More streaking in Worcs

Today's Thursday streak saw us head back to Morton Stanley Park in Redditch where we had recorded eggs for the first time last winter.  The main aim of the visit was to undertake a blackthorn survey of the park and feed in management recommendations to the site owners Redditch Council but, of course, we couldn't resist searching for eggs at the same time.  The park contains considerable amounts of blackthorn but much of it has not been managed for many years and is now generally too over-mature to be ideal for egglaying.  So really a place with considerable potential which could benefit hugely from rotational management of the blackthorn scrub.  Redditch Council, I am pleased to report, are very enthusiastic about the fact that Brown Hairstreaks have started to move in to town and have already agreed to modify their roadside verge management in another area where we have found eggs. 

With the survey pretty well complete and with rainclouds gathering, we were on our way back to the car when a cry of "got one" pulled us up short.  Sure enough, just a few metres north of the car park and adjacent to a park bench and kiddie's play area, one rather old leading shoot of blackthorn contained not one but three eggs.  I often think that searching for Brown Hairstreak eggs is like waiting for buses, nothing for hours then three come at once!  Anyway, result all round and hopefully the confirmation of breeding success in the park for the second successive year will encourage further the Council to begin to manage some of the stands of blackthorn with the butterfly in mind.

This coming Saturday, 24th November sees our first egg count of the hedges around Grafton Wood meeting at Grafton Flyford church for 10 am.  This will be our 43rd year of egg counts at this location making it almost certainly the longest running monitoring survey undertaken in any UK butterfly.  New faces are always welcome so if anyone fancies a trip up (or down) to Worcs this weekend they would be very welcome.   

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EGG HUNTING IN IRELAND

The Burren Conservation Volunteers are an inspiring group of volunteers actively working towards the sustainable management of the Burren. On Saturday 17 November I was invited to give a workshop to the group and talk on how the volunteers could contribute to the work of the National Biodiversity Data Centre where I work. I mainly spoke on recording and entering records online but also of a number of schemes that we run including the Irish Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. A few of the monitoring scheme volunteers were in the room and we wandered off the topic and started discussing scrub removal and the Brown Hairstreak.

None of us had ever searched for Brown Hairstreak eggs and were inspired to hurry outside and start searching! The workshop was set in a small village called Carran which is set smack bang in the middle of the Burren. The Burren is the hotspot in Ireland for butterflies as well as lots of other wildlife. Species abundant in this area include Wood White, Dingy Skipper, Small Blue, Pearl-bordered Fritillary, Dark Green Fritillary and Brown Hairstreak. Pearl-bordered Fritillary has been recorded at the back of the building we were in and Brown Hairstreaks were certain to be nearby. One group drove to the Burren National Park and the rest of us pottered out the back in some limestone pavement and scrub. It did feel like searching for a needle in a haystack and we quickly gave up after a number of hail showers had dwindled our enthusiasm!

The other group were more successful and came back with a photograph of what they believed to be an egg. It was in the right habitat, in a site well known for Brown Hairstreak, and looked like the photographs but we were still a little uncertain.

The next day I headed out despite heavy rain to another site well known for Brown Hairstreak. Jesmond Harding who wrote 'Discovering Irish Butterflies and their Habitats' had recommended this site to me. In full rain gear, I tramped through mud and cow dung along a 'green road' and investigated every blackthorn bush along the way. I was about to question my sanity when I spotted a 'sparkling' egg nestled in the fork of two branches. I was surprised at how obvious they are once you get your eye in. Some more searching and I found two eggs side by side. I was thrilled. I tried to take some photos with my iphone but it wasn't behaving. In fairness, the rain was pelting down and it would have been difficult to take a photograph with any camera. The results of my soggy efforts are some blurry photos!

At this stage the rain was coming in through my raingear and I decided it was time to get back to the car. As I drove southwards home and dried out a little, I decided to take a detour to Dromore Woods Nature Reserve which is another Brown Hairstreak hotspot. Jesmond had assured me that eggs were easily found on the 'castle walk'. I donned a new set of raingear and headed out into the rain again. Despite my efforts, I didn't find any eggs at this site. In better weather, though, I might have been a little more dedicated!

The outcome of the weekend trip is that a number of us are now on the search for eggs and know what to look for and where to look.

