Eventually I was able to get out properly again. A trip to Cheddar Gorge, primarily to assess the ecological impact of free-ranging Soay Sheep, turned into a memorable butterflying trip. Above the gorge, on its western side, Painted Lady males had set up territories along the cliff tops, particularly at a dizzy spot called Hart's Leap. They were accompanied by a scatter of Red Admirals, newly arrived too, and a dozen or more immigrant Hummingbird Hawkmoths. Best of all, the first Clouded Yellow of the year flew past us, on Heidi Hill. We cheered like football supporters. There was even a thriving colony of Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary, breeding on violets amongst coppiced gorse scrub. It was so magical that I returned there at the weekend with a car full of children, for a picnic, then took them strawberry picking. Summertime had broken through.
It was Midsummer Day and the Painted Lady swarm was weakening. In Cirencester Park Woods the Pearl-bordered Fritillaries suddenly shot over. Down near Porlock, the High Brown Fritillaries were starting on Bossington Hill, and Heath Fritillaries were in fairly impressive numbers at Bin Combe, on the east side of Dunkery Beacon. They were emerging late, as larval development had been held up by the cold, slow spring.
The Fates, being kindly disposed, had arranged for me to travel to North Wales to help with a training course. We were to meet at the Great Orme headland, just outside Llandudno. Here, I visited the richest area of limestone grassland I have ever seen – adrift with Bloody Crane's-bill, Dropwort, Nottingham Catchfly and mega rarities like Hoary Rock-rose and Spiked Speedwell, not to mention the commonalities like Bird's-foot Trefoil. There were also problems, in the form of invasive Cotoneaster, Strawberry Tree and Turkey Oak. The local subspecies of the Silver-studded Blue was more abundant, nay profuse, than I had ever seen a butterfly, with the possible exception of the Meadow Brown in an East Hampshire wood on Midsummer Day 1976. We were only there for a short while, but I left my heart behind and swore to return for a proper exploration. That evening I had to do something absurd – give a lecture during an England v Germany football match. As this was in Wales, and North Wales to boot, there was no escape. Now, had this been rugby, or rather rygbi …
The journey home involved a stop at a Carboniferous Limestone promontory called Graig Fawr near Prestatyn. Here, an erstwhile National Trust tenant farmer had abused much of the SSSI with chicken manure, slurry and Rye Grass, before going bust and surrendering the tenancy. The steeper land was beyond his reach and still supports a very rich limestone flora. It is in effect an outpost of the Great Orme in miniature. In 1983 Professor Chris Thomas released thirty female and ten male Silver-studded Blues, from the Great Orme, as part of his PhD research. A thriving colony resulted: I saw over 500 during my visit. Of course, the first and last butterflies seen in Wales that trip were Painted Ladies, though they were ageing.
July came in promisingly. In the Cotswolds, grassland butterflies were appearing late, but in pleasing numbers. The transect route on Rodborough Common abounded with Marbled Whites, Meadow Browns and Small Heaths, though Ringlet numbers were down – it does not enjoy hot summers. Even nearer to home, White-letter Hairstreaks were in goodly numbers, with most local clumps of mature Wych Elm holding a colony. Some appeared in our garden, even drinking by the side of the children's paddling pool one hot afternoon. A new generation of elms, mainly Wych Elm, had reached maturity and had become suitable for this beleaguered butterfly.
In the woods, White Admirals were emerging late. A short visit to Ashclyst Forest on July 10th was memorable for the sight of males searching Honeysuckle tangles, repeatedly pecking at certain spots. Close inspection revealed that they had located female pupae that were about to emerge. This was an old New Forest collectors' trick, used as a way to acquire perfect specimens. The other admiral, the Red Admiral, was prominent that day. A mass arrival had recently hit Devon.
By happy chance a mid-July trip up to the Lake District had been arranged with Martin Warren of Butterfly Conservation. Millie, recovering from her broken arm, came too. First stop, Meathop Moss, at Witherslack. It was calm, hot and sunny, with an anticyclone stationed over the Lakes. Large Heath was fully out and truly abundant, clearly having a good year. It was not possible to count them, though, as I had left my watch in the car – never make that mistake, as timed counts produce invaluable data. The butterflies would disappear when a cloud came over, reappearing wondrously with the sun. One such revelation offered a vista of sixteen Large Heaths close by as the sun reappeared. It was too hot for the females, though, for they had taken to shading in cottongrass tussocks. Up on Yewbarrow, the Yew-haunted hill above Witherslack church, High Brown Fritillary and Dark Green Fritillary males were emerging nicely, whilst June's Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries were still flying in numbers. I needed a photograph of a Northern Brown Argus with the white forewing spots, only most of them lacked these spots. Indeed, during the years I have known the Morecambe Bay limestone hills the Northern Brown Argus seems to have all but lost its white spots, and now looks very much like an ordinary Brown Argus.
