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March 2008
Dear Brownhairstreakers,
A lot to report back on since the last ebulletin and very little of it good news. To get the worst over first: one of our best hedgerows within the core area around Grafton Wood has been flailed with the loss of 80 eggs. We know the exact number of eggs as it was one of the hedgerows where volunteers carried out an egg count last December. Worse still, was the fact that all the hedgerows on the farm, together with the adjoining farm, were cut at the same time. This, in clear breach of stewardship agreements covering both farms which state that all hedges are not to be cut in the same year but rather on a rotation of 3-5 years. The same agreements also set out that any cutting is to take place in July/August, which of course is the only time of the year when no life stages of the Brown Hairstreak are present on the blackthorn, and not at all during winter months. Indeed, the hedgerow where the 80 eggs were lost is part of Grafton Wood Site of Special Scientific Interest and no management of hedgerows should take place without the express agreement of Natural England, which as far as we are aware was not sought. The total number of Brown Hairstreak eggs lost as a result of this debacle is impossible to estimate but must run into hundreds if not thousands. Long term subscribers to this ebulletin will know this is by no means the first time this has happened and, while there is so little attention given to the monitoring of stewardship agreements and issues of compliance, this situation will go on repeating itself. Our experience this winter strongly suggests that this is not an isolated case. According to Natural England, around 50% of all agricultural land is now under Entry Level Stewardship (ELS) schemes (with this figure rising to nearer 70% if Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) and the old Countryside Stewardship (CSS) is taken into account) and, within this, the option of 2-3 year hedge cutting has proved very popular. On the face of it, really good news for the Brown Hairstreak but any casual glance at the miles of newly trimmed hedgerows wherever one looks in the Worcestershire countryside gives the opposite impression. What we have experienced this winter is particularly disappointing as we had previously felt that the situation had been improving and this was reflected in us finding Brown Hairstreak eggs in new areas which we felt, in part, was due to farmers entering stewardship schemes. It almost seems that the rotational hedge cutting regimes set out under stewardship have been interpreted by farmers along the lines of "leave all your hedges for a year or so then cut the lot in the same year" which is clearly not what was intended. We have now met with Natural England who share many of our concerns but have simply not had the resources to deal effectively with the unfolding situation. Cutbacks in their budget both nationally and locally have meant that only a limited number of HLS schemes have been approved and generally these have been targeted on other areas of Worcestershire. ELS has not been affected by cutbacks in the same way but is designed to be a scheme with low technical input, and staff shortages have meant that it has not proved possible to sustain a programme of regular "care and maintenance" visits. Hopefully, this may now improve but, given the scale of the problem, the impression is that Natural England can at best fulfil, with their current level of resources, only a firefighting role, sending in a staff member only after things have gone badly wrong. The farms in question will now be visited and it will be interesting to hear what the farmers in question have to say.
Obviously, this situation has left us feeling angry and frustrated. A group of us visited Grafton Wood last weekend along with colleagues from South Wales branch of Butterfly Conservation who had originally planned their visit to look at good examples of hedgerow management on farms! The eggs along Hedgerow A had originally been tagged with marker tape and we finished up trying to rescue the few broken twigs of blackthorn we could find with eggs still attached (see photo). Not only had the contractor cut the top and sides of the hedge, he had also flailed blackthorn suckers, again holding eggs, several metres into the field. It was almost as if the contractor's mission had been to eliminate every single egg present. Indeed, the role of the contractor seems key if we are to see any improvement to the current situation. We strongly suspect that the same contractor was responsible for the trimming of hedgerows on both farms and no doubt poor communication between farmer and contractor will once again be blamed. One idea that emerged from our meeting with Natural England was a farm event later in the year to which both farmers and contractors would be invited. The idea would be to show participants Brown Hairstreak eggs and provide literature on ideal cutting regimes. Follow up visits would be offered to farmers to produce laminated maps showing hedge cutting regimes together with cab cards that could be given to contractors. This would require extra funding and Natural England agreed to approach the Farm Advice Unit for support. Natural England also agreed to follow up on the feedback that the hedgerow option within ELS seems to be generating an "on year off year" approach to hedgerow cutting rather than work being split over the 2-3 years envisaged and this is something that Butterfly Conservation could perhaps be persuaded to take up nationally. Natural England has also agreed to produce a map of the Forest of Feckenham area marking up all the land covered by ELS, HLS, CSS and SSSI status so that we can see very clearly those areas covered by agreements and conversely the gaps. In the long term, if funding could be found, a dedicated Forest of Feckenham Project Officer could provide a much more proactive role in both ensuring compliance and targeting new farmers into stewardship. This would be a major step forward and is definitely worth exploring.
The need for targeting was strongly brought home back last month when a group of us again searched the verges of the M5 motorway for Brown Hairstreak eggs. AmeyMouchel, who are responsible for the stretch of the motorway running through Worcestershire on behalf of the Highways Agency, has made a terrific start to managing blackthorn along the motorway verge and has created some very suitable looking Brown Hairstreak habitat. All that is missing sadly is the Brown Hairstreaks and once again we were not able to turn up any eggs. The problem is connectivity; Trench Wood, which holds a good breeding population of Brown Hairstreaks, is very visible from the motorway and no more than a mile away, yet all the linking hedgerows have been cut. If we could only get these hedges into rotational management then our chances of encouraging the butterfly to reach the M5 corridor would be much greater and this is just the sort of situation where a Project Officer could have impact. AmeyMouchel has drawn up a five year management plan for the Brown Hairstreak along the motorway so the opportunity is clearly there. A big thank you again to Andy Brett and Alex Baldwin for giving up their time to accompany us on our motorway search and for their ongoing support for the project. It was also good to read about the previous year's egg search in the company newsletter.
Not surprisingly in view of the foregoing, we are still struggling to reach our target of 150 1km squares for this winter. John East, Peter Seal, Hugh Glennie and myself have all been out on the egg trail but since the last ebulletin, only Trevor Bucknall has managed to locate an egg in SP 0455 near Weethley Wood on the Warks border which still leaves another four squares to go! With blackthorn already coming into flower in many places, which makes searching for eggs more difficult, time is running out.
Mike Williams
Brown Hairstreak Species Champion