For the reconstruction of flight peaks, an abundance index was calculated by relating records to search efforts based on the evidence of field activities left in the database by proficient observers. For this search-effort correction, we selected observers with at least 50 records of at least 10 butterfly species each year. As a measure of their collective search effort, we calculated the sum for each day of all the 100 × 100 m grid cells from which an observer had reported records (of any species, including non-butterflies; also including absence records). This method of ‘proven day-grid-visits’ has become the standard proxy for search effort when analyzing incidental observations of the portal waarnemingen.be. Day-grid-visits do not cover search effort completely, because records are not submitted from every visited hectare grid cell, but strongly correlates with it. We provide the raw data containing day(2009-2020), the X and Y coordinate of the centroid of the 100x100 m grid cell (In Lambert 72, EPSG: 31370 Projected coordinate system for Belgium), the number of peacock butterflies reported, and the number of hectare day grid visits.