It was time for the Mountain Ringlet. All good Mountain Ringlet expeditions begin with a visit to Wordsworth country at Grasmere, in this instance because a young lady needed to visit the facilities. I also showed her Wordsworth's grave. That did the trick. She progressed to become an English scholar. Martin decided to visit the Mountain Ringlet colony at Fleetwith and Grey Knotts, south of the Honister Pass youth hostel. Millie and I took the more arduous side, the north side, ascending Seatoller Fell and Dale Head. The lower south-facing slopes of Seatoller Fell drew a blank, probably because the butterfly had finished for the year there, but higher up below Yew Crag we found a colony still going, though the males were all but spent. Millie spotted a female Mountain Ringlet drowning in a shallow pool, and promptly rescued it. After drying its wings for a couple of minutes it embarked on a crawl through the short grasses, laying two eggs on dead horizontal Sheep's Fescue blades before fluttering off, crash-landing as Mountain Ringlets do, crawling again, and laying two more eggs, again on horizontal blades of Sheep's Fescue close to Mat-grass tussocks. Four eggs in five minutes! By Mountain Ringlet productivity standards that was amazing. And Millie found a Wheatear's nest, with young, amongst rocky rubble. On descending we found a note from Martin, who had departed for the south, on our car windscreen. It read: ‘The MR roadshow hits big! I saw 158 in 60 mins, a staggering 128 in 30 mins in the best bit. Mega. I failed on egg laying, they all just sat there. Thanks for the trip – another to remember. Safe journey. Pip, pip.’
Millie and I stayed on an extra day. It was obvious where we would go, Fleetwith. Only by the time we had ascended, 11 am, it was already hot and cloudless, and Mountain Ringlet females were shading in grass tussocks. The mountains became obscured in a heat haze. My timed count outscored Martin's of the previous day – totalling 211 in 50 minutes, including 137 in the core area. The vegetation structure in this favoured area, where females had gathered en masse, consisted of a carpet of dense Sheep's Fescue with frequent tussocks of Mat-grass. That seems to be what Mountain Ringlets like best, but butterflies eternally encourage theorisation and hypotheses, which they then shoot down in flames. Meanwhile, young Millie made a delightful rock garden of lichens and mosses over a flat rock, and found a Ring Ouzel nest amongst the rocks, only the young were just leaving the nest. The journey home was arrested by an excellent evening flight of Purple Hairstreaks at the Hilton Park Service Station on the M6.
Down south, the Purple Emperor seemed to be having a poor season, especially in Alice Holt Forest where Forestry Commission thinning works were decimating its habitat. Nationally, it was first noted on July 13th, at Bookham Common in Surrey, by Ken Willmott. I searched for it vainly in woods in south Gloucestershire and north Wiltshire, feeling that it was calling for me. The White Admiral was shooting over quickly in the heat, as is its habit in hot summers. On the East Hampshire heaths the Silver-studded Blues were long gone, after a short, sharp and sweet flight season.
Then, at the en
d of July, the home-grown brood of Painted Ladies started to emerge – and threatened to obscure the entire UK, town and country, under a cloud of butterflies. There was some evidence to suggest that this might happen:
Diary, July 24th 1996: Babbacombe, north Devon. Amazing abundance of Painted Lady larvae. The immigration here must have been incredible. In the thistle-infested field in front of the house I estimated that 60 per cent of all the Creeping Thistle plants held at least one larva, most had more – and there were literally hundreds of Creeping Thistle plants. In another field I found a single 1-metre tall Spear Thistle which had over 50 larval tents on it, and other Spear Thistles there were skeletonised. I even found larval tents on 30-centimetre tall nettles and tiny isolated thistle plants among a maize crop. Very few on Marsh Thistle, and then only on well-leaved plants. Most of the larvae were full grown, many had already pupated.
