Hot Spots for Butterflies

Hot Spots for Butterflies: Aldeburgh to Thorpeness

by Richard Stewart.

This can either be a circular walk or you can go right through to Thorpeness. It is best for butterflies when the bramble is flowering but if you go earlier you could add Orange Tip, Green Hairstreak and possibly Brimstone to the list.

The two tetrads concerned are TM4657 and TM4658 and the walk starts, leaving Aldeburgh, a few hundred yards past the parish church, on the right. If you reach the Leiston road you have gone too fur. Initially it is shady with probably just Speckled Wood present but once you clear this short stretch you are on a permissive footpath following the path of the old railway line. The back of a caravan site is on your right and wider views across to RSPB North Warren on your left. The masses of bramble bushes attract most of the species, and these include three skippers and three whites, Red Admiral, Peacock, Comma, Small Tortoiseshell, Meadow Brown, Ringlet and Gatekeeper. I counted over a hundred Gatekeepers in 2004. The sunlit path attracts Wall, Painted Lady and Grayling, while Holly Blue is usually present higher up. Also in the trees, depending on the time of day, are Purple Hairstreaks. An unofficial path rakes you right to Thorpeness, with a comfortable seat recently placed to give extensive views across the North Warren reedbeds. A right turn at the cottages takes you past buddleias, the edge of the Meare, across the golf course, past the windmill and House in the Clouds then a final few hundred yards of good butterfly habitat on the left before you emerge in the middle of Thorpeness. Now you are not far from the area that attracted unprecedented numbers of Queen of Spain Fritillary in 1997 and being so dose to the sea there is always the chance of migrants - Swallowtail has also been recorded nearby. Returning to the original path along the railway line, the sheer number of butterflies that is so memorable on a hot, sunny summer's day. Hallway along a right turn continues the circular walk, mainly through conservation fields with Small Copper, Small Heath and Brown Argus likely species, plus Common Blue that can also be seen on the protected shingle beach facing you as you emerge at Sluice Cottage. Also, returning to Aldeburgh, check closely on all the stands of flowering Valerian growing in the shingle beach. The plant is good for migrant butterflies and on August 31st 2004 my total count was 36 Small White, 24 Painted Lady, 3 Clouded Yellow and 96 Small Tonoiseshell.

Holly Blue

by Mervyn Crawford

Common Blue

by Douglas Hammersley