Neil Hulme

[Neil Hulme]

2020 Retrospective (Common Clubtail)

I love dragonflies, except on those days when I watch them systematically killing the Pearl-bordered and Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries we have made such efforts to reinstate to the Sussex countryside. I believe that dragonflies, along with spiders, are the most efficient predators of butterflies, probably accounting for far more losses than, for instance, birds. I don’t begrudge them a meal, but I do sometimes wish they’d be more selective in their choice of prey; unfortunately, slowly fluttering female fritillaries on egg-laying runs are easy meat.

Emperors and Broad-bodied Chasers are probably the worst culprits, but there are several species which I find so appealing that I’m always prepared to grant them a pardon. These include the Golden-ringed Dragonfly, Scarce Chaser and particularly the Common Clubtail.

The far-from-common Common Clubtail is very localised in its UK distribution, being restricted to about half-a-dozen river systems and their tributaries, including the Arun and Rother. They leave their host river in May to mature on wooded downland sites in Sussex, before returning to lay eggs.

During my surveys for the South Downs National Park Authority (and others), I always record other interesting aspects of the fauna and flora, which are often beneficiaries of the habitat management work being performed. Springhead (a.k.a. Kithurst) Hill has proven a reliable site for this species in recent years and that was again the case in 2020. On two occasions I saw three individuals in the meadow, comprising a minimum of two males and two females.

[Benjamin]

Superb reporting as always Neil. I should have come and seen that Clubtail but I think I was glued to an L5 caterpillar at the time - hoping to watch it journey off to pupate.

Really interesting summaries of the iris season from Matthew and yourself. Hard to see 2021 being better than 2020 (in terms of pop size at least) but given that 2020 was supposed to be a record breaker and flopped in a big way, there might be some room for hope!

Stunning pic on the bramble. Glad you got your chance before your careful movements alerted one of the marauding gangs of knepp butterfly flushers - the dust is still settling no doubt.

[Allan.W.]

Very nice Neil ,spent a couple hours at Fittleworth ,a year or two back ,trudging up and down in what seemed like perfect weather with
no luck ,and i did have a bit of a wild goose chase at Fairmile ,following a mid sized dragonfly about .............just couldn,t get it in the bins
for a better look ! ............then it disappeared., may get lucky this year !
If i do get to Fairmile this year I,ll certainly keep my eyes open for any Dukes ,I don,t think the Frog Orcs that i found were near a cattle Trough.
Regards Allan.W.

[Neil Hulme]

Thanks, Ben.
I'm confident that Common Clubtail will be at Springhead again this spring. The end of May is best, so they're a prime infill target during the 'June gap'.
Unfortunately, the majority of emperors get flushed prematurely ... remember our friend at Chiddingfold? Only a dead butterfly would have tolerated that crunching of tripod feet and the deafening clatter of his shutter; even the birds stopped singing!

Thanks, Allan.
The Clubtails are very difficult once they've returned to the river, so your best chance is to catch the emergers, although this requires pinpoint timing. Photography is much easier when they are maturing away from the water.
My reference to the location of Dukes at Fairmile was a little ambiguous; there are two leks, one near the cattle trough and one near the Frog Orchids (scrubby area upslope and slightly SW). Good luck!

BWs, Neil

[Neil Hulme]

2020 Retrospective (Small Tortoiseshell)

In 2020 I saw a few more Small Tortoiseshell than in recent years, even managing 5 or 6 on some summer days. However, this remains a dire showing by historical standards. My most enjoyable few hours with this species were spent on the Burgess Hill Green Circle with David Cook, who had bolstered the local population with some released captive-bred butterflies. Forty years ago I would never have believed that this species could cause me such excitement; sadly, it is now a real rarity in Sussex.

[trevor]

Just six examples in East Sussex for me in 2020, Neil.
At the end of March there was a small emergence of ex hibernating ST's
at a farm in Halnaker. Unfortunately the following week when there could
possibly have been more we had the first lockdown, so my little job there ended.

About five years ago, on an ideal day, I counted about forty at Halnaker.
They were all over a meadow near the outbuildings, mostly on Dandelions.
There were several nose to tail pairs on that occasion too.

Take them for granted?, not any more.

Stay well,
Trevor.

[David M]

The 2020 Purple Emperor season proved to be disappointing. This was probably due to three factors: high winter predation of larvae; the collapse in weather at the start of June, just as final instar larvae were pupating; gale force winds at the peak of the flight season. The addition of a fourth factor, late summer drought causing the widespread shedding of sallow leaves (probably worse at Knepp than on most traditional, heavily wooded sites), does not bode well for the 2021 season.

Nice, succinct narrative on last year's Emperor season, Neil. I hope your predictions regarding 2021 are more pessimistic than the reality, but given the amount of time you put in studying this species, I fear you are probably right.