There was no need for farmers to mow thistles in north Devon – the caterpillars had done it for them. The previous day I had found numerous full-grown larvae on nettles along a lane in the Heddon valley, on the Exmoor coast. There was going to be an eruption, even an eructation.
There was only one place for the Painted Lady show to kick off, the Kingcombe Centre in West Dorset, just down the road from where I was born. In 1996 my Kingcombe butterfly course (only it was never a course, more of an experience) ran over the weekend of August 2nd to 4th. We were in luck, an anticyclone was building. We started with a visit to see the Lulworth Skipper in its most westerly locality, Bind Barrow near Burton Bradstock, in near-calm conditions. The skipper was abundant: I counted 138 during my standard fifteen-minute walk around this small clifftop site. Impressive. There was also an impressive evening flight of Purple Hairstreak in the Kingcombe meadows that evening, plus a scatter of freshly emerged and rather crepuscular Painted Ladies. As in north Devon, Painted Lady larvae were almost profuse on Creeping and Spear thistles in the Kingcombe meadows.
The following day I saw well over a thousand pristine Painted Ladies. At one point I had to stop the Kingcombe Centre's minibus and remonstrate with the driver, Nigel Spring, who was squashing Ladies willy-nilly along a hilltop lane. ‘You can get out and walk!’ he replied. I did, and found that a minor cloud of Painted Ladies was feasting in the adjoining Red Clover field. At Lydlinch Common, near Sturminster Newton, groups of 20–30 Ladies were feasting on small patches of Saw-wort. Then, in a fifteen-minute spell of bliss, I counted 334 on Hemp Agrimony patches along the western ramparts at Hod Hill, near Blandford Forum. The Red Admiral was almost as profuse, with a massive appearance of fresh specimens. They had crept up on us unnoticed, amongst the blizzard of Painted Ladies. Best of all, the Clouded Yellows were in properly at last. We saw nine on Hod Hill, and would have seen more had we investigated the large field of Lucerne on the southern slope below the hill fort – there is nothing Clouded Yellows like better than a Lucerne field. The following day Powerstock Common, near Maiden Newton, gave a count of 352 Painted Lady in two hours, plus over a hundred pristine Red Admirals. Kingcombe had put the world to rights.
It was my birthday. Where did we want to go? ‘Slimbridge!’ the children all shouted. It was a wise choice, as it produced 400 Painted Ladies, including 100 on old Buddleia bushes by the Wild Goose Observatory. Those bushes had been planted by butterfly lover Sir Peter Scott. Sir Peter was not just a birder, and was for some time President of the British Butterfly Conservation Society, now Butterfly Conservation. More Ladies were feasting on Common Fleabane, Hemp Agrimony and Purple Loosestrife in tall fen vegetation. On the way back I was permitted to walk the week's butterfly transect at Rodborough Common, near Stroud, whilst the children visited the ice-cream emporium on the top of the common. The transect count produced 74 Painted Ladies, and a Clouded Yellow. Quality.
A week later I visited Noar Hill, to walk the week's butterfly transect there, as Tony James, the recorder, was on holiday. Our youngest daughter, Rosie (full name Euphrosyne), aged nearly four, accompanied me. She often did that summer, simply because she liked to sing in the car, without risk of being teased by her siblings. She sang her own songs: ‘Naughty, Naughty Dumper Truck’, ‘Horsy Wants to Eat the Jam’ and, best of all, ‘Dinosaur Goes Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!’ The latter was too much: I swerved into a lay-by, helpless – and discovered a White-letter Hairstreak colony, based on a mature Wych Elm. ‘Dad,’ she asked, when we were halfway to Selborne, ‘where are we going?’ ‘Home,’ I replied. ‘Oh,’ she said, and fell asleep. At Noar Hill, Painted Lady numbers were down from 145 the previous week to a mere 46, but Red Admirals were profuse and I counted nine Clouded Yellows. The Brown Hairstreak was just getting going, with a scatter of fresh males, though it was apparent that there was not going to be a repeat of the previous year's abundance.
