DWT), in partnership with Butterfly Conservation, wants volunteers to help identify and record where the elusive dingy skipper is spotted.

The national population of the small, brown and grey butterfly has almost halved in recent decades and a number of important sites for the species have been lost across the North.

But County Durham still has some strongholds on unimproved grassland and brownfield sites where larval food-plant, bird’s-foot trefoil, is found.

DWT will run a survey looking for the dingy skipper in May and June and believes that it survives on half of its reserves.

To enable volunteers to help, survey training courses will be held on Thursday, May 5 at Low Barns Nature Reserve at Witton-le-Wear, near Bishop Auckland, and on Sunday, May 15 at DWT's headquarters at Rainton Meadows, near Houghton-le-Spring.

Mark Dinning, from the Trust, said: “We would like people to join the hunt for this sometimes difficult to find butterfly.

"Many of the areas where the dingy skipper was once found in the county have changed enormously since recorders last focused on this species.

“It is also often a species that is quite easily overlooked as it can blend in well with its sounding environment, which makes seeing this champion at the art of camouflage all the more satisfying.

"Our workshops will help surveyors to locate them."

DWT’s two workshops in May will focus on the ecology and survey of the dingy skipper, for details or to book a place email mdinning@durhamwt.co.uk