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December 2011
Dear Brownhairstreakers,
Thanks to everyone who supported the egg hunt day at the end of
November when we began the core count around Grafton Wood. As suspected, the
management problems referred to in the last ebulletin meant that numbers were
considerably down on the previous winter but, hopefully, recent discussions
with Natural England will go some way to improving the situation in the future.
We aim to complete the rest of the core count at our traditional New Year egg
hunt on Sunday, 1st January and do come along if you can. We will have mulled
wine and mincepies as an added incentive, together with the promise of finding
we hope some reasonable numbers of Brown Hairstreak eggs (see below). We meet
as normal at Grafton Flyford church for 10 am but please wrap up warm and bring
a hot drink plus something to eat if you are planning on staying all day.
Although the core count looks as if it will be down this year,
we are continuing to find plenty of Brown Hairstreak eggs elsewhere. The Thursday
Streakers Club have been out and about over the past month, mainly continuing
our survey around assembly trees but also looking at other areas. On 24th November,
we visited two farms: one near Feckenham which is hoping to go into stewardship
and the other which is operating as a market garden at North Piddle. The good
news is that we found Brown Hairstreak eggs at both locations. The farm at Feckenham
is almost unique in the context of east Worcs in that many of the hedges have
not been cut for several years and are largely too mature for Brown Hairstreaks.
A rare situation where the butterfly would actually benefit from more intensive
hedgerow management! The following week, we were back to reality with a bump,
when we visited the assembly tree at Cowsden and found both the lane leading
up to the tree and most of the surrounding hedgerows already heavily flailed.
In consequence, we found relatively few eggs, indeed so few it will be interesting
to see if the assembly tree actually supports any adults next year at all. We
also re-searched the 1km square to the south of the tree where we have never
found eggs and, guess what, we still haven't!
After this experience, we were all badly in need of a fillip and fortunately received this on 8th December when we went to look around the assembly tree at Stock Green. As regular readers of the ebulletin will know, this is the tree in Martyn Ganderton's garden and the day got off to a flying start when we found eggs on blackthorn, wild plum and damson all within a few feet of one another and close to the tree. Venturing out of the garden, we searched a hedgerow in a neighbouring farmer's field, which had been managed as part of an HLS agreement, and found over 50 eggs including a cluster of 4 eggs again on wild plum (see photo). We were pleased to see that sections of this hedge have been planted with additional blackthorn provided through the Severn Waste grant. Despite it being December, nearby we also found a still active honey bee nest in a hollow willow tree complete with honeycomb. The onset of blustery and rainy conditions brought our search to a premature end but we returned the following Thurs and increased the count up to 75 which was very pleasing in such a small area. We even had time to make a start on the southern edge of Grafton Wood, where we will be undertaking a proper count on our New Year's Day foray, and found another 35 eggs which is a great start.
Other encouraging news to report is the discovery of another new
1km square SO9449 by Simon Primrose on 11th December bringing the total of known
squares up to 191 and 11 new squares since the autumn. Last winter, we added
18 squares to the distribution map and it will be interesting to see if we can
get anywhere near this figure again. Certainly, the 200 square target is now
within our sights, an undreamt of figure only a few years ago. One thing that
might help us in future survey work is a better understanding of the historical
landscape of east Worcestershire. What is it about this area that enables it
to support a population of Brown Hairstreaks when they are completely absent
from the wider Midlands? Simon Primrose and myself spent an interesting morning
recently in the offices of the Historic Environment & Archaeology Service, part
of Worcestershire County Council, studying old maps and looking at other historical
data. The original boundaries of the Forest of Feckenham extend considerably
further than the current known distribution of the Brown Hairstreak and this,
together with other landscape features, gives us hope that we may still record
new areas for the butterfly. We are extremely grateful to Emily Hathaway and
Steve Crowther for making our visit so informative.
Do keep an eye out for Brown Hairstreak eggs on your travel. Although
we do not have the time to search everywhere, it is always valuable to hear
about the whereabouts of eggs from our local champions. Paul Meers, who is the
Reserve Manager at Feckenham Wylde Moor, has recently turned up several eggs
in the Feckenham and Morton Underhill area. We are always happy to follow up
on significant finds and these may also give a clue to the location of new assembly
trees. If you do find eggs please try to record their location, ideally with
a GPS but otherwise a 6 figure grid reference from an OS map.
A very happy Xmas to one and all and look forward to seeing some
of you on future egg hunts.
Mike Williams,
Brown Hairstreak Species Champion,
West Midlands Butterfly Conservation