It was time for a short seaside camping holiday, taken at the National Trust's low-facility camp site at St Gabriel's Mouth on the Golden Cap estate, on the West Dorset coast. No caravans with loud TVs, no families rioting past the midnight hour, no live entertainment every Saturday night, and no rip-off shop selling UHT milk – i.e. a proper camp site, and in SSSI meadows. It was populated by National Trust countryside supporters, folk who seldom if ever visit NT mansions. Round a camp fire at St Gabriel's one evening, it became clear that several of them had visited far more National Trust countryside than I had. They lived and breathed it. On the way to Dorset, we broke our journey at Barrington Court garden, near Ilminster. Painted Ladies, Red Admirals and Peacocks were numerous there, and I utterly disgraced myself. In the Jekyll-designed white garden, flitting jerkily round clumps of Broad-leaved Everlasting-pea (perennial sweet pea), was a strange blue butterfly, behaving rather like a hairstreak. It was a Long-tailed Blue, one of our rarest migrants, only it quickly shot off, claiming another engagement. One can behave as I did during that minute at a football match when one's team scores, and be considered perfectly normal; in a National Trust garden, though, such behaviour is deemed inappropriate, and a gross embarrassment to children.
Painted Ladies and Red Admirals were congregating along the Dorset coast. At St Gabriel's Mouth, they clustered on the clifftop flowers; then, each afternoon, many would set out south-westwards across Lyme Bay, perhaps heading towards Prawle Point, the southernmost tip of Devon, prior to proper emigration. On August 17th they were setting out to sea at the rate of one per minute. All told, over a period of three days about 500 individuals of each species were seen flying out to sea, following the same course, low over the wavelets. Back home, the Painted Ladies had virtually all gone. None of the prolific home-grown brood had shown any interest in establishing territories, courtship, mating or laying eggs.
After the first week of September the Ladies literally disappeared. I saw just three after September 8th. It seems that they emigrated during late August and early September. South-coast birders watched them go, low over the waves. The Red Admirals and Clouded Yellows remained, though their numbers steadily dwindled. The great butterfly summer of 1996 gradually waned, then slid into the past – to take its rightful place on the high table of great butterfly summers.
21 Leaving the nineties
The summer of 1996 had set up its successor nicely. The new year started amidst a prolonged period of cold coming from the east. I welcomed it in whilst taking my cats for a midnight walk across snowy fields. Earth stood hard as iron. It took five days for the temperature to rise above freezing. Then, a dry January developed, which of course gave way to a mild, wet and windy February, which predictably led into a dry, warm and sunny March. I got through the winter on a diet of Brown, Purple and White-letter Hairstreak eggs, searching for them on Blackthorn stems and around oak and elm buds respectively. All three seemed to be in unusually good numbers, presumably as a result of the hot summer sequence. Then, at the end of January, Marsh Fritillary larvae started to emerge out of hibernation at Strawberry Banks, near Stroud.
The butterfly season began impressively, on March 2nd, with first a Brimstone and then a Peacock
followed by a Comma, all in Three Groves Wood, a classic Cotswold Beech wood by Strawberry Banks; all within a whirligig five-minute spell as spring magically burst through. The year was off to a flyer, and we were seriously overdue a good spring. We got it, almost.
Hours were spent studying Pearl-bordered Fritillary larvae in Cirencester Park Woods, mainly in lunchtime visits from our office in Cirencester. They have the habit of basking on dead leaves whilst the day is warming up, favouring oak and bramble leaves, close to the violets on which they feed. When populations are high, as they were in early 1997, they are relatively easy to find – in the right weather conditions. One magical visit produced 20 in an hour. Once the day has warmed up properly, and the leaf litter has dried out, though, they go into feed-and-retreat mode, in which they hide under dead leaves for long periods, only emerging for brief frenetic feeding spells, consuming fresh violet leaves, buds and flowers. The amount of feeding damage on the violets in one of the Cirencester Park Woods clearings, a spot known as Botany Bay, was enormous, suggesting a massive emergence to come. This was a clearing of some 2.5 hectares where mature broad-leaved trees and Scots Pines had been felled the previous winter, and promptly planted up with Corsican Pines. Colonisation took place on Day One of the 1996 flight season for, apart from rows of young pines and a scatter of retained young oaks, the clearing consisted mainly of myriad bramble seedlings and clumps of Common Dog-violet amongst tree leaf litter – and little else. Patches of Bugle and Primrose grew along the adjoining rides. This was paradise for the Pearl-bordered Fritillary. They don't actually need anything else, just scattered violets amongst leaf litter, and as little green grass as possible – for green grass cools the microclimate down, and the caterpillars need heat.
In Pursuit of Butterflies Page 28