April was all over the place: good one week, lousy the next. The first Orange-tip of the year was a gem, a male flying in the garden of the National Trust's moated medieval manor house at Brockhampton in north Herefordshire on April 9th. He fed on Honesty flowers along the moat edge before sauntering off through sunlit damson orchards in full bloom. Such butterflies fly on in the mind. They do, after all, seek eternity.
In early May I was invited back to Noar Hill, to explain why the Duke of Burgundy population was in decline. The place had changed radically since I left in 1992, and from a Burgundy perspective it had not changed for the better. Cowslips had declined considerably in areas which had been major breeding grounds during the 1980s – I had good data to prove it. The sward in these areas had tightened up, choking Cowslips out. Also, the chalk-pit banks, habitually used by the butterfly for breeding, had become far more dominated by scrub. These would not have constituted a problem if other areas had improved in suitability, but none had. In effect, the reserve had declined in suitability significantly. The good news, though, was that Rabbit numbers were low, for high Rabbit populations are anathema to His Grace, shortening the turf height too much and rendering the Cowslips unsuitable for breeding.
Back in the Cotswolds, Green Hairstreak and Dingy Skipper were the two immediate beneficiaries of conservation grazing by the National Trust's new small herd of Belted Galloway cattle at Rodborough Common. Both appeared in pleasing numbers in what was a disappointing May. The grazing, carried out during the winter, had reinvigorated their foodplants, Common Rockrose and Bird's-foot Trefoil respectively. Elsewhere, Pearl-bordered and Marsh Fritillaries both began to emerge on May 15th. They experienced mixed fortunes during an indifferent May: Pearl-bordered Fritillary appeared in at best modest numbers in Cirencester Park Woods, whilst the Marsh Fritillary emerged in bumper numbers on Strawberry Banks – I counted 287 there in an hour on May 27th, regularly counting three or four at a time. Sadly, however, a four-day spell of heavy rains at the start of June decimated these and all other spring species.
June was plagued by stagnant cloud, and was also cool and, in the south-east, unusually wet. Butterflies suffered further. There was a scatter of decent days, or rather decent half-days. One such afternoon produced a delightful flight of the dainty Wood White at Butterfly Conservation's woodland reserve at Monkwood in Worcestershire, visited en route from running a training course on conservation grazing at Plas Tan y Bwlch in Snowdonia. Monkwood had supplied handles for the Harris paint-brush manufacturers, before plastic intervened, so it had a long history of active coppice management. Then the wood became redundant and was put up for sale: Butterfly Conservation came to the rescue, in partnership with the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust. In the late 1990s the Wood White was quite numerous along the narrow, flowery rides, but then the butterfly suddenly nose-dived there and is now almost extinct. There are not many modern-day examples of rare butterflies dying out on nature reserves managed specifically for them, and it is hard to envisage what, if anything, went wrong here. The truth is that despite the best of endeavours conservation effort does not always work.
Neither does parenting. All parents fail every now and then, but the following is an example of extreme failure. After several days of intensive work surveying Heath and High Brown fritillaries on east Exmoor, then High Brown Fritillaries in Herefordshire, and seeing Purple Emperors in Surrey on my ‘day off’, I deemed it sensible to shoot up to the Lake District early one Sunday morning in pursuit of the Mountain Ringlet. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. To compound that, as I was leaving I inquired whether any of the family wished to come. Two girls, aged nine and six, immediately volunteered, including Millie who was a veteran of the Great 1996 Mountain Ringlet expedition and knew what she was letting herself in for. The weather was set fair, very fair. The girls bundled themselves into the car, followed by camping equipment, books, CDs, cuddly toys etc., and off we went. I wanted to check out the Blea Rigg colony on the Langdale Pikes, last visited in 1992. The M6 was bloody, but we eventually squeezed into the last parking space in the Dungeon Ghyll car park and, rather in the manner of Abraham and Isaac, started up the mountain. The girls skipped on ahead, their doting father lagging behind, carrying Everything. Lunch was taken by Stickle Tarn, and toes were dipped in the crystal water whilst cotton-wool clouds scudded past the sublime landform of Harrison Stickle. The girls were in paradise, and knew it. Up on Blea Rigg, I set them up making fairies out of cast-off pieces of Herdwick sheep wool and floating them down a little waterfall, and sauntered off to find the ringlets. Unfortunately, the butterfly proved hard to find, having moved location.
