With the egging season drawing to an end (although no doubt a few more adventures yet to experience), I thought it might be a good time to provide an update. The Thursday Streakers have continued to brave the cold and have been out looking for eggs. The search for Brown Hairstreak eggs within 0.25 mile radius of Grafton Wood, referred to by Simon in an earlier posting, nears completion and is likely to top the 600 mark which is not bad going in what is clearly not been a great year for Brown Hairstreaks. It has been striking just how many eggs we have found this year on the eastern side of hedgerows where conditions perhaps offer more by way of shelter for egglaying females.
We have also been out looking for eggs in the vicinity of known and probable assembly trees and were pleased to eventually get to the tree near Redditch (photo left) we had been unable to reach in the January snow and find almost 40 eggs close by. As those of you that managed to attend the recent workshop in Taunton will know, we have been taking a particular interest in assembly trees and what makes them attractive to Brown Hairstreaks and would be interested to hear from other bloggers with their own observations. The Big Ash Bash will take place again this year and Simon Primrose who co-ordinates this on behalf of West Midlands Butterfly Conservation would be interested to hear from streakers in other parts of the UK who might be interested in taking a look at some of their local trees.
An important part of our work over the winter is to undertake egg searches on farms looking to enter agri-environment schemes and last week we visited a cracking piece of unimproved grassland (photo right) which we hope will be going into HLS. We found 30 eggs across the site on extensive blackthorn scrub, some of which we hope will be now coppiced on rotation to the benefit of the Brown Hairstreak. With the current uncertainties concerning the future of the Common Agricultural Policy the more farms we can get into HLS schemes this year the better.
I am away for the next couple of weeks so will leave it to Simon to provide any further update before the curtain finally closes.
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