RECORDING BUTTERFLIES FROM JOHN O’ GROATS TO LAND’S END

from Sherborne Times May 2023

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

At the end of May, my cousin Fred and I are going to attempt to cycle from John O’ Groats in Scotland to Land’s End in Cornwall; a distance of over 1000 miles. The aim is to raise funds for the Dorset Branch of Butterfly Conservation. This is a charity close to both of our hearts. Its nature reserves and work have inspired and benefited us, the wider community and the landscape as a whole. We are also marking significant birthdays – my 40th and Fred’s 20th. Both of us work in nature conservation – I manage the nature reserve aspect of Ryewater Nursery near Longburton and Fred works more widely across North Dorset as a nature conservation contractor before heading to university in Bangor, North Wales, in September.

Butterfly Conservation is a science-based environmental charity focused on the conservation of butterflies, moths and their habitats. Much of the practical conservation work of the charity is carried out by groups of volunteers organised into local branches. The Dorset Branch is very active and its work reflects the wealth of butterfly and moth species in the county and the rich and varied habitats they use. The Dorset branch is responsible for the management of three nature reserves – Alners Gorse near Hazelbury Bryan, Lankham Bottom above Cattistock (where the rabbit scene was shot in David Attenborough’s recent Wild

Isles programme) and Broadcroft quarry on Portland. It is towards this practical work that all funds we manage to raise will be going – helping to ensure good site management can continue on the Dorset reserves, as well as the many other sites Butterfly Conservation help to manage in the county.

Training began back in the depths of winter with plenty of wet and cold rides, often in the dark. As the days lengthen and the weather improves, our miles in the saddle are increasing. A recent ride took us from Buckland Newton down to Portland Bill and back, using many of the smaller Dorset roads, totalling 68 miles. We will aim to average similar daily mileage on our trip, the difference being that we must do it every day for two weeks!

The bikes we will use are known as gravel or all-road bikes; essentially road bikes but with less aggressive, more upright rider positions and robust builds. With a few small changes, this platform can easily be set up for touring – comfortable saddle, tough tyres, mudguards and pannier bags. These bikes will handle the various surfaces we will encounter, including rural roads, cycle paths, towpaths and maybe the odd bridleway. A support vehicle has been provided by Mann Motorhome Rentals near Blandford Forum and kindly sponsored by Clive Farrell. This will be our accommodation en route and transport to and from the start and finish, as well as a place to fill bellies and fix bikes.

Riding out of winter towards spring, our training rides have returned very few butterfly sightings, but hopefully, the big trip will. We want to see how many butterflies we can record along the way (weather allowing) and will expect to see many of the common spring and early summer butterflies of Britain. These might include Brimstone, Orange Tip, Speckled Wood and Holly Blue. If the weather is favourable by the time we reach Devon and Cornwall perhaps we will record the start of summer species such as wall, Large Skipper, Small Copper and even Painted Ladies as they migrate up from the continent. Will we be able to spot some more unusual species such as a Small Blue or a Marsh Fritillary – will we be able to avoid getting thoroughly distracted in the process?

We will record sightings using a mobile phone app called iRecord Butterflies. This uses the GPS in the mobile phone and satellite imagery to pinpoint where the butterfly was seen and is combined with details such as species and number of individuals seen to create a biological record that can then be verified and included in national data sets. The simple act of recording a butterfly is carried out year-round by people all over the British Isles. These records are the foundation of much of the scientific work of Butterfly Conservation dorsetbutterflies.com

– charting the fortunes of butterfly species over recent decades in the face of many challenges.

Butterfly Conservation’s general recording scheme is known as Butterflies for the New Millennium and contains over 12 million records including historical records dating back to the 17th century. Analysis of this vast data set shows many species have declined at alarming rates over recent decades. Others are spreading northwards into new areas, probably because of global warming. Since the 1970s, three-quarters of butterfly species have declined in distribution in Britain, and over one-third are listed as threatened on the Red List of British Butterflies.

It could be argued that there has never been a more pressing need to raise awareness of the plight of insect life in the villages, towns and countryside all around us and manage well the remaining areas of good habitat for butterflies and moths.

Please visit and share our fundraising pagegofund.me/e3a1cf45 Consider donating if you can and look out for further updates via the Butterfly Conservation Dorset Branch website, social media and the gofundme page.

@wren_franklin

Rewilding

Simon Ford, Land and Nature Adviser

Rewilding is a word which can mean different things, depending on whom you are speaking to. It is banded around by the press and politicians, sometimes in a deliberately provocative way, to suggest abandonment, while others see it in a positive light.

Although I remember discussions in the early 1990s when I worked for the National Trust in Cornwall, about something we might now interpret as rewilding, it was not until about 2003 that people started formulating ideas. A Dutch ecologist, called Frans Vera carried out some groundbreaking research at an abandoned 6000-hectare polder called Oostvaarderplassen, near Amsterdam. Large herds of free-ranging herbivores, including ancient breeds of Heck cattle and Konik ponies as well as red deer and wild boar, were given the freedom to roam and graze. Green bridges, where grass and trees were allowed to grow, were built over a main road and a railway line to allow animals to safely move over extensive areas.

When I visited it with Frans Vera and National Trust Wildlife Advisers, it was a truly inspirational sight, more akin to the Serengeti in Tanzania or the Okavango Delta in Botswana, than lowland Europe. So many other species from spoonbill to white-tailed eagle and greylag geese to penduline tit had become established, where previously there were none. It was hard to believe that 20 years before, this was land reclaimed from the North Sea that had initially been earmarked for industrial development. westdorsetwilding.org

At a similar time, Charlie Burrell and his wife Isabella Tree, owners of the 3,500-acre Knepp Castle Estate, near Horsham in West Sussex, realised that conventional dairy farming on heavy clay was failing and driving them towards bankruptcy. They too had been following what was happening in Holland and made the bold decision to turn their land back to nature. Internal fences were removed and with minimal human intervention, herds of free-ranging animals were allowed to roam across the estate. Hedges were given space to develop and trees to self-seed and the land moved from one which was of very limited economic value as well as to wildlife to something quite incredible. Storks have started breeding for the first time in Britain in 600 years. There is the largest population of spectacular purple emperor butterflies in the UK, along with turtle doves, nightingales, peregrine falcons, rare orchids, dragonflies and bats. It has been shown that it is possible to reverse the cataclysmic declines in many species of wildlife, while still producing high-quality food. Oh, and Knepp Castle has moved from being in a financially perilous position, to one which is in a significantly more robust situation. If you haven’t done it, do read Wilding, by Isabella Tree (who grew up just around the corner from Sherborne).

There is now a Dorset Rewilding group, with some exciting projects at beautiful Mapperton House, near Beaminster, Dorset Wildlife Trust’s Wild Woodberry at Bere Regis, the Symondsbury Estate near Bridport, Slape Manor, Wyke Farm at Chedington and the National Trust’s Bishop’s Down Farm at Kingston Lacy to name a few.

Rewilding is not about the abandonment of land or stopping the production of food. It is about working much more with nature, allowing the soils to restore and stopping the endless cycle of applying fertilisers and pesticides, peddled by multi-national agri-business. It could be called ‘nature-friendly farming or regenerative agriculture’ if you are queasy about saying rewilding.

Although this works best on a large scale, with various habitats becoming joined up, even small areas of gardens or land can create vital ‘stepping stones’ for wildlife and roadside verges, railway cuttings, river corridors and hedges have a critical part to play in reversing the devastating loss of nature.