At that point I somehow forgot that I had taken two children up the mountain with me. It took a while to find them, one weeping helplessly, the other hands-on-hips in fury and indignation. Despite frequent and copious expressions of eternal remorse the tender hand of forgiveness has still not been offered, even sixteen years later. I spent the rest of the summer contemplating giving up butterflying in order to concentrate on parenthood, then thought better of it and carried on regardless.
22 Time out of time
Thank God we've got rid of the twentieth century, were the first words consigned to the diary. There was a chance of a new beginning, a better world. The new millennium had come in on a mild but dark and drizzly night, during a damp yet mild winter. But New Year's Day was cloudless, mild and totally calm. It was perfect cycling weather, and the children were keen. After three or four kilometres Millie shouted, ‘Daddy, there's a butterfly!’ She had spotted the first British butterfly of the century, a female Brimstone fluttering round a clump of Ivy along a south-facing wood edge. Presumably it had been hibernating in the Ivy. A scatter of other butterfly sightings were made that day nationally, and butterflying for the year, century and millennium was up and away. Shortly afterwards, on January 9th, the first Marsh Fritillary larvae emerged from hibernation at Strawberry Banks, near Stroud – ridiculously early.
March was kind. Two days were spent surveying for Heath Fritillary caterpillars on Exmoor, with National Trust and Butterfly Conservation staff, trying to determine why the butterfly was in steep decline there. The butterfly was thriving in places that were still being periodically burnt, or grazed by numbers of deer or farm stock. Elsewhere, colonies were vanishing fast. The problem was that the pastoral system under which the butterfly had thrived had suddenly ceased, so something had to be done. We found thirty or so larvae, basking in hot dappled sunshine beneath Bilberry plants. Their foodplant, Common Cow-wheat, a decidedly uncommon annual, had germinated and was showing a tiny pair of fresh leaves. Soon the caterpillars would begin to feed, but April was foul – unrelentingly wet, and with two snowfalls. Early-spring Cotswold butterflies, like the Duke of Burgundy and Green Hairstreak, appeared right at the end of the month, shivering.
May started well, allowing them a narrow window of opportunity before it capitulated, yet again. Mid-month I saw one of the best flights of Duke of Burgundy I have ever seen, on a privately owned downland slope in Hampshire's Meon valley. The slope had been grazed by cattle into the early 1980s, then abandoned. Cowslips abounded, and the site was in perfect condition for the butterfly – but it would not remain so indefinitely, for coarse grasses and then scrub would gradually take over and the Cowslips would vanish. Doing nothing was not an option, but what and when, and would the owner be willing and able?
The day May 2000 capitulated I was in Northern Ireland, on the Divis Mountain, the vast dome of moorland blanket bog that overshadows Belfast. Little of the mountain was visible as cloud and heavy rain swirled, first, around us, then within us. We were, of course, standing round in a circle, discussing conservation. Worse, we took that wretched weather back to England with us. Somehow, I had found a few miserable Green-veined Whites and Orange-tips roosting on Lady's Smock heads on the lower Divis slopes, and even a scatter of their eggs.
Back on the mainland, Orange-tips had been blasted away. I saw one on May 20th, t
hen no more until a late one on June 6th. That proved to be the year's last. Pearl-bordered Fritillaries had had a miserable time and the Marsh Fritillary, which had emerged in great numbers, got knocked out worryingly early. Had they laid sufficient eggs to sustain the population? On June 7th I saw the last of the Sand Point, Weston-super-Mare, Glanville Fritillaries, a lone male. The rampant grass and bramble growth associated with a series of wet summers had proved too much for this small and highly isolated colony, and there was nowhere new to which they could spread. The colony had, after all, resulted from a clandestine introduction, and to keep it the poor National Trust rangers and volunteers would have had to garden the slope unrealistically. Too much was being asked here.
