17th June - North and East Kent

A trip to Kent to visit my daughter provided an opportunity to catch up with two special butterflies while some shopping was done.  I didn't make up my mind about where to go until the last minute, so as I left Snodland I decided finally on a trip to Dover, or to be more accurate St Margaret's at Cliffe, a very smart village to the east of Dover.  The journey took just under an hour and I came into Dover via the the A20, then passed by the port with its many trucks and huge ferries and headed a short distance east before turning off to St Margaret's at Cliffe.

St Margaret’s has a very unusual and rich history for such a small place. Its proximity to Dover and the English Channel and its great natural beauty has made it both an attractive destination and an important place to defend. It has also, unusually, been home to famous celebrities such as Ian Fleming and Noel Coward.  Until the 19th Century the village was a small farming community clustered around an unusually large 12th Century church, St Margaret’s, with the locals undertaking a little smuggling and fishing from its beautiful cliff fringed beach.  In the 1880’s the Earl of Granville saw a chance for development on the fields overlooking the sea. He built a select hotel on the cliffs, The Granville Hotel. 

The village became a thriving fashionable seaside destination for the wealthy and middle class. Large new houses were built on the cliffs and as many villagers were engaged in providing cleaning, washing cooking, waiting, driving and gardening services for their new rich residents as there were working on the local farms. Shops and pubs thrived and many locals took in paying guests to help the family income.

The village has other claims to fame. The first cross channel telegraph cable was laid from St Margaret’s Bay to France in 1851.  The lighthouse at the South Foreland was the first in the world to be lit by electricity and the scene of many early wireless experiments by Marconi. Henry Royce designed Rolls- Royce’s first aero engines in his house ‘Seaton’ here at the outbreak of WW1 in 1914.

My association with St Margaret's doesn't go back so far, in fact only about twelve years, but if it hadn't been for the village I would not be writing this blog now.  Back in 2010 I followed a blog that was a photo diary of the wildlife around the village, I would check every day for updates and became very interested and intrigued by the almost daily going ons.  This inspired me to start my own blog around my village of Four Marks which has now progressed to this one you are reading now.

I was here for a special butterfly, over the last week at least two Swallowtails had been reported, the butterflies having crossed the channel from Europe, a welcome migrant for once.  They had been seen in the area of Bockhill Farm and the Dover Patrol Memorial.

I followed a very bumpy road to the car park by the memorial.  As I set off i stopped to talk to a person with camera and binoculars, he gave me the news I did not want to hear.  There had not been any sign this morning, but he pointed out the areas in which they had been.  So I decided to give it a go.  A path leads across the cliff top, with wheat fields to the left as you headed north and the sea and a very long drop to your right.

I could hear Corn Buntings singing rom my left with several birds on the fences and bramble.  This one was carrying nesting material, Corn Buntings nest late which is one of the reasons for their recent decline, but allowing for this in farm practice has helped to start a reversal in fortunes for the largest of the Bunting species.

Singing with a background of wheat.

My immediate concern was the complete lack of butterflies, conditions looked perfect, plenty of grass, Kidney Vetch, Red Valerian and Ox-eye Daisies.  The weather was not as hot as recent days and the sun was hazy but this shouldn't affect the butterflies.  I realised I had walked a little too far away from the area the Swallowtails had been seen, so I turned and walked back.  A liitle further on two Peregrine were flying straight at me, I managed to get the smaller of the pair, the male as it passed over my head.

On the edge of the cliffs were hawthorn bushes and clumps of Bramble and other white flowers that I couldn't identify, perfect for the butterflies if there were any.  In amongst the grass here were many Pyramidal Orchids, a little more advanced that the ones I had seen the previous week.

I made my way back towards the car park area, this was the view looking in the direction of Dover.

There is a café close by and a path led around the back with plenty of scrub and bramble but no butterflies.

There was though a singing male Whitethroat.

I went for another circuit and met a couple who were on the look out too.  As we stood talking I noticed a small Blue in amongst the vetch.

So at least I had found one butterfly. There were in fact several more, all in amongst the kidney vetch.

I circled around again and found a pair of Large Skippers.

And then a Small Heath.

I had been walking around the area for about two hours with very few butterflies about let alone a large yellow Swallowtail.  To say my mood was not good was an understatement.  With a limited time I had to make a decision, do I stay here and see if it appears or do I go after the other specialty, the Heath Fritillary in Blean Woods.  It was a hard decision, the Swallowtail would be a UK lifer, I had seen Heath Fritillary last year, but really wanted to see some more and this would be the only chance this year.