Lovely images as ever - at least you got a few before the gales struck. I hope this year conditions will be more favourable and that the film crew can get the footage they need for their projects.

[Neil Hulme]

Hi Trevor. I recall that two-year period when Small Tortoiseshell numbers rallied. The species may yet have better years in Sussex, following cooler damper summers, but sadly I suspect the longer term trend is only heading in the wrong direction.

Thanks, David. The one saving grace for Purple Emperor is that winter predation rates are often low when larvae are in short supply; small birds tend to focus-feed less when their quarry is rare. However, I suspect we'll have to wait for a few years before seeing them in their hundreds again at Knepp.

BWs, Neil

[Neil Hulme]

2020 Retrospective (Hairstreaks)

None of the hairstreaks fared particularly well in 2020 based on my experience, although some did better than others. My spring surveys of downland sites, performed under contract, suggested that Green Hairstreak was in short supply.

I only made two visits to Ditchling Common in search of Black Hairstreak. Numbers were modest and they were much harder work than over the last couple of years. However, I did manage to photograph a particularly obliging female.

White-letter Hairstreak did poorly and I saw very few. I suspect this species suffered for some of the same reasons as Purple Emperor. Purple Hairstreak numbers were good, if not spectacular. I found a newly emerged female on the ground at Knepp and watched her first tentative flight onto low vegetation. A collapse in the weather meant she was still there the following morning, providing an all-too-rare opportunity to photograph this species in mint condition.

Brown Hairstreak also had a poor year in Sussex; I saw no females at low level on the Knepp Wildland. Numbers were also low at Steyning Downland Scheme, primarily because the Prunus plants have been heavily browsed by cattle over the last couple of summers. This has been the inevitable price to pay while reconditioning the chalk grassland of the Rifle Range, to benefit the flora and other butterfly species such as Adonis Blue. A return to winter-only grazing over the next two years should see them bounce back rapidly.

[trevor]

For your fresh female Purple Hairstreak, all I can say is WOW!.
After you short absence from these diaries, you've certainly returned with a bang!.

Here's to the 2021 season!
Trevor.

[Neil Freeman]

Hi Neil,

Some great retrospective reports with interesting comments and superb images. It is up against some really stiff competition with your other photos but that female Purple Hairstreak on the ground is the pick of the bunch for me

Small Tortoiseshells had a really great season in 2020 here in the midlands, my butterfly of the year around my patch. Mike Slater has reported that numbers in Warwickshire were up 60-120% when compared to mean of previous 3 years and up 100-150% when compared to mean of previous 10 years.

Cheers,

Neil.

[David M]

Excellent Hairstreak images, Neil - that female quercus on the ground is achingly beautiful. I seem to recall you posting something similar about 10 years ago - was it whilst at Arnside Knott?

It's rare to see them on the ground in any event, but to get one so fresh as that is dreamworthy.

[Neil Hulme]

Thanks, Trevor, Neil and David. That female Purple Hairstreak definitely provided my best shot at this species since the Arnside Knott beauty back in 2011 ... how time flies!

Glad to hear Small Tortoiseshell is still doing fine up your way, Neil. However, it might be a different story by mid-century, although you might be getting Long-tailed Blue as a trade-off by then.

BWs, Neil

[Neil Hulme]

2020 Retrospective (White Stork)

Taking a break from butterflies for a moment, one of the wildlife highlights for me in 2020 was the successful breeding of White Stork on the Knepp Wildland. Of three nests, one produced three fledglings, another produced one, and one failed.

The coverage by Springwatch and the wider media generated huge interest, just as lockdown restrictions were being relaxed. This caused a 'perfect storm' in terms of visitor numbers, which increased by more than an order of magnitude. It was great to see so many people getting out to experience and enjoy the countryside, but this did come at a price; it was shocking to see, for the first time, litter, dog poo bags and out-of-control dogs defiling this wonderful sanctuary for wildlife. Knepp will never be quite the same again, so I'll always feel privileged to have experienced the 'early days' there. This is just one of numerous reasons why we need many more Knepps.

I, like many others, would often wait for long periods for one of the birds to return to the nest, to watch the spectacular bonding ritual between the pair. They would throw their heads far back and clatter their bills, a sound which drifts far across the Wildland, before changing guard duties and heading off to collect food for the young.

[essexbuzzard]

Fantastic news about the storks, Neil.

I actually like the last picture, as it shows prospective. Quite unusual to see them nesting in an oak. When I see storks in Europe, they usually build on pylons and rooftops.

