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June 2012
Dear Brownhairstreakers,
May has proved a month of contrasts with the first half a continuation
of the cold and often rainy weather experienced in April, then suddenly from
21st onwards summer arrived with temperatures suddenly shooting up from the
mid teens celsius to 25+. Like most British "summers", however, it didn't last
long and, at the time of writing this bulletin, we now seem to be back firmly
where we were for most of May. Butterflies certainly responded well to the change
in temperature and some of our rarer species in the region like Pearl-bordered
Fritillary, Dingy Skipper and Wood White rallied strongly and were present in
good numbers in their favoured sites. Our caterpillar hunt on 20th May was unfortunately
one day too early to catch the improved weather but attracted a good turnout
of 14 people who spent an enjoyable morning poking around (and no doubt being
poked by) blackthorn bushes. Altogether, 7 caterpillars were found, ranging
in size from 3-6mm, quite a contrast to the same weekend last year when we found
some real fat cats up to 14mm. Even so this year's caterpillars were considerably
larger than those our colleagues in Oxfordshire were finding at this time which
were all smaller than 3mm. A further two caterpillars were found by Jenny Tonry
and Paul Meers near Morton Underhill on 23rd and Simon Primrose and Gill Thompson
found 11 at Shurnock on 4th June which was good going. Yesterday's caterpillars
were much larger (see Gill's excellent photo of "Gertrude" below) but still
only 9-13mm in length, while by the end of May last year they were virtually
fully grown at 16-18mm. It will be interesting to see whether this slow growth
rate has any impact on emergence times of the adult butterflies later in the
summer or whether the caterpillars are able to catch up over time if the weather
improves.
Our main Brown Hairstreak event of the year, of course, is the
Open Day at Grafton Wood which takes place on Sun, 19th August. This year's
event forms part of the Pershore Plum Festival and we are grateful to Wychavon
Council for producing a flyer on our behalf. If those recipients of the ebulletin
who live fairly local to Grafton Wood could print out the poster
(Click to open - 1MB pdf) and place it in a prominent position on a village
noticeboard or similar, where it is likely to be seen by the public, that would
be great. We do have a further stock of posters plus some smaller A5 flyers
and if anyone would like further copies please let me know. This year's Open
Day will hopefully see the launch of a new Hairstreak Trail starting from Grafton
Flyford church as part of the County Council's Worcestershire Walks scheme.
The route, which passes through mainly farmland containing blackthorn hedges,
heads northwards towards Himbleton before striking out north-eastwards to Earl's
Common where it joins the Wychavon Way. The return route follows the Way southwards
and then takes walkers back though Grafton Wood to the Church. The walk, in
total a distance of around 6.5 miles, has been designed by West Midlands Butterfly
Conservation Chairman John Tilt and will be waymarked along its entire length.
We hope that, by providing the route, it will showcase some of the attractive
countryside of east Worcs and provide an alternative and enjoyable way of spotting
Brown Hairstreaks and other butterflies for visitors.
While Brown Hairstreaks are the flagship species at Grafton Wood,
the open rides and coppice plots provide excellent habitat for a wide range
of butterflies and moths as well as other interesting wildlife, which is testament
to the excellent work carried out over the years by the joint owners Butterfly
Conservation and the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust. The Management Committee
have just produced a new edition of the reserve guide which details much of
the wildlife to be found and is available via John Tilt on 01386 792458, The
new guide will be available at the Brown Hairstreak Open Day in August and also
on our butterfly walk on Sun, 8th July. This latter walk which starts at the
Church car park at 2 pm will provide the ideal opportunity to see some of the
other butterflies found in the Wood including the spectacular Silver-washed
Fritillary, White Admiral and Marbled White. There is no need to book and refreshments
will be available in the Three Parishes Hall afterwards.
As mentioned in the last ebulletin, West Midlands Butterfly Conservation
has been a recent beneficiary of the Waitrose Community Matters scheme. Thanks
to everyone who supported our fundraising efforts at Waitrose's Droitwich store
during May with particular thanks to Tom Brereton in the Butterfly Conservation
head office who sent us some green tokens he had been saving through the post.
All in all, a total of just short of £300 was raised by Waitrose which is very
pleasing and will enable us to acquire a further supply of blackthorn plants
and buy new tools for conservation management work. We hope to be collecting
the cheque later this month.
Finally, we are still looking for volunteers to help with this
year's Big Ash Bush in early August and if you can help with this please get
in touch.
Mike Williams,
Brown Hairstreak Species Champion,
West Midlands Butterfly Conservation