Conservation & Ecology
“Many butterflies cannot fly more than a few miles from where they emerge, and are also very picky eaters as ‘children’”
W
hen I lived in Manchester in the 1980s, we once had an elderly Yorkshireman come to speak to us at my local natural history club. The
Reverend C. E. Shaw (childhood mentor of celebrated gardener Roy Lancaster), calling himself ‘thou t’wold vicar’, was short and stout, in a dishevelled old stained rumpled black suit and brought along a younger man as his assistant to operate the slide projector. T’wold vicar stood at the front of the
room and lectured us in his broad accent, punctuated every few minutes by an ear- piercing whistle that was the signal for the next slide. The slides were all scuffed and scratched, as if they had been stored loose on the floorboards under the bed, but through this comical gloom emerged hundreds of beautiful photographs of wild orchids, gathered from the length and breadth of Britain over many years. And the amazing thing to me was that an awful lot of these wild, rare flowers he had found on golf courses. Thus began my interest in golf courses as possible havens of wildlife. When I became more involved in wildlife conservation in later years I began to wonder ‘why golf courses?’ Perhaps it is because they have been carved out of old farmland that had not been touched for years and the lack of high nitrogen fertiliser (which encourages coarse grasses and weeds to dominate) and just being left alone for many years has meant they are a remnant of our ancient countryside, like the road verges and churchyards. Our intensively farmed green fields are now mostly a desert for insects and all the wildlife that depends on them.
As you probably know, we have lost 94% of our old wildflower meadows in Britain since the war; and insects like butterflies and bees are also dying out at an alarming rate. 72% of British butterfly species decreased in distribution between 1970 and 2004; habitat specialists have decreased by 93% and wider countryside specialists by 56%. An example of a habitat specialist is the High Brown Fritillary, was once common in woodlands across England and Wales, is now the UK’s most endangered butterfly and subject of much conservation effort. But, declines have not been restricted to specialists. The Wall Brown, a butterfly of farmland, countryside and coast has undergone collapse of its distribution in central and southern England. The UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (recording butterflies by the national charity Butterfly Conservation and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology) shows a long-term trend (since 1976) of an 81% decrease in numbers. A few familiar garden species have also declined, most notably the Small Tortoiseshell, which has decreased two thirds in numbers in UK since 1976. However, many other ‘garden’ species have bucked the general trend; the Peacock, Comma and Speckled Wood have all increased their range and distribution. This is almost certainly in response to global warming. Butterflies are very sensitive indicators of climate change and scientists are tracking their movements carefully. It may sound like a positive message, but if they move north and the habitat is not there for them to breed they will simply die out. We all know about garden
shrubs like Buddleja being a very good nectar source for butterflies, many bees and other insects in the latter half of the summer; but these insects need other things in their habitat to enable them to breed and continue. Many cannot fly more than a few miles
from where they emerge, and butterflies are also very picky eaters as ‘children’. The caterpillars often can only feed on one particular species of wild plant; if the female cannot find the right species within their flight distance they will simply not lay eggs that survive. Many of our native butterfly caterpillars actually feed on wild grasses like Yorkshire Fog and Cock’s foot. Of course, many birds and bats depend on both the caterpillars and adults of butterflies and moths as food for themselves and their young.
Bees need two things - forage plants and nesting sites. Forage plants include wildflowers like clover and Bird’s foot Trefoil, (which are also important nectar and larval food for some butterfly caterpillars and moths - in turn themselves food for bats and birds), and can easily be included in the rough grassland surrounding golf greens. Nest sites for bees need to be very fine, well- drained semi-bare areas of soil or sand, as many wild bees dig breeding burrows in the ground. Honeybees do not, of course - but there are some 250 other species of wild bees, including bumblebees and solitary bees, that have been shown by a recent scientific study to be more important to the pollination of our food crops than honeybees. David Blake, an ecological consultant says; “If I can make a plea for the landscape scale paradigm, please
The High Brown Fritillary is now the UK’s most endangered species
The Wall Brown has undergone a collapse in its distribution
The once common Small Tortoiseshell has seen its numbers decrease by two thirds
APRIL/MAY 2013 PC 51
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156