[Neil Hulme]

That's my favourite image too, Mark; the storks are a small part of a much bigger picture at Knepp!
BWs, Neil

[Neil Hulme]

2020 Retrospective (Ravenswood)

I first visited Ravenswood, as it is known by the owners, nearly fifteen years ago, to offer advice on its future management. Part of this advice involved the clear-felling of a large area (>8 hectares) of maturing non-native conifers, to make way for the natural regeneration of native broadleaves. I was unsure at the time whether the owners would undertake such a major project.

In 2016 I was asked to return to the site, to contribute suggestions for a new woodland management plan being put together by an independent adviser I know. She didn't know of my previous involvement here, and I wasn't initially sure whether it was the same place I had visited so long ago, so it came as a nice surprise to be back there, and an even nicer surprise to see that the conifers had been harvested in 2010.

Aside from a few small blocks of planted oaks, natural regeneration was already well underway. This area has now been further improved by ride-widening and the creation of numerous large scallops which are rotationally mown. On an evening visit in the spring of 2019 I counted seven singing Nightingales amongst the scrub and saplings, as a Cuckoo called continuously. Subsequent surveys proved that Grizzled Skipper, Dingy Skipper and Brown Hairstreak had already set up home.

Over the last two winters, a friend and I have become even more closely involved in the management of Ravenswood, performing the chainsaw work necessary to make improvements to the adjacent, larger and more mature area of native woodland. This has involved the widening of narrow rides, the creation of open areas (glades and box-junctions) and the establishment of standing deadwood zones (by ring-barking). We have done a few things differently according to the norms of woodland management, not least by favouring the retention of sallows (usually treated as weeds) and by performing very little in the way of standard 'thinning'.

The latter practice is often cited as being highly beneficial to woodland wildlife. This is a myth; although it improves the form and growth rate of the remaining trees (which is important if the wood is being managed on a commercial basis), the modest increase in light penetration (and associated benefits to the ground flora) is short-lived and soon evaporates as the canopy rapidly closes. It never produces sufficient, joined-up, sunny woodland floor as required by most warmth-loving invertebrates, including butterflies. However, the owners are unconcerned with timber yield and just wish to improve their woodland for wildlife.

This summer we added White-letter Hairstreak to the Ravenswood species list, which already includes Purple Emperor, White Admiral and Silver-washed Fritillary. I visited several times in June, with the primary target for photography being White Admiral, but it was a very early Peacock (19 June), sitting on one of our birch log piles, which provided one of my favourite images of the year.

[Neil Hulme]

2020 Retrospective (Chalk Hill Blue)

Chalk Hill Blue had a good season in Sussex, with unusually high numbers on some sites, including the south side of Cissbury Ring. Here, they flew in such abundance that dog-walkers and even joggers were stopping to film them on their mobile 'phones. However, it was at Springhead Hill, where a much smaller colony exists, that I spent a few happy evenings photographing them as they settled down to roost, sharing the patches of longer grass with Brown Argus and Common Blue. This is a dangerous time of day for butterflies, as an unfortunate Marbled White discovered.

[Neil Hulme]

2020 Retrospective (Grayling & Downland Robberfly)

Over the last couple of years I've been working with the South Downs National Park Authority and BC Sussex to save the chalk race of Grayling from further decline and potential extinction on its last remaining site in Sussex. This has involved focused grazing of the encroaching Tor-grass using Exmoor Ponies, and the innovative creation of artificial rabbit scrapes by mattocking. In 2018 I put together a management plan for Deep Dean (Wilmington), based on the threats posed by the spread of Tor-grass and the reduction in rabbit numbers following the introduction of RHDV2 (rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus) in 2010, which had become widespread by 2013/14. The impact of these factors over time was clearly visible using remote sensing imagery.

Since then, the population of Grayling has been monitored regularly by volunteers, with Patrick Moore making a particularly notable contribution. The effort required, on hot July days, to perform a thorough zigzagging count over these steep slopes is enough to leave even the fittest surveyor exhausted.

On 26 July, Richard Bickers and I teamed up to perform a thorough search of the site, covering different areas (above and below the diagonal track) and combining our tallies. Our total of 44 Grayling suggests that numbers are up on recent years, with an approximate doubling since 2019 (Patrick achieved an independent best count of 43 in 2020). It's far too early to draw conclusions, but I'd like to think that the habitat management plan is beginning to have a positive effect; only time will tell.

Before Richard arrived, I spent some time watching the nationally scarce Downland Robberfly hunting Chalk Hill Blues, observing three kills in an hour. When this level of predation is multiplied up over the entire slope, it suggests that this highly efficient hunter may take a significant number of victims over the course of the Chalk Hill Blue's flight season. Gruesome, but fascinating to see.

[Pete Eeles]

Gruesome, but fascinating to see.

Superb shots, Neil ... I really enjoy reading about your more unusual observations and seeing the evidence!

Cheers,

- Pete