www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Most of us are feeling a little winter-depression at the moment, with no butterflies reported since the Red Admirals of January and early February.

Winter seems to go on forever, and it's a long wait for the Brimstones, Commas, Peacocks and Small Tortoiseshells.

Something very worthwhile that can be done right now however is to locate colonies of White-letter Hairstreaks. By far the easiest way to find this species is to search for the eggs, which are laid on elm twigs at the junction of the old and new growth.

March is the best time to look, because the elm trees are extremely easy to locate, due to their reddish flowers. Colonies are short-lived, as they depend on flowering trees, and the trees usually develop Dutch elm disease only a couple of years after first flowering. Thus it is possible to find the species ( which is a great wanderer ) on isolated trees that have only just reached flowering age.

If you do discover any eggs, please be sure to make a note of the map ref, and report the site to your local branch of Butterfly Conservation, who may be able to arrange for disease-resistant elms to be planted nearby to help maintain the colony.

Adrian Hoskins

What a great observation. Browsing around on the web, there appears to have been a concerted effort to locate Elm trees in 2003, although most sightings are “up north”. See http://www.ramblers.org.uk/elms/ and http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/biod ... index.html.

Some of the literature available from these websites might be useful in helping survey elms, with a view to locating White-Letter Hairstreak. I'd be the first to admit that finding elms isn't one of my strengths!

Cheers,

- Pete

I've got quite a lot of Elm on sites I manage so I really should make an effort this year to look for eggs. There really is nothing much else to do and I am waiting to see my first butterfly of the year, winters dragging on though!

Incidentally I've got a colony of White-letters on some kind of Japanese Elm which is immune to the disease.

I coppice some of the native Elm to keep it going before they fall prey to Dutch Elm.