Brown Hairstreak in Blackdown Hills Leaflet

Could you have Brown Hairstreak on your land? also financial incentives to manage hedges and The Brown Hairstreak was once widespread in woodland edges in ways that meet the needs of the England and Wales but has declined severely due Brown Hairstreak and other hedgerow wildlife. Visit to the loss of suitable habitats. www.naturalengland.org.uk for more details of these hedge management options: Its remaining strongholds are in mid Devon, west Somerset, the western Weald in Surrey and Sussex Entry Level Stewardship options (scheme open to and south-west Wales. Elsewhere colonies are all and non-competitive): scattered and uncommon. Most colonies occur on • heavy clay soils where Blackthorn is abundant in EB1 Hedgerow management on both sides of a hedge the hedgerows. • EB3 Enhanced hedgerow management • EC4 Management of woodland edges. Colonies are normally based around a wood, but females go egg laying over several square Higher Level Stewardship options (scheme with kilometres of the surrounding countryside. A selective application process): complex of woodlands and hedgerows with abundant, suitably managed Blackthorn is therefore • HB11 Management of hedgerows of very high required at that scale. Successful conservation environmental value • measures involve groups of farms, each providing HC15 Maintenance of successional areas and patches of suitable habitat across their holding. scrub. See the Blackdown Hills Hedge Association Reducing the amount of annual hedgerow trimming website www.bhha.info for further information Hedgerow management for the can save time and money. Under Natural England’s about traditional hedge management, Environmental Stewardship Scheme, there are contracting services, training courses and Brown Hairstreak in the Blackdown Hills hedging events. “A butterfly should be able to fly into woodland edges for its survival. The adults fly in a hedge but not through it...” is an the late summer, from the end of July until almost October, but spend much of their lives in the old saying about hedgelaying in the treetops along woodland edges and hedgerows, Blackdown Hills. feeding on honeydew. This is a sweet secretion from tree leaves such as Ash that is also produced Such old wisdom, and traditional land management by aphids feeding on the sap of trees and other practices, help us understand how to make our plants. Honeydew is of course attractive to many countryside healthy for wildlife and the attractive other insects and is why ants look after and ‘milk’ place we enjoy so much. aphids. One butterfly that would fly into a hedge is the Photographs by Peter Eeles, Jim Asher, Martin Warren, Kelly Thomas, Richard Hooker and John Davis. now threatened Brown Hairstreak Thecla betulae. Opening quote: Roger Parris BHHA; Text: John Davis and Martin Turner. Designed by Mel at Arien Signs. Because of its elusive nature this striking species is seldom noticed even where populations persist. Their breeding habitat is very vulnerable to annual hedge trimming and the removal of infield scrub. Butterfly Conservation This leaflet explains how to help safeguard this Manor Yard East Lulworth Wareham Dorset BH20 5QP species through simple approaches to hedgerow management, including the traditional practice of Tel: 01929 400209 Email: [email protected] hedgelaying. www.butterfly-conservation.org The Brown Hairstreak breeds mainly on Blackthorn Company limited by guarantee, registered in England (2206468) Prunus spinosa, only at times using other shrubs Registered Office: Manor Yard, East Lulworth, Wareham, Dorset, BH20 5QP in the plum family. Their colonies usually occur Charity registered in England & Wales (254937) and in Scotland (SCO39268) Brown Hairstreaks are most often seen with their Supported by the Blackdown at low densities and spread over wide areas of countryside. It is a butterfly that needs hedgerows wings closed, revealing bright underwings with Leaflet produced thanks to funding from Blackdown Hills AONB Partnership. Hills Area of Outstanding www.blackdownhillsaonb.org.uk Natural Beauty Partnership and thickets of scrub on open grassland or along distinctive orange ‘tails’. Brown Hairstreaks tend to congregate around no cutting for 7 to 12 years, or more. It might be breeding habitat will have least impact on the specific groups of trees, particularly in mid August Helping the Brown Hairstreak necessary in some places to fence young regrowth butterfly’s local population, but do check that no bird when seeking mates. These trees, usually against browsing by stock or deer. nests are still in use. Late winter cutting (January prominent ashes, can be used from year to year. Trimming hedges with Blackthorn and February) will be least damaging to other As the Brown Hairstreak’s eggs and caterpillars Devon style hedgelaying differs from styles used in wildlife. This butterfly can at times be seen taking nectar occur on young Blackthorn twigs for much of other parts of the country. Instead of the cut