HOME__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Brown Hairstreak in Worcestershire - Bulletin 2

January 2005

Dear Brown Hairstreakers,

Welcome to the second of what I hope will be regular updates on the Brown Hairstreak butterfly in Worcs. I have expanded the mailing list to include others who have had an involvement in the conservation of the Brown Hairstreak over the years, together with our partner organisations like English Nature, the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust and Defra plus, of course, local residents from the Grafton Wood area, many of whom are directly involved as local Brown Hairstreak champions. If you know of anyone that might be interested in being added to the mailing list please let me know. Also, if there is anyone that would like to unsubscribe just send me an email to this effect.

The aim of this egroup (or should it be hgroup) is to share information about the Brown Hairstreak and encourage people to get involved in the various projects run by Butterfly Conservation, which are aimed at expanding our knowledge of the ecology and distribution of the butterfly in the county and working to improve its conservation status.

Thanks to all those who helped with today's egg count. Total count of 194 eggs today in 9 person hours so pretty good going. In the finish, we completed the two hedgerows to the east of Grafton Wood which fall into our core area count and both showed significant increases over the previous year. The hedgerow in the Hunt meadow is very overgrown and this is a priority for management this coming year. We then moved on to the southern edge of Grafton Wood where numbers proved the best since 2001/2. The running total of eggs so far is 749 and with some productive hedgerows within the orchard still to be searched I suspect that by the end of the season the core area count is likely to approach four figures. This total, of course, does not include the many eggs that have already been recorded from the wider area.

With a lot of blackthorn already coming into bud, we need to press ahead to complete the core egg count as we know that once blackthorn is in flower it becomes much more difficult to spot the eggs. Our next egg hunt day is therefore planned for Sunday, 13th February which is one of our regular Grafton Wood work days. We hope that some people might want to come along and assist with management in the wood on that day and for this we meet in the Grafton Flyford Church car park at 10 a.m. For those coming along to help with the egg count only the meeting place will be the entrance to the orchard at 1.30 p.m. We are hoping that, if we get a good turnout on this day, we should be able to complete our searches of the remaining hedgerows within the core area, so please try to come along and bring anyone else you think might be interested.

In the last mailout, we reported on our 40th 1km square in which the Brown Hairstreak has been reported over the past 15 years. Thanks to some sterling work from Trevor over the last week we can now add a further nine squares! These included the predicted SO97/59 but also 99/55, 99/54 and 98/55 plus SP00/61, 00/62, 00/56, 00/55 and 01/56. These new records extend the distribution north of Feckenham for the first time and also significantly eastwards towards Radford and Inkberrow. With the right management, the potential for the Brown Hairstreak in this part of eastern Worcestershire is enormous and with the new entry level Countryside Stewardship scheme being launched in March we are very hopeful that more and more hedgerows can be more appropriately managed. We are going to produce an updated distribution map over the next few days which will be available via the West Midlands Butterfly Conservation website (www.westmidlandsbutterflyconservation.org.uk).

Any more egg sightings or news of interest please post to the group.

Best Wishes,

Mike Williams,
WMBC Brown Hairstreak Champion