BUTTERFLY RECORDING IN THE FYNN VALLEY
63
BUTTERFLY RECORDING IN THE FYNN VALLEY R. G. STEWART The Butterfly Monitoring system (BMS) has collected, analysed and published transect data since 1976. Devised by Dr. E. Pollard, the transect details were published as a 14 page booklet of ‘instructions for independent recorders’ (Hail, 1981). A transect is a walk along a fixed route to count butterflies and ideally it should cover a wide variety of habitats, avoid covering the same ground more than once and be divided into a maximum of fifteen sections. This should be walked once a week, at a steady pace, from the beginning of April to the end of September, a total of 26 weeks. The transect walker should count only butterflies within an imaginary ‘box’ stretching 2·5 metres on either side and 5·5 metres ahead. Other conditions apply: doing the transect ideally between 10·45 am and 3·45 pm, with consideration of wind speed, amount of sunshine and temperature. All data is recorded on weekly transect sheets, summarised at the end of the recording year and sent to the transect coordinator, Rob Parker the County Butterfly Recorder. This data is then sent to the United Kingdom Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, based at Butterfly Conservation headquarters in Dorset. An annual report is issued to all transect recorders. The river Fynn is a tributary of the river Deben and the transect of 15 sections starts at Tuddenham St. Martin, following along or close to the river as far as Playford, then turning back to return to Tuddenham St. Martin. It has been walked since 2000, though foot and mouth restrictions prevented recording in 2001. The transect covers a variety of habitats, including cultivated fields, grazing meadows and wet meadows adjacent to the river, woodland, alder carr and small areas of reedbed. The walk normally takes about an hour and three quarters but extends over two hours when numbers of butterflies increase in summer. Despite the length the walk passes just three houses and two Anglia Water buildings, one a sewage treatment station. The East Suffolk railway line from Ipswich to Lowestoft runs alongside two of the sections. The land is owned mainly by two local farmers and their stewardship is benign, creating a rich biodiversity. Some of this wildlife has been included in section descriptions. The central grid reference given for the transect is TM205472. The squares covered are TM1947, TM1948, TM2047 and TM2147. TM2048 has also been recorded but is not included in the actual transect walk. Section Analysis Please refer to the map for further details. At the end of each section a list of butterfly species is included. These are prefaced by ‘ 8+’, indicating that eight species, Small White, Green-veined White, Red Admiral, Peacock, Comma, Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown and Ringlet, have been recorded in all fifteen sections. For the purposes of transects Small and Essex Skippers can be counted under ‘Small/Essex’ because of the difficulty in identifying them as separate species except at very close quarters. ‘Small/Essex’ is only included if neither Essex nor Small Skipper has been recorded in that section.
Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 43 (2007)