I was pleased to see the recent pictures of the hummingbird hawk moth sent in by your readers as I had been unable to identify them myself.

I have seen them several times over the summer in butterfly spotting walks around Brighton.

The butterfly population is much diminished compared with my youth, when a cloud of multi-coloured butterflies around a buddleia was a common sight, but this year's wonderful summer has been a good butterfly season.

I had thought that the reduction in numbers over the years was down to unfriendly agriculture, pesticides and overcropping but was pleased that at least the butterflies had some refuge in the nature reserves around Brighton. Indeed, I was still seeing examples on my walks earlier this week.

But now, suddenly, all the butterflies and moths I have been seeing even as recently as earlier this week have disappeared.

And, at the same time, I see the council mowing machines scything all the wild areas of grass of my regular walks into neat and unsightly heaps of mulching hay.

Does the council not realise that many of our favourite butterflies rest on the bottom of long grass stems in uncultivated areas?

Is it possible that even these last refuges of some of our rarest butterflies are being destroyed simply in the name of tidiness?

I am reminded of another of the council's blunders. It is common knowledge they scraped the chalk cliffs along the undercliff to try to stabilise them.

All they managed was to drive the nesting herring gulls inland onto our roofs.

Butterflies are much less robust than gulls. Will it take local extinction of gorgeous uncommon creatures such as the chalkhill blue to make them realise they shouldn't be mowing our Downs in this unfeeling manner?

-Paul Brazier, Brighton