The story from North Wales

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Helen Bantock is a member of North Wales Branch as well as the Hertfordshire & Middlesex Branch. Although she lives in Crouch End in North London, a lot of her time is spent at Harlech in North Wales. In 2007, she volunteered to look for elm and White-letter Hairstreak around Harlech for our project. It was a big learning curve as she had not previously seen the male activity around the treetops that we were encouraging people to look for. Helen with her son Tristan first looked for elm around Crouch End, where they had their first White-letter 'experience' early in the flight period.

WHITE LETTER HAIRSTREAKING IN SH61 AND SH62 AND IN HARLECH IN 2007

On the 11th June 2007 the weather was poor in London but a pair of spiralling White-letter Hairstreaks emerged at the top of a sycamore next to the Parkland Walk elms in Crouch End at 4.15 pm, when the sun emerged briefly. The first sighting there was on 8th June but by early July, the butterflies had become very torpid. Therefore with the absence of any recent records in Harlech, it was difficult to guess at the flight season. In 1984, White-letter was recorded in Merioneth in the Coed Maentwrog SH6541 on 2nd August, but this may have been well on in the season.

Further north, White-letter are seen in the Greenfield Valley in Holywell, Flintshire (SJ184761). Again, activity there has usually been recorded as nectaring on Hemp Agrimony.

I am very grateful to Brian Roberts, as he let me know as soon as he saw White-letter in the Greenfield Valley. This was on 16th July 2007: "We had a brief spell of sunny weather this afternoon and I went into the valley, I was looking at the area where we have most sightings of the White-letter Hairstreak, I saw two very small butterflies flying at the top of a Sycamore on one or two occasions, the tree is very close to where we see the White-letters so it could be that they were White-letters, unfortunately the clouds came over the sun went in and it started to rain-typical, when we get any better weather I will have another go and will let you know the results. The other thing was that the butterflies concerned did not appear to have the silvery grey wings of the Purple Hairstreaks"

On the 18th July 2007 he reported: "Sue and I went in to the valley this morning as there was quite a bit of sun and we saw 1 White-letter nectaring on Hemp Agrimony and 5 others at the top of the Sycamore and three of them flew over us. This is the largest number we have seen on the site."

As White-letter were seen in Shropshire at the end of June, I was especially hopeful that I might see them shortly after that.

In fact, the weather at the end of June was abysmal in Harlech. I had managed to look at the Barmouth monad on the 17th June, when it was warm and sunny and I also looked at my local elms in Harlech then, but neither yielded any positive results.

I made 9 visits to SH61 and SH62 between 15th July and 18th July. The two positive sightings were in Barmouth (10 km elms) on 7th July and 16th July 2007.

7th July 2007:
Sunny but windy, temps 18-19 deg C. Nil at the estuary SH61 monad. But around 11am at SH611163 I watched a large lime tree, placed in between two elms with a few more straggling elms down the bank. I soon saw a Holly Blue flying across and then, briefly, a small dark butterfly at the top of the lime tree canopy.

16th July 2007:
Barmouth SH611163. It was dull initially but sunny by 10am and quite hot-20degC. Again nil at the estuary monad, but I arrived at SH611163 just on 11 am, and the sun was intermittent, but quite strong. In 20 minutes, I had four or five sightings of dark butterflies at the top of a big lime which overlooks the elms. There is another lime behind it and a sycamore and ash but no oak nearby. The butterflies had the typical hairstreak fidgety flight, but I saw no spiralling. I watched one disappear into the leaves of a branch below the crown of the tree and re-emerge briefly, but then it all went quiet and nothing more happened in the next 45 minutes. As I was watching, a Holly Blue flew across, lower down, but it was unmistakeable in flight and colour and not what was carrying on in the treetops. I also saw a Speckled Wood-again, low down and flying through.

Elm at 10km level 16th July 2007, SH611163 - elm in Barmouth where wlh seen at 10km level - possibly first record in area since before 1970? © photo: Helen Bantock

Elm at 10km level in SH62 31st March 2007, SH606226 - four big elms in flower-look to be at least 80 years old just above the valley bottom at 168 metres near Pont Fadog in Dyffryn Ardudwy © photo: Helen Bantock	Elm at 10km level in SH62 31st March 2007, SH606226 - a few yards away, down the bank, there was some more spindly growth of four or five boles -looked like suckers. These were also in flower. © photo: Helen Bantock

The site at Pont Fadog is at 158m and it always seemed cloudy and cool, so I only managed two visits. I later found some roadside elm in SH62, but on 18th July 2007 there was no White-letter activity seen. The weather deteriorated again from the 18th - 22nd July. It was quite difficult to monitor two squares with so little background information. However, next year I shall have a better idea of when and where to start looking .....and I won't forget my telescope!

Elm at 1km level in SH61 6th May 2007, SH633171 © photo: Helen Bantock	Elm at 1km level in SH61 6th May 2007, SH633171 the view from layby! © photo: Helen Bantock

The monad elms in SH61 along the estuary are very spread out and there are several trees which could be used to territorial advantage.

(Post note: Unfortunately the county recorder can not accept these records as being definitely White-letter Hairstreak until Helen sees one perched because there have been no records from the area for such a long period of time.)

Helen Bantock
October 2007

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