Glanville Frit intrudction sites
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:03 am
I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a birder I met who hailed from the Isle of Wight. He knew his butterflies and confirmed that Glanville Fritillaries are doing extremely well with super-abundance at the hotspot of Wheelers Bay, many spilling over into the seaside public gardens at Ventnor. This isn’t new information.
However, what he did add when I talked about colonies on the mainland is that while he knew about the one just across the water from the island, he said there had been one on the Dorset coast (no mention of locality) for some time. He didn’t know of the introduced colony at Sand Point, Weston-super-Mare, nor at Wreccklesham but intriguingly mentioned one in Gloucestershire (“somewhere in the Cotswolds” was all he knew but said that the butterflies had been seen there in 2011).
Surely this can have nothing to do with the hundreds of Glanville Fritillary larvae I naughtily released at Caudle Green (SO946102) in spring 1976? I saw adults there in 1976 and a few again the following year but none thereafter.
Jack
However, what he did add when I talked about colonies on the mainland is that while he knew about the one just across the water from the island, he said there had been one on the Dorset coast (no mention of locality) for some time. He didn’t know of the introduced colony at Sand Point, Weston-super-Mare, nor at Wreccklesham but intriguingly mentioned one in Gloucestershire (“somewhere in the Cotswolds” was all he knew but said that the butterflies had been seen there in 2011).
Surely this can have nothing to do with the hundreds of Glanville Fritillary larvae I naughtily released at Caudle Green (SO946102) in spring 1976? I saw adults there in 1976 and a few again the following year but none thereafter.
Jack