2008 Archive White-letter Hairstreak news

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NOT ALL REPORTS CAME FROM TARGET SQUARES.
PHOTOS OF TARGET SITES WELCOME

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2008

Wednesday 5th November
A busy week, Martin Greenland confirms an egg at 2km level in TF10 and LG/AM find a 2km egg in TF16. Unfortunately the elm found in a Holbeach park in TF32 has been felled....

Wednesday 27th October
We decided to have a look at TM24 target at Methersgate on Tuesday and try and find some eggs??? It has always been a difficult target with several white-letter records from the other side of the Deben and to start with it's necessary to walk into the target from the adjacent 10km square. The elm stops about 100yds short of the dividing line but we first we sampled this elm (in TM34) and to our amazement found an egg (not knowing that this would be a new 10km square). We continued to walk along the access road/public footpath with the intention of looking at the 2km elm by the estuary. Back in the summer of 2007, we had downgraded the target to 2km elm as we felt the 1km elm wouldn't be sufficient, however we stopped under the small wych elm and again sampled. An egg was found and needless to we never got as far as the estuary. This is the first record from the east side of the River Deben. From Woodbridge, we drove across to TL69, the dreaded Feltwell target on the edge of the Fens. We have visited this target so many times we had began to feel that we wouldn't find any white-letter and this would be our first negative where there was we felt sufficient elm. We had started to look at sites beyond the target as we had always been amazed that elm was present at 2km level in such flat landscape. On a previous visit we had looked around Hilgay in the north west of the 10km to see whether the woods were supporting elm (the north is a bit higher and more wooded as opposed to the south which is pure Fenland), little was found. Before setting out we had looked at the aerial photos and noticed that around Stoke Ferry in the NW, again there was some woodland so we decided to start here. We sampled a few small areas of elm and on our way to the target, we passed Wissington Sugar Beet Factory and noticed several healthy roadside elms. We stopped in the freezing cold and took some samples, it was too cold to hang around. We are thrilled to announce that 1 hatched egg was found. Liz and Andrew!

Wednesday 22nd October
After a few months break (recovering from the dreadful summer), the project is up and running again...........Martin Greenland visited SJ67 & SJ68 in search of eggs but without luck. He thinks the elm found by Gavin Woodman is either Smooth leaved or English which makes the search for eggs much harder!!! Andrew & I went to South Wales a week ago, with some success although finding eggs proved in some targets to be impossible. We are on the edge of the range of the species but we also feel that 2008 was a bad year for the butterfly and that eggs will be hard to find. We had success in SH71 (a high altitude target and new 10km square), SS59 at 2km level and SN00 also at 2km level and believed to be a new 10km square as well. Wlh have however been found in recent years in adjacent 10kms.

Wednesday 20th August
Thanks to the weather forecast changing from a day of sunshine to a day of cloud, a planned day to search for Brown Hairstreak, turned into a very successful day searching for White-letter. Having found ourselves in 'SP land', we decided to sample four sites for eggs, SP52, SP43, SP45 and SP50. We had success in the first three, all the eggs were found at 2km level and confirmed a new planted elm tree seen a back garden in SP5909. This will make this target much easier to complete in 2009! Liz and Andrew

Tuesday 19th August
Egg found by Martin Greenland in SD84 at 10km level, the first white-letter report from the 100 x 100 square of SD!

Click here to see the final flight period progress map

Wednesday 13th August
(And we thought the season was over.......)
SK07 : Sightings of WLH 2008 Friday 8-Aug 2008 : I was passing through Buxton and checked the park bordering the Wye below the Wye Bridge Inn (SK065 735), where WLH were seen last year (31-7-07). In spite of unpromising weather conditions, once again, I saw WLH (3 in all) in the canopies of elms surrounding the park.
Sunday 10-Aug 2008 : Sighting of WLH in Buxton prompted me to check Coombs Reservoir where I had brief glimpses of small dark butterflies last year in the canopy of a sycamore near shrubby elm at the SW end of the reservoir dam. However, I was dissapointed to find the elm had been totally grubbed out; and that unsurprisingly therefore there was no sign of WLH. All was not lost however; whilst consoling myself at the Hanging Gate pub (SK043 799) in the nearby village of Cockyard, I. was surprised to see a pair of small brown butterflies spinning by shrubby ash bordering its beer-garden. These, even at a brief glance, were to my eyes almost certainly WLH. Unfortunately, high winds carried the pair away before I could confirm the identification. Nevertheless, the presence of WLH locally is highly probable, there being a good deal of wych elm along road by the pub. Neither of these sightings however affect the status of SK07 which remains WLH at 10 km square level. However, at least it enables you to fill in another 10km square in your flight-times map.
SK18: Nothing to report. I have made a number of visits during the WLH flight period to Castleton where WLH butterflies were seen last year, but as yet have had no WLH sightings. Rob Foster