But butterfly introductions can work, when properly conducted, and where suitable habitat conditions can be maintained. On June 23rd Dave Simcox, the Large Blue project officer, transferred a dozen female Large Blues from a sizeable colony in the southern Polden Hills to the National Trust's Collard Hill just south of Street. These girls were undoubtedly mated, for virginity lasts minutes with most female butterflies, but Simcox took along three males as well, just in case. We had agonised over whether Collard Hill was suitable for the butterfly or not. Perhaps the slope was too exposed and would at best support a token population? It was worth a trial, not least because of the urgent need for an open-access site, which people could freely visit to see this royal blue butterfly. The Trust had moved heaven and earth to get the slope into suitable condition by carefully grazing down the dominant coarse grasses. Despite some wobbles, due to challenging weather conditions and difficulties in ensuring the necessary grazing, the Large Blue has since thrived at Collard Hill, exceeding all expectations. Within a decade it had become the second-strongest colony in the country and one of the largest known colonies in Europe. Better still, some 10,000 visitors have seen the butterfly there over the years. Butterflies, especially rare ones, need friends.
In mid-June I visited the Norfolk Broads to study Swallowtails and their habitats, notably the impact of cattle and ponies on the butterfly's foodplant, Milk-parsley. The good news was that these animals do not eat Milk-parsley. Better still, their grazing checks the surrounding vegetation which otherwise covers the plant, and their hooves create bare ground pockets in which the plant can propagate – so, a triple tick there. The problem the Swallowtail has is that the females preferentially lay their eggs on plants that are standing proud of the surrounding reeds and sedges, but these tend to grow taller than the Milk-parsley itself. Achieving the right height differential can be crucial. At Irstead Street Marsh, across the River Ant from How Hill Nature Reserve, the Broads Authority had achieved this differential by cutting reed and sedge beds with a giant fen harvester machine during spring and early summer. This work was not without controversy, as it had taken place during the nesting season, but it produced the highest density of Milk-parsley I have encountered and the best flight of Swallowtails. Here, I saw up to 24 Swallowtails in 30 minutes in the core area. Several courting pairs were seen: mated females dropped to the ground on being accosted by an amorous male, in the manner of the Purple Emperor. One receptive female, though, flew off and away with her suitor in tow. Mated females were seen laying their eggs, hurriedly, whilst hovering over the foodplant. Late in the day the butterflies took to basking on the ground, prior to roosting in the reeds. The Swallowtail was also on top form at Butterfly Conservation's exquisite reserve at Catfield Fen, with up to four being seen in a vista.
The Swallowtail was an obvious candidate for Butterfly of the Year, though a casual inspection of Greater Bird's-foot Trefoil plants growing on dry peaty mounds in the cut fen areas at Irstead revealed that the Clouded Yellow was in – three eggs were found – I thought I had seen a female at a great distance. They had started to come in on a deep south wind on June 8th, along with a scatter of Painted Lady and Red Admiral. Summer was heating up. June had been reasonable – not great, but certainly not poor.
On the National Trust's adorable Holnicote estate on east Exmoor the Heath Fritillary required much survey attention. Populations were weakening, even disappearing, apart from a thriving new colony in a young forestry plantation where Bracken had been sprayed off to encourage the new trees. Forty or so were skimming low over the Bilberry carpet here, including three acute, almost black aberrations – ab. corythalia and ab. cymothoe, the latter like a resplendent Scotch Argus. These are the only Heath Fritillary aberrations I have seen on Exmoor. That colony, though, boomed for two years then died out, as the young trees grew rapidly. However, it taught us that spraying off Bracken could assist this vulnerable butterfly. Would that we could have done more for the High Brown Fritillary on Holnicote, when it was disappearing from the hill flanks above the villages of Bossington, Allerford and Selworthy. But the truth is that we lacked the resources to manage for both the Heath Fritillary on the Dunkery slopes and the High Brown across the Porlock Vale. The latter was probably a lost cause anyway, though recognising lost causes in nature conservation is extremely difficult. Later that summer, I saw the last of the Bossington Hill High Brown Fritillaries. Habitat conditions there were deteriorating acutely, and the higher priorities were the Heath Fritillary around Dunkery Beacon and the High Brown Fritillary further west, in Heddon valley. In nature conservation we cannot fight every battle, let alone win. With today's enhanced resources, though, we would have made more effort for the High Brown at Bossington.