So with a heavy heart I elected to leave and drive to Blean Woods on the west side of Canterbury.  After an uneventful drive I parked and headed into the wood.  The hazy sunshine had gone, it was now overcast, but still humid with a light breeze.  As I walked down the bridleway you would have expected to see butterflies, but again there were none about.

The best place to see the Heath Fritillary in these woods is a place called Cook's Glade, the area is managed by the RSPB and as I reached the Glade I could see they had roped off a lot of the area.  Last time the area was open and you could get close to the butterflies, today it was about the butterflies coming to you.

As I turned into the glade two Heath Fritillaries were pointed out to me, at least I was getting to see one of my targets today.

This butterfly has historically been linked with the traditional practice of woodland coppicing, giving it the nickname of the 'Woodman's Follower' as it follows the cycle of cutting around a wood.

The Heath Fritillary prefers sunny, warm and sheltered habitats of two main types; coppiced or newly felled woodland on acid soils (where Common Cow-wheat is abundant), and sheltered heathland valleys on Exmoor (where Common Cow-wheat grows as scattered plants on mineral soils amongst vegetation dominated by Bilberry).

The Heath Fritillary is one of our rarest butterflies and was considered to be on the brink of extinction in the late 1970s. Strange as it may sound, the extinction of the Large Blue in 1979 was to work in favour of this species, since the shock felt by many entomologists resulted in a renewed effort to conserve the Heath Fritillary. This required detailed knowledge of this butterfly's requirements and, as a result of research and appropriate habitat management plans were put into effect that saved this butterfly from extinction.

The Heath Fritillary is confined to a small number of sites in Somerset, Devon and Cornwall in south-west England, and in Kent in south-east England, where it has also been reintroduced into sites in Essex. It is absent from Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Although very local in its distribution, this butterfly can be seen in large numbers at some sites in good years. This butterfly is widespread on the continent and can be one of the commonest butterflies seen in some regions. This butterfly forms discrete colonies and rarely strays from the main breeding grounds.

The butterfly prefers sunny, warm and sheltered habitats of two main types; coppiced or newly felled woodland on acid soils (where Common Cow-wheat is abundant), and sheltered heathland valleys on Exmoor (where Common Cow-wheat grows as scattered plants on mineral soils amongst vegetation dominated by Bilberry).

With no direct sunshine there were about a dozen Heath Fritillaries lounging around on the bracken and small oak trees.

A nice head on view.

Another view.

What I was hoping for was a view of the underside, the checker board pattern.  I managed to find one with the wings closed on some bracken.

One half way open on bramble flowers.

The only other butterfly seen was a Meadow Brown.

I decided to walk to a clearing where last year I had some brief views of Nightingale.  Once again as I entered the area which was a lot more overgrown than last year, but there was a Nightingale calling with that grated call.  With some perseverance I managed a short and quick glimpse.  But then it started raining, those large rain drops crashing into the broad Sweet Chestnut laves.  I sheltered to see if it would ease and it did a little.  I decided to head back to the car, but stopped to see if the Heath Fritillaries were hiding from the rain.  The one with wings closed was still there out in the open unconcerned by the rain.

Looking at the radar there was some heavy rain about.  I looked to see what was about and decided on a short drive to Oare Marshes, a reserve I have never been to before.

The rain became quite heavy on the drive, welcome relief from the heat of the last few days and welcome water for the parched land.  But unfortunately it doesn't last long and any dampness quickly evaporates, so as I arrived at the Oare Marshes car park the sun had returned and you would never have known it had rained.

A road runs through the centre of the reserve to the estuary, or the Swale.  On either side of the road is the marsh with open water on the eastern side known as the East Flood.  The tide was up so there was no opportunity to see anything along the shore line so I walked back down the road to view the East Flood.

We are now at the time of year when the duck start to moult into their eclipse plumage, feathers appear around the shore and on the water and the duck sleep off the time on small islands.  I could see Shelduck, Gadwall, Shoveler and Mallard dotted around the water, however a report of a Garganey was the reason I was here and a drake was feeding relatively close to the view point.

The classic white stripe that runs over and behind the eye was fading, but still visible.  It was constantly upending and it wasn't easy to capture the duck with its head up

A flock of Black-tailed Godwits flew in and almost immediately started chattering amongst themselves.

A pair of Common Terns flew over the road and away towards the Swale, while Swallows hawked around the reeds and over the water.  I decided to walk on and check the hide on the east south part of the east side.  A path goes from the road and on both sides there were singing Whitethroat.  A male Stonechat appeared on a gate.

There was a sign on the hide warning users that there had been a fire and that there was a hole in the floor, a little different from the way it would be handled at Titchfield Haven!  The hide looked out over quite dense reed so there was nothing to see.  I returned to the path and continued on, a male Reed Bunting was singing from a bush by the side of the path.