stems from flowers at ground level but the females are the year, most hedge trimming will kill or affect (‘pleachers’) being laid at an angle and supported Woodland edges and rides more commonly seen as they fly along hedgerows them. Annual trimming can eradicate populations by stakes they are laid much closer to the horizontal Broadleaved woods are essential to most Brown looking for suitable egg laying sites on young altogether. But with a little care and by adopting and pegged down using tent-peg shaped ‘crooks’ Hairstreak colonies and can be managed for their Blackthorn shoots. They particularly like to use appropriate cutting regimes that can be avoided: cut from the hedge. This works as a stock proof benefit by providing open rides and well structured young suckering plants in sunny sheltered places. barrier because of the ‘Devon bank’. These large edges with healthy Blackthorn thickets in sunny Most eggs are laid in late August and September • Identify the hedgerows that contain plenty of banks often with ditches traditionally form field locations. Manage these on rotations of 3 to 5 years and remain there throughout the winter, hatching Blackthorn and could provide habitat for Brown boundaries in much of the county. The hedge or longer, as for hedges. when the leaves open in April. Hairstreaks is laid on top of the bank and the two combined • Decide a suitable rotation pattern for cutting that produce a formidable obstacle – and remarkable When coppicing or harvesting try to leave belts Their occurrence in the Blackdown Hills is restricted results in any section only being cut once every 3 wildlife habitat. Whilst a laid hedge is re-growing, of trees or shrubs alongside rides or at woodland to areas below 200m altitude such as the river to 5 years. the exposed bank sides can present a spectacle edges and retain any ash trees identified as mating valleys. But in recent decades they will have been of wildflowers and fungi that’s seldom seen in and congregation points - these are focal points for lost from many of these areas because of changes This can involve cutting no more than a third of the adjoining fields. Where this includes young the colony. in hedgerow management and the removal of the sections in each year, ensuring that there are Blackthorn shoots the Brown Hairstreak can benefit. Blackthorn scrub in other situations. always some uncut sections in different areas. Creating wide east-west rides can be valuable for Other successful approaches involve cutting only Where the width of the bank allows the hedge is this butterfly and other woodland glade species. Link one side of a hedge in each year. Because of its dependence on hedgerows this laid in two ‘combs’, one on each edge of the bank them with existing habitat areas. butterfly is badly affected by the ‘standard’ hedge separated by a gap. Once the laying is complete Reducing the frequency of cutting can be 50% the slumped sides of the bank can be dug up and management of regular trimming, which removes cheaper than annual cutting, as well as producing the young shoots on which their eggs have been ‘cast up’ into the gap between the combs. This has healthier hedges it makes a more diverse and three main effects: it increases the overall height of attached. The removal of hedges is thankfully less attractive countryside. common than it used to be, but young suckering the barrier, it squares off the base of the bank and makes the face more vertical and more difficult to growth spreading from them is seldom allowed Planting new hedgerows using Blackthorn, to remain. There is now much interest in planting climb, and the cast up earth encourages the laid especially where they link existing hedges and pleachers to root and propagate. new hedges and in better care for existing ones, woodlands, can be very beneficial. Those providing especially under Environmental Stewardship south facing sides would be particularly favoured by Suckering Blackthorn at the base of hedges can Schemes. The management of hedges can the Brown Hairstreak. usually be adapted in simple ways to provide the be some of the best habitat for this butterfly. Strips Above: Ideal woodland edge habitat Brown Hairstreak with egg laying sites. Allowing of this young growth within the field margin need small areas of suckering Blackthorn to grow along only be a metre wide, and cutting them in sections Scrub on grassland woodland and field edges in sunny sheltered on a 3 to 5 year rotation will provide a continuity of Blackthorn thickets on unimproved grassland are spots can also be a very successful conservation valuable habitat. a valuable habitat for wildlife including the Brown measure. Hairstreak, especially where marginal suckering Reducing the frequency of hedge cutting and growth is maintained. With care they can be observing the Cross Compliance requirements to managed sympathetically, to reduce their cover or safeguard hedge bases and field margins from contain their spread.

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