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NEWSLETTER No. 11 -  Summer 1984

WEST MIDLANDS BRANCH, BUTTERFLY CONSERVATION

 

I have noted this year that the Large White was breeding on Honesty, and the Meadow  Brown feeding on Marguarites - a flower I believed of no interest or use for butterflies. Could this be one of the secrets to their success, having a more adaptable feeding range as an adult?
I would appreciate any other members tips on good butterfly plants for the garden.

Michael Slater.

Ed. I hope members will take up Michael's last point and pass on to others, via the newsletter, their own list of butterfly "successes". An interesting project that you might like to consider is to record the number of visits made to each different flower in your garden throughout the season. Let us know your results. Don't forget if you are wanting to purchase butterfly plants, then two branch members who often have suitable plants for sale are Madge Payne at 90 Kelsey Lane, Balsall Common, Near Coventry and Joan Walker at 5 Crumpsbrook, Catherton Common, near Cleobury Mortimer. Please phone first:
Madge - Balsall (0922) 32295
Joan - Ludlow (0584) 890309

 

1984 Recording Scheme

Now that the BBCS nationally have assumed full responsibility for the butterfly recording scheme, the Branch's own scheme is to be slightly modified this year to ensure uniformity with the national scheme. What we are hoping to do is to identify the best butterfly habitats within the region and in order to do this we have decided to concentrate recording efforts on 21 target species. We would like all members to co-operate in sending us records of any of the following species:

Grizzled Skipper
Dingy Skipper
Green Hairstreak
Brown Hairstreak
White-letter Hairstreak
Purple Hairstreak
Small Blue
Brown Argus
Holly Blue
Chalkhill Blue
Wood White
White Admiral
Marsh Fritillary
Pearl - bordered Fritillary
Small Pearl - bordered Fritillary
Silver - washed Fritillary
High Brown Fritillary
Dark Green Fritillary
Duke of Burgundy
Marbled White
Grayling

Ideally, we would like records by habitat on the new recording scheme forms (RA 52s) which are available from the Biological Records Centre, Monks Wood Experimental Station, Abbots Ripton, Huntingdon, Cambs. At first sight these forms appear a little complex, but the essential information to include is the 6 - figure grid reference, the name of locality, your name, the county, the date(s) of visit and the species seen (not just the target species). We or the national BBCS Recorder can fill in the rest of the information. Alternatively, you can use the newly designed branch recording form which is included with this newsletter (please photocopy as many extra copies as you need).

All completed forms should be sent by the end of September to Pete Salmon, who has offered to act as Branch Recorder. Pete's address is 36 Collingbourne Avenue, Hodge Hill, Birmingham. Tel. 021 783 5210. All branch records will in future be stored on computer and Pete has devised a programme that will enable us at the push of a button to see the exact distribution of any of the target species and also the species recorded for any particular locality. This should greatly assist both the storage and retrieval of material. Having extracted the information the branch needs, Pete will pass on the records to the appropriate local Biological Records Centre and via them to the national recorder. We need records for Staffordshire, Shropshire, West Midlands, Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire. Please help us in this very important work.

In addition to the general scheme as outlined above we are wanting to make a special effort this year within the county of Herefordshire as Martyn Davies explains:

As a biology teacher in a Hereford City Comprehensive school, I hope to be able to encourage children in nature conservation, as a Butterfly enthusiast I hope to be able to increase the awareness of some children of these beautiful insects. With these objectives in mind, I have considered ways in which the new micro-computing technology could be of use. When the BBC model B micros came into school I decided it would be useful to have a copy of the distribution records for all species within the county, coupled with some form of visual display. Thanks to the Keeper of Natural History at Hereford Museum, I had access to the record cards and I transferred the information to the computer. This been done in such a way that the computer first draws the grid in white, then the outline map in red, the references as spots in different colours depending on the age of the reference, and finally the title.

This shows what the computer puts on the screen.
It looks better in colour!
The apparent gaps in the outline are where the boundary and grid lines coincide.

It was whilst I was transferring the information from the cards to the computer and checking the program for each species to see that it would run correctly that I began to notice some rather sad gaps in the Counties records:-

1) The paucity of records pre 1960; it is not uncommon to have less than 10 records for some of the more common species.

Part of the record card for E. tages. This extract shows all of the references pre 1960, and note that the top two are for 1981!


.... Further information is missing from the Newsletter ....