During the breeding season, males can be spotted perched high on reeds, rushes or scrub, voicing their simple, three-note territorial call. Females breed low in the dense vegetation, constructing their nests from grass, reeds and moss. If a predator comes close, it may be drawn away by one of the adults acting as if injured.

The path led to the sea wall.so I turned back, on the other side of the road there was supposed to be another hide, but apparently this was damaged in a recent storm.  There was also according to the map open water but I couldn't see it, the grass and reeds were dense and there was hardly a path at all.  The one highlight on this side was a female Marsh Harrier hunting over the reeds.

So I made my way back to the road and the view point over the floods.  The Garganey was still upending and the Black-tailed Godwits were feeding spread out in front of me.  On a far pool I could see a Greenshank, but there was no sign of the reported Spotted Redshank.

The majority of the Black-tailed Godwits were still in summer plumage.

And as is usual squabbles would break out if one came too close to the other's feeding area.

With time beating me I spend the last few minutes trying to photograph the hawking Swallows, this was the best I managed.

I would imagine Oare Marshes is a place to visit in winter and I will return, but today was all about two butterflies, one that didn't show and one that did.  However when I got home I saw a report that the Swallowtail was seen again in the afternoon.  Oh well some you win and some you lose.

11th June - Blean Woods, Kent

 A trip to Kent to visit my daughter and granddaughter provided a window of opportunity to try and find my second new butterfly of the year.  The weather was perfect, sunshine and clouds with a breeze and after some internet research I was off to the Blean Woods complex just outside Canterbury in Kent.

The Blean Woods are a collection of four woods and these comprise of 10 square miles of ancient woodland.  The woods are semi-natural woodland situated on poorly drained London clay, with a small area of gravelly soil in the south. The underlying clay results in much surface water and mud in winter and wet summers.  The wood has been heavily managed in the past as wood pasture and as a source for sweet chestnut coppice, in the past it was traditionally a source of wood for charcoal.

I parked just off the A290 and then took a path that led west into the woods.  The path would go through thick cover and then open out into various open glades and rides where the undergrowth had been cut well back and cleared leaving small shoots of bramble and giving the flowers opportunity to thrive.

From my research Cook's Glade was the place to be and I soon realised from the map that I had wandered well away from that area, so I turned around and retraced my steps.  It was now just after 10:00 am and I hadn't seen a single butterfly on my walk, which was a little concerning.  However as i walked past one of the cleared spots I noticed an orange butterfly drift over the ground.  I crossed the ditch by the side of the track and followed the butterfly as it looked for somewhere to settle, eventually it did and I had my first ever Heath Fritillary

It was a little disappointing that my first Heath Fritillary was a little damaged and not a pristine perfect butterfly, but it wasn't to be the last and pretty soon I was finding others around the cleared area.  In fact I came across this mating pair, one of which appears to be the first one I had found, the little nick in the wing giving it away.

The upper-side of the butterfly is predominantly dark brown and orange-brown, with the orange-brown spots delineated by dark brown (along and across the wing veins); there is a white fringe to the wings through which the dark brown extends. The upper-side of the body is a similar dark brown to the colour on the wing, and the base of both wings is dark brown. The underside shows bands of red and (off-)white, again with each vein dark brown and each colour delineated by dark brown. 

Alongside the mating pair was a single butterfly taking in the morning sunshine

But it was aware of the couple and tried to muscle it's way in.

The attempt to unseat the rival male failed and the single butterfly returned to it leaf while the couple continued.

The butterflies were not that dynamic, continuing their session on the wood sage leaf and after a while I began to notice the bird calls from within the scrub surrounding the clearing.  It was a whistle and a sound that is probably best described as a creaking 'errr'.  At first it didn't register, but then I realised that it was a Nightingale and that there were two of them in the scrub.  Positioning myself at a spot where there was an opening in the scrub I was able to see them moving about, but they never stayed in one spot long enough for a photograph.

In all there were eight different fritillaries in the clearing, but I was still looking to find Cook's Glade so I left the clearing and joined the main track to retrace my steps. On the way in I had passed an RSPB information board and from the map it looked like this could be close to the place I was searching for.  Turning right there was an open area with bracken and grasses and more Heath Fritillaries.

There was even another butterfly, the Meadow Brown.

Positioned at the side of the glade there was a bench that had a good view across the glade, when the sun went behind the clouds the action eased, but once it came back out there were Heath Fritillaries everywhere.

The Heath Fritillary is only found in four landscapes in the United Kingdom: The Blean Woods complex here in Kent; woodlands in southern Essex; the heathland combes of Exmoor in Somerset and the Tamar and Lydford valleys of Cornwall and Devon.

