Worcestershire Wildlife Trust Malvern Group

David Dennis: Butterflies of the Chilterns and Butterfly Conservation, and Mel Mason: Our Local Butterflies

The Malvern Group’s first meeting of the season was an excellent double bill, with David Dennis speaking about the butterflies where he lives in the Chilterns, and Mel Mason talking about butterflies here in Worcestershire. David was Chairman of Butterfly Conservation from 2011 to 2014 and his knowledge was extensive and fascinating. He began his talk with some Chiltern specialities: Chalkhill Blue, Adonis Blue, Black Hairstreak, Duke of Burgundy, Purple Emperor and Silver-spotted Skipper, with excellent pictures of all these species. He showed us an amazing sequence of pictures of the life cycle of the Orange-tip butterfly, including the details of the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a pupa, and then emerging into a butterfly. The Large Blue has been in the news recently after a remarkably successful reintroduction programme in this country; 10,000 have been recorded in Gloucestershire and Somerset, though none yet in Worcestershire. It has a bizarre life cycle; the caterpillars trick red ants into believing they are ant grubs. The ants then carry them into their nest and look after them, even though they feed on the real ant grubs in the nest.

Mel Mason mentioned the Essex Skipper, the most recent species to colonise our area. He talked about the Grayling, a speciality of the Malverns but numbers are declining; considerable efforts are being made to improve habitat for this rare butterfly. We have Green, Purple and White-Letter Hairstreak, Dingy Skipper, Brown Argus, White Admiral, Silver-washed Fritillary and Drab Looper (a rare moth). Violets are plentiful on the southern Hills and a reintroduction programme of Pearl-bordered Fritillary is being considered. Sadly some of our common and much loved butterflies have not done well this year, especially Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock.

The next Indoor Meeting is on Thursday October 6th at 7.30pm at the Lyttelton Rooms, Church Street, Malvern. Dr Michael Leach will talk about Animals Behaving Badly.

Alison Uren