The Brown Hairstreaks of Longaller

On friday 1st September 2006 saw my first female Brown Hairstreak in my garden in Somerset. This prompted me look at a nearby hedge for eggs the following winter and I found 15. Since that time I have seen at least one or two females every year and about (c.15) eggs.  It has been very disappointing not to see any adults in late summer 2012 and zero eggs this winter. I just hope this is a temporary blip and they will return this summer. I will update here as and when I have any more news. I...

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Streaking in the snow

Not to be daunted by the weather the Thursday Streakers were out again today in Worcestershire's still very snowy countryside.   Given the weather, we thought we would make it a bacon and egg day with the prospect of a lunchtime bacon roll as reward for a bit of extreme butterflying in the morning.  The day certainly brought forth a fine array of headgear but sadly little in the way of eggs.  We did have original plans to search for eggs on a country lane...

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Egging On The Knepp Castle Estate

Today I started a systematic survey of the Brown Hairstreak on the Knepp Castle Estate, home to Sir Charlie Burrell's exciting re-wilding project. The 'Wildland' is already home to the Purple Emperor, which has colonised the large areas of sallow scrub that have developed over the last ten years. There are also many miles of Prunus-rich hedgerow here and the habitat appears to be ideal for Brown Hairstreak, at least superficially . We know they're here ......

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More Grafton Wood Egg Searches - Sat 12th Jan 2013

Yesterday saw the last of the formal ‘weekend’ egg searches for the Grafton Wood area for this winter. As the counts for the ‘core hedgerows’ had already been completed, it was decided to concentrate the search on areas inside the wood and on some of the nearby, external hedgerows, that don’t usually get looked at. So, Mike Williams, Pete Seal and myself set forth from Grafton church, braving the ridiculously wet, and in some places almost impassable, conditions in the fields en route to the wood. We began by searching an area of new sucker growth inside the wood, near to ‘the Orchard’, where management work to cut back old blackthorn growth had been carried out in 2011. The suckers were strong and healthy and it was heartening to find a reasonable number of eggs in this area,...

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THURSDAY STREAKERS CLUB REPORT - 3RD JAN 2013

Mike Williams, Jenny Tonry, Hugh Glennie and myself met as usual on Thurs 3rd Jan to go ‘streaking’ in the Worcestershire countryside. Our plan on this particular Thursday was to search an area on the outside perimeter of a wood that lies close to the east of Grafton Wood, where BH eggs had never previously been recorded. (Last winter we had searched almost the entire perimeter of this wood but had found almost no suitable blackthorn and no eggs. On that day though, heavy rain had then curtailed our search just before we had reached the section of the perimeter that - unbeknown to us at the time - supported a reasonable amount of potentially suitable young blackthorn growth). We therefore began our search on Thursday morning in this promising area. After a lot of detailed...

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New Year Egging at Grafton Wood

The Butterfly Conservation 2012 "End of Year" Brown Hairstreak egg hunt was held on 30th Dec 2012 at Grafton Wood in Worcestershire. 8 of us hardcore Eggheads braved the perilous journey from the carpark across the fields swamps and even enjoyed a mudbath or two along the way. Sinking, squelching, slipping and sliding, we finally made it to one of the Brownie core areas. After splitting into two teams and being assigned our respective hedgerows, it was decided that some friendly competition was...

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Hampshire Forays

Happy new year. As promised I have done a bit of exploration of likely hampshire sites visiting three squares adjacent the Sussex borders. In all I have spent about twelve hours searching looking for likely habitat and egg hunting with zero return- for eggs - yet. The Sussex border squares - mostly adjacent the Eastern  fringes of the Queen Elizabeth Country Park - have turned up limited areas of blackthorn and what I have found has generally been severely flailed - although the suckers have been missed mostly. However, in consolation, I have discovered a lovely remote little nature reserve that looks perfect for Duke of Burgundy . In conversation with Peter Eales he mentioned that eggs have been found widely, if at low densities, around Noar Hill and I know there have been...

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