Monday 11th August

Andrew visited the West Midlands and North Wales last week, but struggled with poor weather conditions. Also in some areas a total lack of elm. Success at 1km level in SP36 and 10km success in a new 10km at SO18. A few random non target wlh reports still coming in but mostly of individuals seen nectaring.

After all my grumbling, I had an unexpected sighting in the afternoon sun on 6th Aug. Whilst travelling back from an event yesterday, I paused to tick a few species in a tetrad unrecorded for the current 5 year period. I was pleased to spot a well worn and tired w-album sitting on a cherry tree just above my head. No mature elm was in evidence, but I did find a suckering hedgeline about 150m away. TM002394, near Polstead Heath (not a target)- Rob Parker (Suffolk)

In the last week I've noticed a lot of elm suffering from DED, elm where I've seen wlh in 2006 or 2007. The elms beneath the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Norwich where Martin Greenland found a larva at 1km level being an example - Liz Goodyear

Wednesday 30th July
For some the flight period is drawing to a close........comments from Suffolk reflect this but Rob Parker is still receiving occasional reports from branch recorders. Likewise in Ware, the 'tree' failed me today but I hadn't visited it for a few weeks. I was also dismayed to see DED appearing, this will please the developers of the adjacent site as its on the boundary line! Elsewhere, Alan Cooper had 10km success in TQ85 after several visits by AM/LG as well as Alan. AM/LG find wlh including seeing a female egg-layingin SU47 again after several visits, but most either too early in the day or too late! Gavin Woodman has further success in the West Midlands. The butterfly is still flying though so don't give up areas where the butterfly is known to emerge much later. This is what Gavin said about this year! "This year only found adults at 6, new 1km locations so far, two of which were your target areas ( I have been looking in areas without previous records), compared with 25 in 2007, and around 50 in 2008. Have stopped looking at single trees and just concentrated on larger groups of trees."

Friday 25th July
Two targets in the East Midlands completed although SP68 was restricted to 10km level adults. There is elm at 1km but it is very poor and most not accessible. No adults seen at either 1km or 2km in Peterborough despite lots of elm.

Wednesday 23rd July
A visit to Wiltshire to join Maurice Avent and Hugo Brooke produced 1km level sightings in ST8372 after a 2 hours + wait for the sun to shine as well as an adjacent 2km square! Helen Bantock confirms 1km white-letter records in SH6317!

Wednesday 16th July
Lots of news from the last few days with White-letter emerging across the countryside, except for where Andrew and myself have been looking!!!! Also be warned, Vapourer are pretending to be white-letter! Helen Bantock saw white-letter flying at Barmouth, north Wales on Monday, confirming that they are definetely present in SH61. Marting Greenland, had sightings of white-letter in SK63 and SK84. We believe the last report from SK84 was in 1907!!! Gavin Woodman has 2km success in SK22

Other news....
We (Alan and Kevin)could see the lack of cloud over the Romney Marshes, and went to the 200 year old Elm at Warehorne. Guess what! the sun was still a few miles away! Got out of our cars a Large White was nectaring on Creeping Thistle, something caught my eye a WLH flew 4-5 feet above us despite the darkening of the cloud cover, only a few scrappy Wych Elm here. Encouraged by this we thought we ought to go to the big Elm. Really dark clouds after the short walk to the other side of the railway line where the tree stands, no wind, nothing seen insect wise. We peer up into the canopy, whilst I talk about going farther into the Marsh where I had seen WLH last year.(no wind at all), suddenly sparring males! at about 16-15. Lots activity with odd individuals from the big tree in periodic spells, to the small tree behind. For another hour or so the weather same. periodic bouts! Sun broke through the cloud c.17-30? Then Purple Hairstreaks came in from an nearby Oak Has anyone else looked for WLH in dark gloomy conditions that they flew in today? max. temp. 20 . - Alan Cooper (has anyone else seen this before - we certainly haven't at such 'low' temperatures)