July started poorly, though with a scatter of reasonable days. Something strange, distant and diffuse was calling, as in the ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ chapter of The Wind in the Willows. I had been away from the Purple Emperor for way too long, away from my heartland in the Wealden woods. It was Bookham Common, on the outskirts at Leatherhead, which taught me this. Bookham is Ken Willmott's heartland. He is part of the place, belonging there, especially during the Emperor season. Following the Emperor there is his life's work. Back in the mid-1970s he discovered, by happy chance, two places on the densely wooded common where Emperor males gather each afternoon. Both were sheltered groves on high points, with distinct topographical and arboreal characteristics. Because Ken is hefted to Bookham he had scarcely been able to look for comparable places elsewhere. I studied Bookham, and realised it illustrated a perfectly good way of surveying for this most elusive and evasive of butterflies. Above all, that July Bookham offered me a depth of personal experience in butterflying which I had not felt for years – for, oddly, being immersed in nature conservation had deprived me of it.
The Emperor put on a mighty performance that dismal July. Yet whilst he was battling with the mighty Swallowtail over the destiny of Butterfly of the Year, the Clouded Yellow sneaked off with the trophy. Clouded Yellows had started coming across the Channel in early June. Subsequent waves occurred, augmented by the emergence of a home-grown brood. I must have seen at least 60 individuals that August, and went on to see well over a hundred during a wet September. Over 50 were seen skimming over the steep slopes of Fontmell and Melbury downs, south of Shaftesbury in north-east Dorset, on September 3rd, and a similar number on the downs between Folkestone and Dover mid-month. At the end of September I spotted that most magnetic of attractions for the Clouded Yellow – a Lucerne field in full bloom. Better still, it was on Prince Charles's organic farmland near Tetbury, a mile from home. It was in this field that my butterfly year ended, for the males gathered there in some numbers. But September was wet and gale-ridden, ending in a vicious storm on the 30th. The autumn rains blasted the 2000 butterfly season away.
Most of us have a year taken out of our lives at some point. For butterflyers in the UK, 2001 was such a year. To naturalists, including those with a love of butterflies, spring means Everything. They yearn for it, physically, mentally and spiritually and welcome it religiously. It fills them. But we did not have a spring in 2001: the weather was foul, and the countryside was closed due to a massive outbreak of foot & mouth disease. The outbreak started at a pig farm in Northumberland on F
ebruary 21st and spread rapidly, largely due to livestock dealers, as at the time cattle and sheep were being treated widely as trading commodities and were moved from market to market as prices fluctuated. Dealers used their farms purely as holding places until market prices increased somewhere else. So the disease was spread primarily via the livestock market system, with contiguous spread occurring once animals arrived at their new destination. The main epicentres were in north Cumbria and the Borders, north Devon, and Herefordshire. The hearts of many true farmers were broken. The government panicked, a form of national hysteria broke out, and MAFF – the omnipotent Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food – seized control.
In early March the footpath network was closed down almost UK-wide and the National Parks were shut, then the Prime Minister assured us that ‘The countryside is open for business.’ It was not. The impact on the tourism and recreation industries was acute. Had the Government Chief Scientist's late March prognostication come true – namely that the disease would necessitate the slaughtering of half the UK's livestock and months of countryside closure – even wealthy organisations like the National Trust and RSPB would have been at risk, and much of the UK rural tourism and recreation industry would have collapsed. All the while the hope was that the virus would vanish naturally in sustained warm weather. A warm spring was essential.
April, however, was cold and grey. May offered two brief warm spells but much grot, and June was cloudy, though with a good spell late on. The only good news was that the introduced Large Blue population at Collard Hill had come through well.
In Pursuit of Butterflies Page 30