BACK__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Brown Hairstreak in Worcestershire - Bulletin 21

January 2006

Dear Brown Hairstreakers,

West Midlands Butterfly Conservation Chairman, Richard Southwell, has described looking for Brown Hairstreak eggs in the winter as "extreme butterflying". He may well have a point, but it certainly produces results as the Xmas/New Year period this year has very effectively demonstrated.

Having issued a New Year keep fit challenge in the last Bulletin, I thought I ought to take a dose of my own medicine and do a bit of extreme butterflying myself. The day chosen, 29th December, was certainly extreme weather with air temperatures down to -5C and not conditions to spend too long outdoors. If hypothermia was to be avoided, new methods of recording eggs were required - one that did not involve being too far from a warm car. I decided, therefore, to concentrate on squares where there was a good network of roads and hoped that I could find at least some roadside hedgerows that had been spared the flail. The 1km squares north of Upton Snodbury looked a good bet and I began by driving down the lane leading from the main road towards Bow Wood.

 The first part of the lane looked pretty unpromising with already flailed hedges on both sides but a tall block of blackthorn had been left on the western verge and after a few minutes searching I found a single egg low to the ground (SO9454). Back to the car, I drove further along the lane past Bow Stadium and into the next 1km square where there was a very nice uncut blackthorn hedge on the right with plenty of sucker growth and it didn't take long to find another egg (SO9455). So two new squares in the first twenty minutes of searching; I was clearly on a roll and decided to drive round to Huddington Lane in order to examine the squares immediately to the north. En route, I stopped off by the Libbery turn as this square was now a very obvious gap in the distribution. We have searched this square before without success but my luck was clearly in, and I found an egg on the wide verge along the north side of the road (SO9554). Three squares searched and eggs in all three.

The tractor and flail had managed a headstart on me on the lane towards Huddington but, every so often, I spotted a few uncut stretches of hedgerow or places where the flail had missed low growing blackthorn on the verge. The technique was to stop the car where roadside blackthorn looked suitable and then search until an egg was found. In this way, I recorded eggs in another three 1km squares (SO9456/9457 and 9357) all within a few feet of where I parked the car! Rather than extreme butterflying this was beginning to seem more like egg hunting for softies. By now, it was mid-afternoon and the light was beginning to fade but I was determined to try to find an egg in SO9358 which is the square containing Trench Wood nature reserve where an adult had been reported in 2004. The "spotting blackthorn from a moving car" trick was utilised again and I was delighted to find my final egg along the hedgerow leading up to Sale Green.

Buoyed by this success I had another try on 2nd January and managed to find eggs in another 3 new squares: SO9459, SO9660 and SO9762 using the same technique. My hit rate was not so good, however, as on the previous occasion and I failed to find eggs in a further 3 squares mainly due to an absence of suitable blackthorn. Still a 50% success rate is not to be sniffed at. Trevor Bucknall was also out and about on the same day and he added two new squares around Bishampton (SO9852/SO9851) which included the most southerly square so far. In the afternoon, we joined forces to look at the new Worcestershire Wildlife Trust reserve at Humpy Meadow (see Bulletin 20), where we were pleased to confirm breeding Brown Hairstreaks, and then finished off the day by recording eggs in a further two new squares (SP0054/SP0053). There was even more cause for celebration on the following day, when I learned via Jane Ellis that Jan Kenyon, one of our local Hairstreak Champions, had found a double egg on New Year's Day in the square immediately south of Moreton Underhill (SP0158) which was great news. Like many of us, Jan is finding egg hunting surprisingly addictive and has already roped in a friend to help.

So to sum up, over the course of 5 days we had managed to increase the known distribution of the Brown Hairstreak in Worcestershire by 25%. This is really quite amazing and it is worth placing this achievement in an historical context. Monitoring of the Brown Hairstreak dates back to 1970 but, in the early years, was mainly confined to the core area around Grafton Wood. It was only from 1990 onwards that there was an attempt to seriously begin to map its wider distribution in a systematic way. The first full survey over the winter of 1993/4 funded by English Nature found eggs in just 16 1km squares. Further recording over the years had slowly pushed this up to 39 squares by 2004, when West Midlands Butterfly Conservation with the support of lottery funds launched its Hedgerows for Hairstreaks project. By the end of last winter, the figure had surged to 54 squares and already this year, with the egg hunting season really only just starting, we have reached an amazing 68 1km squares.

Hopefully, the above will encourage other Local Champions to give it a go over the coming weeks. If you feel the need to get your eye in, we are having our second official Egg Hunt Day this coming Sunday, 15th January, meeting at 10.00 am at Grafton Flyford Church. We have issued a press release advertising this day to the local papers so hope this might attract a few extra egg hunters. If you can make it, try to bring along a friend and don't forget a magnifying glass if you have one (but don't worry if you haven't, as we have a few spares). If you are feeling a little confused by the whereabouts of all these new squares, I will also bring a map with me for people to look at. There are now a number of new gaps for people to target. West Midlands Butterfly Conservation's webmaster, Nigel Stone, is also working on an electronic version of the distribution map which I hope to be able to attach to a future eBulletin.

Given the expansion of the butterfly's range we have already recorded, I am feeling a lot more optimistic about the 2005/6 season overall. Rob and Rose Mabbett, together with John Coates, did one of our core counts over the last weekend and amassed 266 eggs which was a record number for that particular wood. So, all in all, a very encouraging picture is emerging and I look forward to seeing many of you on Sunday - wrap up warm!

Mike Williams,
Brown Hairstreak Species Champion