The butterfly was considered on the verge of extinction in the 1980s and this may have become a reality were it not for concerted conservation work in the ensuing years. However, despite these great efforts, the status of the Heath Fritillary has continued to fall and remains of great concern.

Traditional management practices such as coppicing and ride management are required in woodlands and on moorland sites extensive grazing along with burning to tackle the gorse and scrub encroachment are necessary, to create ideal conditions for egg laying and larval survival. 

Although very local in its distribution, this butterfly can be seen in large numbers at some sites in good years.   This butterfly forms discrete colonies and rarely strays from the main breeding grounds.

It was very difficult to be exact because there were so many butterflies, but I would estimate there were well in excess of fifty here in Cook's Glade.

Where the conditions are open, after the coppice is cut, much of the ground is colonised by common cow-wheat, which is the food plant of the caterpillar of the Heath Fritillary butterfly. As the chestnut grows up again and the shade becomes denser, the habitat becomes unsuitable for the flowers and butterflies, therefore it is very important that regular coppicing is carried out to maintain open areas for our colony of one of Britain's rarest butterflies. The older coppice is, however, valuable for nesting birds such as warblers and Nightingales so a regime of careful rotation of coppicing is required.

The ecology of the Heath Fritillary has been extensively researched since the 1980s and it is known to be reliant on early successional habitats. Targeted management is required to provide the ideal conditions for the species where the principal larval host plants of Common Cow-wheat and Ribwort Plantain are plentiful.

Common cow-wheat is an annual of woodland edges, heaths and upland moors that has deep golden flowers from May to September. It is a hemi-parasitic plant, meaning that it relies on obtaining some of its nutrients from the roots of nearby plants. The nectar of Common Cow-wheat can only be reached by insects that have a long proboscis, especially bees. If the flower is not pollinated, it will pollinate itself.

The leaves of Common cow-wheat are narrow and pointed. It has yellow flowers that grow in pairs up the square stem, both facing the same direction; the first pair to emerge are those at the top of the stem.

Common cow-wheat has a mutually beneficial relationship with the Wood Ant of which there were many to be found as I walked around the woods. The flowers produce a sugary liquid from tiny glands below the petals that the ants are attracted to and feed on. The seeds of the plant are very similar in appearance to the cocoons of the ant and are transported back to the nest where they can grow.

Another different butterfly appeared for a brief while, the Holly Blue.

But it was very difficult to pull away from the many Heath Fritillaries.

Going back to the conservation work, in the Blean Woods the occupancy of the butterfly is dynamic and targeted management is required to provide a regular resource of suitable habitat patches (coppice coupes or sections of rides) for the butterfly to colonise and occupy while they remain suitable (usually <6 years for coppice). Targeting habitat management is key to maintaining occupancy and abundance. 

Researchers at the University of York used Heath Fritillary data to build a simulation model that would help to target the area and spatial location of management. The resulting model confirmed that the observed rates of coppicing were not enough to meet conservation targets, under a ‘worst case scenario’ model the populations could be sustained if the coppicing area increased to approximately 30 ha per year. Targeting of the management is vital as the four woodland blocks are interdependent, with movement occurring between woodland blocks. This research has helped us, working with the various landowners, to target our advice and management priorities. 

Here the long-term population trend is stable, although there have been declines over the last four years along with a reduction in the size of colonies. The cause of this decline is possibly related to a recent reduction in management levels within some parts of the woodland complex potentially as a result of the restrictions around the Covid pandemic. This has now been reversed and we would expect the species to respond positively again which will continue to be monitored. Anecdotal evidence is suggesting that climate change is impacting on the abundance and phenology of the host plant and this is an area for further research. 

I dragged myself away from Cook's Glade and followed one of the smaller paths that lead through the woods, I came across another Nightingale, but like the others it would not show well enough for a photograph.  I decided on walking a loop around the woods in the hope that I could find some more butterflies, but like when I arrived there was very little about other than Heath Fritillaries.  I did mange to see a Red Admiral, a male and female Brimstone and a Speckled Wood.

On the return loop I came across several more Heath Fritillaries and the count by now had to be well in excess of one hundred.

I followed the path back to the main track and returned to Cook's Glade where the Heath Fritillaries continued to fill the open spaces and could be seen flying between the bracken and chasing each other around.  I watched the spectacle as I ate my lunch and then my time was up and it was time to return.

I had finally managed to see my first Heath Fritillary which was then quickly followed by over a hundred more.  Quite a spectacle and the Blean Wood Complex will definitely be due another visit next year when there will be the opportunity to pin down the Nightingales as they sing and also maybe Pearl-bordered and Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary.