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Brown Hairstreak in Worcestershire - Bulletin 27

May 2006

Dear Brownhairstreakers,

In recent years we have become used to a succession of early Springs, but 2006 rather bucked the trend with many plants coming into leaf and flower up to a fortnight later than the previous year. This certainly had an impact on the development of Brown Hairstreak eggs which normally time their hatch with the appearance of the first blackthorn leaves. Last year, a walk around Grafton Wood on 17th April suggested that around 50% of eggs had already hatched. This year, at the Grafton Wood open day on 23rd April, almost a week later, I couldn't find a single egg from which the caterpillar had already emerged! We had to wait until 28th April for news of our first births of the year when John Tilt, Reserve Manager at Grafton, found 5 eggs that had hatched, but even then this was a very small percentage of the total number of eggs found.

We have our first caterpillar hunt of the year planned for this weekend (11.00 am on Sunday, 28th May meeting at Grafton Flyford Church) and it will be interesting to see to what extent the season has caught up. This time last year, I was finding larvae up to 10-11mm in length so it will be interesting to compare. The improved weather of early May should definitely have helped but the last week has seen a return to colder conditions with a good deal of rain. If you do plan to come along, and obviously the more people looking hopefully the more caterpillars we will find, then please bring a hand lens or magnifying glass if you have one and also make sure you bring your wellies or walking boots! The aim as last year will be to mark each caterpillar we find and to then try to follow its subsequent development. If you are unable to come on Sunday but would be interested in helping with follow-up work please let me know.

I will also have with me on Sunday the up to date map showing the location of all our Brown Hairstreak egg data. This is proving very useful to landowners interested in stewardship who are able to easily determine the proximity of breeding Brown Hairstreaks to their land. We have been approached recently by Wendy Johnson on behalf of Inkberrow Millennium Green who are working on a Higher Level Stewardship application asking for details of close by Brown Hairstreak records. Brown Hairstreak is recorded in virtually all the squares around Inkberrow and we were able to come up with several grid references of eggs within 1km of the site. Hopefully, this will help the group to secure their grant and ensure that new blackthorn planting is incorporated in the plan. The Millennium Green incidentally already sounds a good site for wildlife with a strong colony of Marbled White butterflies present. If you know of anyone thinking about stewardship who is unsure about the presence of Brown Hairstreak do put them in touch. We shall be having a meeting shortly with staff from the Rural Development Service of DEFRA to discuss how we can best work together in the future and try to avoid any repetition of the hedgerow devastation witnessed earlier this spring at Stock Green and reported in the last ebulletin. I hope to be able to report on the outcome of this meeting in a future ebulletin.

The planned article on the Brown Hairstreak referred to last time has now been published in the April 2006 edition of Worcestershire Record, the newsletter of the Worcs Biological Records Centre. This article provides an historical account of the Brown Hairstreak in the county from Victorian times, to its eventual rediscovery in 1970, and through to the present day. It also offers what I hope is a useful overview of the conservation work undertaken in recent years which has so improved our knowledge of the local status of the butterfly and its ecological requirements. I am grateful to Harry Green and Bert Reid for their work in preparing the article for publication particularly the formatting of tables and preparation of distribution maps. Details of how to subscribe to the newsletter are set out in ebulletin 26 but please note that cheques should be made out to Worcestershire Record rather than WBRC. Alternatively, an electronic version will eventually appear on the web at www.wbrc.org.uk

Hope to see a good turnout on Sunday at what is our first main Brown Hairstreak event of the year. Thanks to a new grant from the Nurturing Nature Fund, secured by Butterfly Conservation Regional Officer Jane Ellis, we have a limited supply of blackthorn available for planting. If any local champions are interested in ordering some please let me know.

Mike Williams,
Brown Hairstreak Species Champion