2016 report for White-letter Hairstreak First and last sightings The first sighting was th25 June. The last sighting was on 12th August. Sightings for 2016 A big thank you to everyone who sent me their sightings. A special thank you to Martin Kincaid and Adrian Cadman for their work in Bucks. Very few records of WLH had been received from Berkshire or Oxfordshire in recent years. In order to get a better picture of WLH populations in these counties a greater recording effort was put in. This paid off with the species being recorded at 20 sites in these two counties as opposed to five in 2015. In total 146 White-letter Hairstreaks were recorded from 41 different sites (compared to 26 sites last year). Nine was the highest number seen in any single sighting (Purley, Berks). The White-letter Hairstreak had a good year and was easy to see in its known locations, as long as you picked a sunny day! It was also recorded from a number of new sites where you would not usually expect to see it, which would indicate better numbers than usual (for example it was recorded at seven BBOWT reserves compared to two in 2015). Locations for WLHs recorded in UTB area for 2016. BUCKS BERKS OXON Iver/Coppins Farm Milestone/Caversham Park Chazey Heath Great Linford/Wood Lane Maidenhead Thicket New Farm Charndon Purley Rise(2 locations) Whittles Farm Bryants Bottom Nunhide Lane, Sulham Great Chalk Wood, Goring Claydon to Quainton Roadside Kiln Green, A4 Widmore Pond Finemere Hare Hatch, A4 (2 locations) Piddington Wood Calvert Jubilee Hose Hill Lake Little Wittenham(Earth Trust) Oving Park Wood Botolph Claydon Jacksons Lane Whaddon Chase Constitution Hill Manor Farm Mongewell to Wallingford f.path Little Linford Wood Warburg Reserve North Bucks Way/Shenley Wood Asham Meads Old Wolverton Fremantle Road Dancersend Westcott/Burnham Road Stoke Goldington Wood Homefield Wood Bletchley Wood Bradwell Cemetery Elm planting Elm planting has continued over the winter with a total of 11 Wych elm and 22 disease resistant elms now planted in support of White-letter Hairstreak colonies at Chazey Heath, Maidenhead Thicket, Iver, Langley Park, The Earth Trust at Little Wittenham and Milestone Woods. Further planting is scheduled for this winter and a landscape scale project is underway along the Berks/Oxon border to connect Clayfield Copse, Milestone Woods and Caversham Lakes that would give the WLH an oppurtunity to spread over a large area. If you would like to get involved please contact me; [email protected].