(extracted with permission from S Wales BC newsletter)

This winter, the South Wales branch of Butterfly Conservation (BC) was pleased to be able to secure funding from Awards for All to run its own pilot project to encourage a local community in the Llangeler and Henllan area to promote hedgerows and land management suitable for the brown hairstreak butterfly.

This area has good records for this scarce butterfly.  Local landowners were approached and asked to manage land sympathetically for brown hairstreaks (e.g. leaving scrub blackthorn or hedges untrimmed for at least a couple of years, then cut in rotation). In return Butterfly Conservation would help the landowner by coppicing blackthorn down to ground once it gets too old – thereby keeping a steady supply of young plants/shoots for brown hairstreaks, without permanently sacrificing big areas out of fields.  “Butterfly Friendly Hedgerows” discs were erected on posts and used to promote the project and the fact that wildlife, and particularly this distinctive local butterfly, is being encouraged, rather than being flailed out of existence!

Egg counts undertaken in December showed that the landholdings that BC searched revealed massive increases in egg counts compared to 5 years previously, by a factor of roughly fivefold! 

Residents, including villagers both with and without land, were invited to illustrated talks at the local village hall.  The message was aimed at everyone in the community showing what could be done in various situations e.g. smallholdings, gardens, community fields/land, green lanes, low-intensity traditional farms, modern commercial farms and even country businesses, e.g. holiday lets, etc.  Eighteen people attended these talks, which were followed by field visits to demonstrate habitat and eggs.

From this BC have been invited to survey 19 land holdings (plus two who went off to survey their own land) and eight new people have volunteered to join our survey team.

Work tasks were identified which would improve habitat for brown hairstreaks, which were acceptable to the private landowners:  coppicing of all of the older and taller blackthorn and brambles clearance to prevent smothering young blackthorn. (In another in Carmarthenshire area blackthorn was planted to increase the amount of available habitat.)

All the farms surveyed will receive a map showing habitat quality and egg numbers this year, field by field, together with a reminder of suggested management (including a rotation plan where applicable) and a supply of the discs.

After surveys on 18 different dates between December and March a total of 573 eggs, across 22 different land holdings was counted. Of these 22, 16 were new sites and these helped put six new 1-km grid squares on the brown hairstreak records database. At least 90 volunteer days have been put into the project already.

Although it’s still early days, this winter’s efforts have been very worthwhile and opportunities to develop and widen the project will be sought.