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23 eggs on a single sucker

A pleasant morning out egging in the sunshine today lead to a find of 23 eggs on a single small blackthorn sucker at College Wood in Lincolnshire. I am sure many fellow "eggers" will be familiar with this phenomenon - you search an area of apparently suitable habitat, maybe finding a few eggs here and there, then suddenly you find a tiny bit of blackthorn that has been favoured above all others by a mass egg-lay! This particular sucker was growing in a typical sunny, sheltered situation alongside a ride junction, and was about a metre in height. Of the 23 eggs, 12 were laid as "doublets" - ie 2 eggs side by side in the same fork.
Several questions spring to mind - were all 23 eggs laid by the same female (If so,  she has committed a significant percentage of her egg lay to just one plant)? What is it about this sucker that is particularly suitable for BH, if anything? Is it the location/aspect (there was plenty of similar growth in similar location with no eggs on)? Is there some kind of chemical messanger that attracts BH females to certain plants more strongly? Is it just a random phenomenon (I have doubts about that)? Are there occasions (eg after prolongued poor weather) when a female BH just has to lay many eggs in one go (my experience is that the females are rarely in any hurry to do anything at all - egg laying included!)

This afternoon I visited another of our "new" colonies. In 2010 I found eggs for the first time at Golsings Corner Wood reserve extension. This is an area of former farmland, acquired by the local wildlife trust a few years back, and planted up as woodland. It is situated to the south of an ancient woodland, from which blackthorn scrub is being allowed to develop. There is extensive blackthorn hedge surrounding the site, and blackthorn has also been planted within the new plantation. It has developed nicely into a great potential site for BH, and is close to our main stronghold at Chambers. I am delighted to report that I found eggs there today once again - the third year of confirmed occupancy!

Bring on the frost and wind - we need those remaining leaves to fall from the blackthorns!

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More on Ash Dieback

Another very interesting article about Ash Dieback disease from Patrick Barkham in The Guardian yesterday, plus a statement from The National Trust.

Also, the ASHTAG app is now available for free, for both iPhone and Android phones, or you can submit photos of suspected Ash Dieback disease on the website.

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New Lincolnshire colony confirmed

Sunshine was streaming through my bedroom window as I woke this morning, so I decided it was definitely a good day for a trip out to the Lincolnshire Limewoods for a spot of egging. Our most exciting find last winter was the discovery of BH eggs at College Wood - a new site from which we had no former records. I was keen to see if the apparent colonisation last year was indeed establishing here. With a fair bit of foliage still on the blackthorns, I was delighted to find 68 eggs in a couple of hours along the SE wood edge, where last year we found a total of 52 eggs over the whole winter on this section. The butterfly has clearly had a succesful breeding season at this new colony, despite the poor summer. Good signs that our Lincolnshire streaks continue to go from strength to strength!

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Ash Dieback Disease

Some very worrying news about the spread of the Ash Dieback disease in East Anglia today. Some excerpts from the article, plus additional links below.

++  ASHTAG app launched to prevent spread of devastating tree disease.
++  Deadly disease threatens to devastate ancient woodland.

Ministers have confirmed that 100,000 trees have been destroyed to try to prevent the spread of the deadly ash dieback disease. A ban on the import of ash trees came into force on Monday and an expert tree disease taskforce has been established.

The Chalara fraxinea fungus, which causes Chalara dieback - also known as ash dieback - has already killed 90% of ash trees in Denmark.

The disease was first spotted in the UK in February, at a nursery in Buckinghamshire, and was subsequently identified in other nurseries and newly planted areas.

But it has now been found in the wider countryside in East Anglia, sparking concerns the disease, which has the potential to devastate the UK's ash tree population, has spread to mature trees.

Shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh accused the government of "dithering" over the summer. "Why did ministers sit back, cross their fingers and wait until the disease was found in the wild in June?" she asked. "After the forest sell-off fiasco, this incompetent government has been asleep on the job with ash dieback."

Experts say that if the disease becomes established, then ash dieback could have a similar impact on the landscape as Dutch elm disease had in the 1970s. This outbreak resulted in the death of most mature English elm by the 1980s. Elms have recovered to some extent but in some cases only through careful husbandry.

Visible symptoms of ash dieback include leaf loss and crown dieback in affected trees and it can lead to tree death.

Experts are urging people to report suspected cases of dieback in order to prevent the spread of the disease to the wider environment becoming established.

An app, ASHTAG, has been launched to try and map the spread of the disease by allowing users to upload pictures and report possible sightings to a team who will pass any information to the Forestry Commission.

