Morality of conservation for butterflies

[JohnR]

As I was putting up new bird nest boxes the other week I wondered why I was encouraging the breeding of a species that will eat tens of thousand of moth larvae in my oak trees. I tolerate a wild bee colony in an old chimney because I want my fruit pollinated, but they will also consume nectar grown for butterflies. I leave the meadow grass longer than I should over winter to help the voles and shrews to provide food for owls, but they in turn eat larvae that I would like to see in its mature form. I left half a ton of apple windfalls lying in the field for the birds and the insects, some of which will parasitise the species I am supposed to be supporting.
Though I record both butterflies and moths for the county recorder I find that my interest is being drawn to insects in general. There are plenty of charities that support the top end of the food chain but much less at the bottom end. I've watched the destruction of habitat and mono-planting to support a single moth species and I dare say it happens for butterflies elsewhere in the country. Whilst the saving of a single species is meritable does it justify the destruction of lower forms of life to achieve what we humans perceive as desirable?

[JohnR]

By the lack of comment I'm obviously completely out of line in not concentrating all my efforts for the singular good of butterflies.

[ChrisC]

I did have a reply typed out last week but I must have taken too long. so I will try again. and you not only are you not out of line but you are not alone

you will know if you have looked at my diary that I too am a bit more of a generalist as opposed to Lepidoptera only. expert in none I hasten to add my garden both front and back are predominantly planted/ grown with wildlife in mind. I also fed the birds. despite having 3 cats and 2 dogs Blackbirds, dunnocks and robins still nested and i watched in horror as they would venture the garden decimating, or so i thought, the "lower" life forms. Last year was the best year yet for craneflies and grasshoppers out in the unmown grass of the front garden. and the garden butterfly list can't be far short of 30 species (5 breeding without a nettle in sight). sawfly and spider species are added to yearly and this year i had a couple of scarce bugs. Don't get me started on the spiders. So yes there will be winners and losers but you should enjoy them all.

As for landscape scale conservation, some good examples posted on this forum with the work done around sussex, in the name of eg. Duke of Burgundy. I used to think the same as you until i really sat and thought about it. yes doing it for one species can seem pretty blinkered but the upside is, it is the specific habitat that is being preserved not just the butterfly. the entire ecosystem. I am pretty sure there are rare species of plants and all orders that require the very same habitat as the butterfly. Without conserving the habitat more than just the butterfly would be lost.

Also where do we draw the line? is there a habitat out there that isn't or has never been influenced by man? eg introduction of rabbits, grazing, coppicing etc. The other problem is, so few people record other orders so we don't have the whole picture as to what, if any, damage is being done.

In my uneducated opinion Succession does need to be held in check.

Chris

[Pauline]

Hi John

I too have been meaning to reply to your post which provides much food for thought. I agree with Chris in that a lot of folk on this site are interested in all forms of wildlife (you can tell that just by the photos and reports of other critters that creep in from time to time). Personally, like you, I just try to help everything on my patch and then let nature find its own balance. I have over 20 nest boxes in the garden and have recorded 63 species of birds over the years. I also have a colony of Purple Hairstreaks in my Oak Trees. I am amazed at their continued survival with the number of birds not to mention the wasps from last year which I left undisturbed only to find they had taken the Large White larva. I watch the hornets feed on my apples and then chew the heads off wasps and the Sparrowhawks which consider my garden a fast food restaurent given the number of birds here, both wild and domestic. I actively encourage wild foxes and badgers which visit nightly and bring their young which is a privilege to watch and a field vole made its home under one of my bird feeders where it attempted to rear its young tho I expect most of these got taken by the local cat population. As Chris said, there will be winners and losers but I try to do my bit for everything and just hope for the best. Perhaps a somewhat naive view!

[MikeOxon]

I think we humans are only just beginning to appreciate the complexity of the natural word, and the difficulty of 'playing god'.

We used to leap in with well-meaning schemes and only later realised how wrong we were! I was at a talk the other night about an RSPB programme to eradicate feral cats on Ascension island, to assist the Sooty Tern population.

The cull was successful but the Sooty Terns continued to decline. All that happened was that the previously insignificant Black Rat population increased enormously and proved even more damaging to the terns.

Animal 'lookism' still plays a large part in our conservation efforts - if its pretty and cuddly, it gets loads of attention. Hence, the money poured into Giant Panda research, even though it's an animal that is specialising itself out of existence!

Just a few thoughts.

Mike

[JohnR]

Thanks for the contributions. I'm bored with the "one species one solution" brigade so I'll stick to pragmatism. As an example, part of my wildflower field has failed because of the coarse species of grass in one particular area. Glyphosate had had limited effect so I am going to resow with an agricultural pollen and nectar mix next week rather than spend another fortune on native wildflowers. The result that I want is food for insects, if native wildflowers won't grow then I'll use something else to reach the same goal.

[For the record the mixture is alsike clover, birdsfoot trefoil, common vetch, fenugreek, lucerne, phacelia, red campion, red clover, sainfoin, sweet clover, white campion and yellow trefoil]

There's nothing like compromise

[ChrisC]

I don't know how effective it is but doesn't yellow rattle knock grasses back? though I believe it doesn't like fertile soils. Also being pedantic, aren't you doing exactly what the conservation bodies are doing by destroying a "habitat". surely something feeds on the grass? as I said in my first reply not cutting the grass in patches in the front garden this year produced a lot more grasshoppers, grass moths and craneflies than previous years. whether this is because a. I didn't cut it, b. they preferred it or c. because of the longer grass they didn't get predated or maybe even some other reason I don't know. I do know the more habitats you have the more varied the wildlife. Just a thought.

before I let the grass grow a sea of yellow

after letting the grass grow, it gets cut by hand in the autumn

I still mow some areas but at different times of year

[Susie]

I do like that last photo Lovely.

[JohnR]

I don't know how effective it is but doesn't yellow rattle knock grasses back?

It does but only in certain grasses, no rattle has established in this particular patch that I have taken against. I once sowed a kilo of rattle seed over the whole meadow and it does well in places but this patch of about 900 sq yards is so coarse and rampant it allows no wildflower apart from nettles and I have never see any insects in it. The bird and animal tracks run round its perimeter and if I were using this field for pasture I would resew with a finer grass. It's had its chance, I sowed it with wildflower a few years ago but it failed. So on the basis that it gives me no pleasure I shall assume that it gives no other animal food or shelter and replace it yet again. Have no sympathy for it, it is a mixture of couch, hairy brome and something else that I don't recognize. I may be pragmatic but I'm also an epicurean, it's the grass that's got to learn to be stoic.

[ChrisC]

i have learnt something new from this thread...... had to look up epicurean
900 square yards is a fair ol' area and i wish you the best of luck John. do you have any pictures of the field in flower?

Chris

[Matsukaze]

Hi John,

Sounds like the soil you have on that patch is far too fertile. Have you considered bringing in an earthmover to do a topsoil scrape? There is a field not far from me where this was done some 20 years ago, and it now has some of the best butterfly populations for miles around (including dingy skipper, marbled white and small heath) and several species of orchid.

You could sell the topsoil, or use it to make a bank to give shelter to the meadow. The fertile soil would enable trees and shrubs to establish rapidly, possibly bringing in brimstones and hairstreaks.

[JohnR]

You are perfectly right. I should have taken out the top soil when I first started but finances constrained me and strangely, a mistake by Ordnance Survey!
The corner of the field was called "Hungry Corner" on the modern maps and the locals insisted that it was called this because of the lack of fertility. It was only this year that I found that it was in fact the 17th century name for my house and not the field, because it was beside a bit of waste land where itinerant workers, tramps and other homeless gathered for shelter.

The field has always been unfertilized pasture but I hear that the bottom end, where this rank grass is, was used by nearby estate workers to grow their own potatoes during the war.

You've given me an idea. If it fails again I'll think about making a shallow pond. Might be able earn some RSPB brownie points for killing two birds with one stone