2 Adults at one location and very probably another individual further upstream at another site (seen here in a previous year) in SN52 by Julian Friese in South Wales

Thursday 10th July
Weather conditions are making progress difficult at the moment - please keep looking. White-letter seen in Yorkshire on the 1st July by Martin Greenland although Potteric Carr Nature Reserve, Doncaster VC63 website has an earlier sighting: 29th June. Also 3rd July by Dave Howson in VC64.

Monday 30th June
Success for Chris Iles in Somerset (1km level) and Rob Parker in Bury St. Edmunds at the bus stop elms (2km only but 1km elm suffering from DED now). Adults also found at the Chesham target by AM. No adults seen in Norfolk on Saturday by LG but very windy and more cloud at the time!

Thursday 26th June
Slow progress on the Kent/Surrey borders today, only the Brasted site (TQ45) had activity of at least 3 males clashing - LG/AM

Wednesday 25th June
Colin Jupp finds a mating pair of WLH on ash late morning, at Bedfords Park , Havering, Essex , 24th June 08

Martin Greenland finds wlh in the 2km target at Hambrook, West Sussex

First two WLH of the year today, the same location as last year's - at the top of an ash tree overlooking an A-road - in Midsomer Norton, Somerset - Chris Iles

LG & AM visit Devon, wlh found at 2km level near Ilchester but after that no activity but all targets visited and elm found at either 1km or 10km level. Some targets are high alitude though! Map will be updated shortly

Saturday 21st June
White-letter recorded Thursday/Friday despite windy conditions in South Essex, and Brighton.

Tuesday 17th June
Richard Donovan saw White-letter on his Surrey transect and in the Ewell target square of TQ2361 on Sunday 15th. Dave Howdon reports white-letter from Horsenden Hill in Middlesex today. Meanwhile, we visited four targets in Surrey, Sussex and Kent, two still drew blanks but elm of a quality in the right conditions should produce white-letter. Full details linked through from the mapping page! - Liz

Monday 16th June
Alan Cooper in Kent reported sightings on Sunday. Andrew Culshaw saw white-letter today at Horsenden Hill, Middx today. We visited West Sussex and completed 3 targets news to follow, one duck and a perched white-letter on elm in the middle of a busy roundabout south of Dorking, Surrey at 10km level (it was cloudy). No sightings in Essex, Herts/Bucks border yet or VC63 (south west Yorkshire) - Liz

Sunday 15th June
Started the day by stopping at my Ware elm at 8.40 to see if there was any activity, just one White-letter seen in the top of the canopy. Then met Andrew at Forty Hall, in north Enfield and watched the elms by the road, which the previous day had not had any activity. This was about 9 o'clock and within a minute or so active males were seen. We then drove down the A10 to Edmonton where there are two elms by the busy road! We watched for a few minutes and then there was activity across the canopy. This was a new 2km square for Andrew so we moved onto to another 2km square in TQ39, which skirts the edge of Alexandra Palace. This was a lot harder, lots of scrappy elm but all really hard to view. Eventually after over an hour of walking around the site we gave up and continued to Totteridge and just selected a 2km square at random. We searched really hard but the only elm was pretty poor and being so early in the season we realised that we would have been very lucky to be successful. Finely we went to Crews Hill, another site visited yesterday on the hope that White-letter would be seen but still nothing - Liz Goodyear & Andrew Middleton (hardly any butterflies were flying!)

Saturday 14th June
Tristan Bantock saw at least 2 White-letter Hairstreak clashing, Crouch End, north London this morning at 10 o'clock. I then visited my 'elm tree' in Ware and had at least 6 flights/clashes across the canopy at 1 o'clock. None were seen by Andrew Middleton at sites in Enfield though, nor by Richard Donovan on his Howell Hill transect in Surrey TQ2361 - Liz Goodyear

Barry Prater in East Scotland, finds elm at 1km level in NT8265

Thursday 12th June
The season will start shortly, please be ready! Black Hairstreak started flying on Monday 9th and records show that White-letter are usually about 5 days later emerging! It could be this weekend?

