Walking with the Butterfly Man
By
copland smith
Peter
Hardy is the recorder of butterflies for Greater Manchester; the Friends of
Chorlton Meadows were privileged to have him as walk leader on the first Sunday
of August.
A smaller turnout than the last
couple, about a dozen - perhaps 10.30 on a Sunday was a shade too early for
some [I thought that the turn- out was quite good, actually – and we always
start at 10:30! – Ed.] .
But a new member called Julian saw our
activities halfway round and joined the group.
The showers held off and there
were enough sunny spells to bring Lepidoptera out to play. We'd hardly left the
Ivy Green car park when the first Speckled Wood fluttered into view. These are
shade-loving butterflies and we were to see a few during the day, mostly males
defending their territories against rivals as they waited to ambush any passing
female.
As Peter explained, adult
butterflies cannot eat solids and most rely on nectar to fuel their
reproductive activities. Most of the time, they hold their tongues in a tight
spiral like those licorice circles, but when they land on a flower, the
"tongues" are unrolled into a sucking-straw as long as their gangly
legs.
Speckled Wood females lay their
eggs on grass for the caterpillars to eat. August is the peak time for the
grass-feeders, when the grasses are at full height. In fact, the wet and warm
weather had made the grasses taller than usual.
A Comma butterfly was warming
itself in a nettle patch, angling its wings - nettles are the caterpillars'
food-plant. The adults have a distinctive ragged edge, and a checker-board of
black and orange, almost like a fritillary, but are named for a small, white
comma on the darker underwings. The butterfly we saw will go into hibernation
in early autumn and not emerge to mate until the first warm days of spring.
The
first Holly Blue we noticed was sucking up thistle nectar. Later we would see
one feeding on Rosebay Willowherb - something neither Peter nor I had seen
before. These tiny, pale blue jobs are really "The Holly and the Ivy"
Blue - this one had grown in holly and
would lay its eggs in ivy, where the next generation would grow, before
emerging next spring to restart the holly generation.
When we reached a grassland area,
we were buzzed by patrolling dragonflies - Brown Hawkers. And like tiny blue
matchsticks amongst the grass stems, Common Blue Damselflies shimmered.
The grassland flickered with the
browns and oranges of three more producers of grass-feeding larvae - the tiny
Small Skipper; the larger, chocolate-bordered Gatekeeper (used to be called the
Hedge Brown), and the still larger, tattier Meadow Brown. The Skipper and
Gatekeeper have in common another trait: if the forewing has a dark smear on
it, this is the male scent gland and shows his gender.
Skippers look like moths. When
they rest, the hindwings are horizontal and the front wings angled; only
skippers do this. A few weeks earlier, Large Skippers would have been in the
same habitat; really quite similar to the Small, but with some patterning on
the wings.
Tiny grass moths flew deep in the
grasses; the most common were more triangular than some; Peter identified them as
Udea lutealis -most micro-moths lack
common names. There are only 59 species of truly British butterflies, but there
are over 2000 species of moth, not all of which wait for night before flying.
There was a moment of torture
(for me) when we approached the region of the Jackson's Boat inn, and then Mr.
Hardy swung round and headed in the opposite direction for a further hour. It
was all right though, the Bowling Green pub lay in wait instead. (Later, out of
Peter's sight, a Gatekeeper would land on the pub wall, and another Holly Blue
would emerge from the graveyard. He will be sent these records too.)
White butterflies zoomed about.
The largest were Large Whites, scourge of allotment brassicas. All the smaller
ones that stopped to be identified had a tracery of veins on the hind underwing
- Green-Veined Whites. These are the commonest on the Meadows. They don't
trouble the gardener - they feed on wild crucifers like the Cuckoo Flower (or Lady's
Smock, it has many common names) — Cardamine
pratensis. Their flowers are long gone, but there were plenty of other wild
members of the cabbage family around.
There may have been a glimpse of
a Peacock butterfly, but no one was sure enough for it to become an official
record.
Great Hairy Willowherb (Epilobium hirsutum) and ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) grew everywhere,
painting the landscape pink and yellow, and on many flowerheads of the Ragwort,
the black and gold striped caterpillars of the Cinnabar moth were crawling.
Towards the end of the walk, down
near the river, a Small Tortoiseshell showed itself, giving a welcome splash of
colours. Freshly emerged from its nettly hiding-place, its iridescent blue
studs shone along the edge of the pattern of reds, browns, white and black.
A satisfying Sunday: 9 types of
butterfly, 2 moths and 2 dragonflies, and the company of some very nice humans
as well. All of the Lepidoptera records will go into Peter's database and thus
into the county and national records. It's the unpaid work of people like him
throughout the country that provides data that conservationists need. Our
thanks to him for that, and for an enjoyable and informative day.
copland
smith
August,
2012
copland.smith@gmail.com
Species noted
Lepidoptera
- butterflies
Thymelicus
sylvestris Small Skipper
Celastrina
argiolus Holly Blue
Pieris
brassicae Large White
Pieris
napi Green-veined White
Aglais
urticae Small Tortoiseshell
Polygonia
c-album Comma
Pyronia
tithonus Gatekeeper
Maniola
jurtina Meadow Brown
Pararge
aegeria Speckled Wood
Lepidoptera
- moths
Tyria
jacobaeae Cinnabar (caterpillars)
Udea
lutealis a grass moth
Odonata
- dragonflies and damselflies
Enallagma
cyathigerum Common Blue Damselfly
Aeshna
grandis Brown Hawker
Useful books
must haves
Pocket Guide to
the Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland Richard
Lewington ISBN 978 0 9531399 1 0 (British Wildlife Press) £9.95
Field guide to
the Dragonflies and damselflies of Great Britain and Ireland Ray
Lewington (British Wildlife Press) ISBN 953 13990 5 £18.95
The
Birdwatcher's Pocket Guide to Britain and Europe Rob Hume ISBN 9781845334352 (Hamlyn) £9.99
more specialist
books
The Butterflies
of Britain & Ireland (2nd Edition) Jeremy Thomas, illustrated
by Richard Lewington (British Wildlife Press) ISBN 978 0 9564902 0 9 £24.95
Field Guide to
the Micro-moths of Great Britain & Ireland Phil Sterling
and Mark Parsons, illustrated by Richard Lewington ISBN 978-0-9564902-1-6 (British Wildlife Press) £29.95
Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and
Ireland - Paperback (2nd edition) Paul Waring & Martin
Townsend, illustrated by Richard Lewington
ISBN 978 0 9531399 8 9 (British Wildlife Press) £29.95
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