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Brown Hairstreak in Worcestershire - Bulletin 22

January 2006

Dear Brown Hairstreakers,

A big thank you to everyone who came to our most recent Egg Hunt Day on 15th January, it was great to have such a good turnout. It was especially good to welcome a number of our existing local champions but also a number of new faces who had responded to the article in the Worcester Evening News. With almost 25 people there on the day, we managed to complete the count in our core area around Grafton Wood nature reserve in record time. Overall, we found 286 eggs compared to 463 last year, a reduction of nearly 40%. On the face of it perhaps a worrying decline but, for various reasons, we don't need to be too alarmed. Firstly, last year was a record high from almost forty years of monitoring so some decline was to be anticipated; and secondly, a number of blocks of blackthorn were not in an ideal condition for egglaying, either because they were in need of rotational management or they had only recently been managed and there was so far little regrowth. One of the advantages of our long term data set is that we can set any apparent short term decline in a longer term context and the count was actually our sixth highest recorded since 1970. We can also console ourselves with the fact that dispersal last year of egglaying females was obviously excellent as we are continuing to find eggs in lots of new locations.

Since our last Bulletin the number of 1 km squares in which the Brown Hairstreak has been recorded has grown to 73. The new squares are SP0253, SP0354, SP0254, SO9453 and SP0252. With the exception of the SO square which is Cowsden, the remainder are to the east of Radford and Rous Lench, once again significantly extending the area of search and creating a number of new gaps in the distribution map. Most exciting of all, however, was to discover an egg over the county boundary in Warwickshire, the first for over thirty years! It is hard to determine whether what we are witnessing is a genuine extension of range or merely a result of more recording effort. It is certainly the case that we have found eggs this winter in a number of squares we have searched unsuccessfully in the past, but I feel that part of the reason lies in the fact that we have begun our searches earlier in the winter. As a result, we have found a significantly higher number of hedgerows still uncut which has therefore greatly increased our chances of finding eggs. Unfortunately, it still seems to be the case that many farmers equate good husbandry with the annual flailing of all their hedgerows and it is a sad fact that many of the eggs we have found are likely to be lost in the coming weeks. Having said this, 33 people have so far registered for the forthcoming training day on the new Environmental Stewardship scheme which is very good news.

Equally encouraging is the great strides that are being taken in involving the local community in our Local Champions project. A chance meeting last Sunday with a party from Feckenham Rambling Club on the edge of Grafton Wood led to instruction in egg finding, an exchange of contact details and a promise to provide more information on the project. Members of walking clubs are ideal candidates for egg hunting as they often have a strong interest in utilising local public rights of way and are therefore well placed to locate suitable areas of blackthorn. Many of those involved are also likely to be parents and grandparents of children at Feckenham Primary School who have recently agreed to go out egghunting with Becky Lashley from the Worcestershire Biodiversity Partnership next month. Becky has been going great guns in involving local schools in the project and is now planning a series of community events in the spring looking for Brown Hairstreak eggs and subsequently caterpillars. These will be joint initiatives with West Midlands Butterfly Conservation and details will be publicised via the eBulletin once they are finalised.

Under our Hedgerows for Hairstreaks scheme, all Local Champions living within the Forest of Feckenham area are entitled to receive up to 20 blackthorn plants for planting to encourage the Brown Hairstreak. This scheme has proved very popular and stocks of blackthorn have been running low. Apologies to those people who have had to wait a while but we have now acquired, thanks to John Coates, some additional blackthorn so hopefully we should be in a position to supply you shortly. We will try to bring some plants along to our next Egg Hunt Day on 29th January so if you are after some blackthorn please let me know if you will be attending and we will earmark some plants for you. Having completed our core egg count around Grafton Wood, we can now concentrate on ever more wider searches for eggs in the surrounding countryside. The plan on 29th will be to split into teams and head off in different directions which should be fun (we might even turn it into a little competition!). The meeting place as normal is Grafton Flyford church at 10 a.m. and look forward to seeing you there.

Mike Williams,
Brown Hairstreak Species Champion