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Streaking in France

Well around about now I would usually be commencing the annual winter egg search in the Lincolnshire Limewoods, but this year for a change my first egging session took place in South Brittany during a long weekend visit to my father's house some 20 minutes north of Vannes (19th-23rd October 2012). The habitat here is a mosaic of copses, tree lines and fields, with occasional larger woods. Bracken and Gorse is common, as is heather - it has a distinctly heathy feel - and blackthorn is not particularly common, although there are scattered plants here and there. Not ideal Brown Hairstreak country in my experience, and yet a quick look on a blackthorn in my father's front garden revealed 10 eggs of betulae - most unexpected!! The area is good for Purple Emperor, Large Tortoiseshell, Map Butterfly, Sooty Copper, and a few Fritillary species, so it was nice to be able to add Brown Hairstreak to the list. Clearly French BHs have a different habitat requirement to Lincolnshire ones! Once the rain stops I will be out to begin mapping our local hairstreak eggs, but in the meantime I would be interested if anyone else has experience of BH abroad, particularly with reference to them breeding in areas of relatively low blackthorn density!

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Thursday Streakers Club

At 10am yesterday, Mike Williams, Hugh Glennie and I met at Grafton Church car park to mark the start of the TSC for 2012/2013. It had been decided to conduct this first search of the season in the vicinity of a well known assembly tree near the hamlet of Cowsden in Worcs.

This tree was discovered 5 summers ago and has consistently been one of the most reliable trees known for the Worcs colony. However.....the extensive blackthorn on the lane it sits on, and in most of the surrounding fields, has always been heavily flailed so finding winter eggs has always been a bit of a struggle. In addition, summer 2011 also yielded very few adult sightings in the tree. Nevertheless, a reasonably large group of us went there in January, earlier this year, to conduct a thorough egg search of the surrounding area and turned up.....a rather worrying total of only 3 or 4 eggs. Our general view was that after both the low 2011 adult, and then subsequent egg, count then that would probably spell the end of this tree's assembly status. However, Mike Williams visited the tree a few weeks ago during this year's flight period and was very surprised to see two males in it, and it was this sighting that prompted yesterday's visit.

Well, much more encouragingly, yesterday we found 16 eggs in a relatively short space of time without really trying (as this was just a cursory look, whilst the leaves are still on etc.) including 7 in a 'hidden' meadow behind the tree that contains large amounts of some of the best looking young blackthorn I've ever seen. I strongly suspect that this meadow has been the main supporting habitat for the tree over the years - even though we didn't manage to find a single egg in it last winter. But, dare I say, it seems to be back in business now so hopefully things are on the up again!!

Afterwards, the three of us unsuccessfully attempted to find eggs in an adjacent 1Km grid square, that has resolutely refused to EVER give us a record of either egg or adult, even though its closest boundary is less than 1Km from the assembly tree. Lack of blackthorn in the hedgerows and apparent lack of suitable habitat structure - ie large and exposed field layouts - seems to be the problem here.

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Let The Egging Commence!

Egg searching in Warwickshire has now officially started! After confirming the presence of a master tree bordering Ryton Wood Meadows (RWM) and Ryton Pools Country Park (RPCP) during this years flight period, i was dying to start searching the blackthorn in the immediate area. The SE facing blackthorn in RPCP was first on the list yesterday and after Simon Primrose and I conducted a thorough search of a small area of young/semi-mature blackthorn, we found 18 eggs, including 1 on the NW facing side. Only 6 eggs in this area last year so this is great news. In fact, i was so pleased, i even performed my happy dance when i was sure no one was looking. We also made a point of pulling down some branches with heights over 3 metres as an experiment to see how high the females might have laid. It turns out that 8 of these eggs were laid at over 2 metres high, including a record breaker for Warwickshire - 2.54m! Does anyone know of any eggs that have been laid higher than this?

So, we're off to a good start! The problem we now face is that there isn't much blackthorn between the area searched yesterday and the next closest area. In which direction would the females have flown? This is usually the point at which us Eggheads start placing bets :)

I also must say a huge thank you to Ben Coleman, Craig Earl and the other rangers/volunteers at Ryton Pools Country Park for all their help, enthusiasm and cooperation over the past year or so. A blackthorn management plan for 2013 is being drawn up as we speak that should help improve future blackthorn distribution and suitablity for our favourite Hairstreak. Quite excited about next year already!

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It's not all over 'til the fat lady sings

Still hanging on in Worcs as well with at least two different females seen on Sat at Grafton Wood. By the condition of them it may not be the last sighting either but still a long way to go to beat our previous record of 22nd October set in 2008.

Thanks to Dave Williams for the photo.

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