The recent poor summer weather seems to have taken its toil on the marsh fritillary butterfly population at Butterfly Conservation’s reserve at Caeau Ffos Fach near Cross Hands. Volunteers enjoyed fine weather but little success recently looking for the butterflies’ larval webs, which are normally found associated with their foodplant the devil’s bit scabious. Whether this will have a long-term adverse effect on this important population based around fields making up Caeau Mynydd Mawr Special Area of Conservation is yet to be seen. A small number of adults were seen earlier in the year during the butterfly’s flight period and maybe webs were missed. Other factors such as parasites knock back populations in other years and as the butterflies move around areas of suitable habitat the population will hopefully bounce back.

However volunteers enjoyed seeing other wildlife in this fantastic marshy grassland habitat, now conservation grazed for some of the year by welsh black cattle. Since they started grazing the site the cattle have improved condition of the habitat considerably. Unlike sheep, which graze selectively avoiding the Molinia grass, the Welsh blacks eat everything making sure that the Molinia does not become too dominant and smother the other plants.

This Molinia or marshy grassland habitat is an important but increasingly rare habitat. Carmarthenshire is an important county for this habitat much of it centred on the Cross Hands area. Development and changes in land management have meant that much of the habitat has been lost or is in poor condition and more is still under threat, along with the wildlife that depends on it and the character it gives the local landscape.

Lizards were seen along with orb spiders and plenty of grasshoppers, which could be heard whilst walking through the site. One more interesting finds was the cocoon of the emperor moth, a species associated with this habitat. The tough papery cocoon has a closed circle of upward pointing spines around the narrow opening to prevent predators entering the cocoon. Even though the butterfly larvae were hard to find, there was plenty to see of the other wildlife to see in this rich habitat, so close to the industrial development of Cross Hands.