Category Archives: Conservation

Success of diy butterfly feeder station

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Doug and Jan Hounsome in East Dorset have been experimenting with attracting butterflies with things other than flowers. Doug writes:

I read somewhere that the Red Admiral was in serious decline and I am happy to be able to tell you this is not the case in our garden.

Although the bees and hoverflies have loved the pollinator-friendly plants we stocked the garden with this year, the butterflies ignored them…so, we put out a feeder station. Sugar-water, runny honey, apple halves and some odd bits of rotten fruit…and sat back and waited – but not for long: within half-an-hour the first Red Admiral was busily feeding. We have about twelve hours of video footage now of these beautiful creatures feeding at the station. Our best to date is around nine or ten feeding at once, with two or three more in the vicinity; best count for the garden is fifteen at one time. We also have two Commas regularly visiting, one Small Tortoiseshell, two Small and two Large whites and two Holly Blues and one gorgeous Small Copper. Only the Red Admirals and the Commas use the feeder regularly, but they seem to draw all the others in. Our garden measures about forty feet square. We have had huge success in attracting Bees and Hoverflies this year…but the Butterflies are the icing on the cake. We also have a moth-trap which we put out periodically, with limited success…mostly Silver Y’s, Red Underwings, Hebrew Characters and lots of tiny little chaps but our best catches were a Poplar Hawk Moth and a Garden Tiger.

To enjoy some video footage of this success, go to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=AeqsgrJHseo

Buddleia trial succeeds despite the weather

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Dorset Branch member, Peter Westgate, is undertaking a buddleia trial, growing lots of different types of this shrub to see which seems best at attracting butterflies. The bushes are not yet mature, but Dorset Branch has been monitoring it this year as a trial run. The 211 buddleias were surveyed by 18 different recorders between July and October, who counted a total of 844 butterflies of 12 different species – not bad, given the weather!

Top butterflies were:

  • Red Admiral – 318. (There was a huge inward migration of these butterflies late this season.)
  • Small Tortoiseshells – 274. Great to see, given how the numbers of this once-common butterfly have fallen in recent years
  • Peacocks – 59
  • Top buddleias were:
    • ‘Dartmoor’ – 16.3 (average of butterflies per recorder visit)
    • ‘Autumn Beauty’ (also called Beijing – a lilac colour) – 16.2
    • ‘White Profusion’ – 9.5.
    • ‘Pink Spreader’ gets a special mention, as it was the only variety to entice a Clouded Yellow, although the bush was small compared to the others.

Weymouth Relief Road project is succeeding

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When the Weymouth Relief Road was built, the opportunity was taken to create a superb butterfly habitat along the embankments, by leaving the slopes free of imported topsoil and instead, seeding with limestone-loving plants, many of which are used by the caterpillars of butterflies and moths. This also saved a lot of money, and Phil Sterling and the Council are to be congratulated for their efforts.

The site is being monitored, and has already attracted Small Blue, Common Blue, Brown Argus and Wall Brown – a phenomenal success in its first season.

We have two more walks to show off the site – Sunday 22 July and Saturday 18 August. The walk is an enjoyable one, which parallels the road along an easy footpath at first, and then returns via the old road, which is now unrecognisable.

Conservation advice given

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The Parish Council at Mocombe requested some help and advice on the management of Motcombe Meadows, an area of land ‘gifted’ to the Parish for community benefit. Bill Shreeves gave some initial advice particularly over recording and Richard Belding visited in his role as Conservation Officer, to advise on possible enhancements that could be made to the Meadows to improve their attractiveness to butterflies and moths. The advice included a botanical survey, management suggestions on tree, hedge, grassland in the absence of grazing, pond edge and ditches. He also suggested possible themes for community days centred around the meadows including information boards informing visitors whats about.