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January 2007
Dear Brownhairstreakers,
It was very pleasing to see some new faces at the egg hunt on Sunday and with a
good turnout it did not take too long to polish off the final hedgerow on the
eastern side of Grafton Wood. The egg count here was a little disappointing,
largely because of a shortage of suitable blackthorn, but nevertheless the count
was slightly up on last year. The eastern section of this hedge is badly in need
of cutting and we are hoping that our regular volunteers from Stourbridge
College might be able to undertake this task for us this coming Summer. We have
now completed the core egg count for this winter and the final tally of 598 eggs
is an increase of twenty on the previous year.
Now this task is out of the way we can concentrate on seeing if we can add
further squares to the overall distribution map. We have already made a good
start on this. In addition to the squares already reported, Trevor Bucknall
managed to add a further seven 1km squares on 19th January, mainly filling in
gaps on the southern edge of the known range which had been targeted in Bulletin
37. For those of you that like to keep their own distribution map up to date,
the new squares are SO 9550/9751/9851/9952 and SP 0051/0152/0052. The SO 9550
square just north of Pinvin is the most southerly square yet recorded. At least
two of the squares, Trevor had searched unsuccessfully last year which is
suggests a genuine extension of range. Trevor also spent an hour looking in SP
0151 around Ab Lench where there was plenty of blackthorn but no eggs - maybe
next year! I was also able to add a further three squares on Sunday afternoon.
SP 0257 filled in a gap east of Inkberrow while SP 0459 and 0460 represented a
further expansion towards the Warks border. Just over the county boundary, there
are some substantial areas of woodland heading towards Alcester which would now
be worth searching. Last year, we found the first Brown Hairstreak egg in Warks
for over thirty years and it would be very interesting to find out whether this
was just an odd stray or whether the butterfly now has a permanent presence in
west Warks. Perhaps a challenge for members of Butterfly Conservation's
Warwickshire branch members to follow up. It is important to recognise, however,
that finding new squares is by no means guaranteed and patience and persistence
are both required. I also drew a blank on Sunday in SP 0458 in the lanes around
Cladswell. Again, there was plenty of blackthorn but either growing in very
shady situations or often on the wrong side of water-filled ditches for me to be
able to search effectively. Similarly, on 24th I spent a couple of hours
searching squares west of Hanbury but without success.
Each time we add to the distribution map in this way, it brings new areas of
potential search into play, often places we would not even have considered
looking a few years back . As well as the M5 corridor mentioned in the last
bulletin, the area immediately to the south of the minor road from the Jinny
Ring Craft Centre north of Harbury towards Redditch is worthy of exploration and
hopefully Sue Griffin, together with Roger & Linda Drew, three of our newly
recruited local Champions, will find the time to search this area.
Any findings or even unsuccessful searches, please let me know. If any champions
would like to be allocated specific squares to search I would be happy to do
this.
Mike Williams,
Brown Hairstreak Species Champion