Monday 26th May
All links have been updated to php format - if a link doesn't work or shows as html please advise LG.

Martin Greenland visits two targets in north Yorkshire on the 20th May, sites are quite isolated from known White-letter colonies so he is not optimistic that the butterfly will be found

Monday 5th May
News update: East Scotland Branch encouraging members to look for elm and white-letter hairstreak this year - see newsletter No 66 Spring 2008. Barry and Jean Robinson continue to look at NE England targets and Helen Bantock finds elm at 10km level in Snowdonia.

"A look at the OS 1:50 000 map showed me that the task of elm finding in SH55 and SH65 was not going to be easy. Random selection had chosen two adjacent 10 Km squares with almost every one kilometre square filled with contour lines and any forest area marked with forestry plantation pine trees. However, as elsewhere in Wales, there were rivers to be seen and the valleys in which they flowed seemed likely to offer the best chance of success." - Helen Bantock

April 2008

Friday 4th April
Martin Greenland visits two Lincolnshire targets and Jean and Barry Robinson visit NZ2946 and find elm at 1km level

Tuesday 1st April
Visited Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk and found eggs at 10km level in 3 targets where adults had not been seen in the summer. According to our data, one had no records, one very historic and one more recent. Also upgraded TM48 from 10km level to 1km level after eggs were found.

March 2008

Tuesday 25th March
Matthew Oates visits ST89 and finds an egg at 1km level

Tuesday 18th March
Martin Greenland finds elm in the Notts/West Lincs area targets of SK63 and SK84. We visit East Sussex again and continue to struggle to find any elm in TQ62 even with the help of the Sussex Biodiversity Records Centre elm lists. However, eggs/hatched eggs were found at 10km level in TQ40 and TQ71. We believe these might be new 10km squares!

18.03.08 - Alfriston, East Sussex TQ519030 Large presumed Ulmus laevis found after seeing tree on the wikipedia website (photo near bottom of page photo taken in summer!) © photo: Liz Goodyear

Tuesday 4th March
First hatched wlh eggs (2) on Sunday 02/03 here in South Yorkshire (similar timing to last year) - Martin Greenland

Just returned from 5 days travelling in the South Wales/Cotwolds area. On Saturday 1st March we gave a presentation to the South Wales Branch of BC on White-letter Hairstreaks, which was well received. In the afternoon a visit was then made to a known White-letter Hairstreak site and then several members visited the target ST0870 where we were delighted to find roadside elm at 1km level. During the trip we have been successful in finding eggs and hatched eggs in several targets or at 2 or 10km level. We believe there might be three new 10km squares and three of the targets were at high altitude. It was an excellent trip! Liz and Andrew

February 2008

Thursday 13th February
Did my egg-search in Wadworth Wood (VC63) on 10th February. 2006 was a very good season for the species: a year ago I found 14 overwintered eggs in 55 minutes of searching. Today it took me 90 minutes to find just 4 eggs (there were more empty eggshells than that left on the twigs from 2006) I think that confirms 2007 was a washout! Martin Greenland

Gavin Woodman continues to seek out elm in North Wales, Chris Iles gets offers of help in the Devon/Somerset area and LG/AM visit East Sussex with varying degrees of success or more lack of success including the first 10km square where no elm was seen.

January 2008

Wednesday 30th January
Gavin Woodman finds elm at 1km level in north Wales (SJ0347) at an altitude of between 220 and 230 metres.

Monday 23rd January
John Davis from Butterfly Conservation has confirmed that he found a larva in SJ4040 last year (2007). Andrew & I visited three targets in West Sussex on the 22nd January and found elm in very short supply. We really struggled with very little in the 10km landscape let alone at 1 or 2km level in both SU90 and SU91. However, the last target SU7906 near Bosham was much better, and we noted that some of the elm was not only in bud but some was in FLOWER! We noted several long stretches of elm as we drove along the A27 and on the B2178 as it entered Chichester from the west. This appears to be a 10km square with no White-letter records. Well worth a visit this summer - LG

Monday 7th January 2008
New Year wishes to everyone who has contributed to the project - thank you very much!

Gavin Woodman and Martin Greenland continue to find elm in target squares away from their normal recording areas