Butterfly Action Day 1993

be allowed to jeopardise hard-won wildlife refuges. Markets must be regulated and at the very least new private owners must be prevented from destroying known sites and encouraged to manage and create more wildifefriendly areas. Enforcement and administration of this will cost money, and this might cast doubt upon the economics of the sell-off anyway ...

But we can do much better than this. The govenunent ought genuinely to put the interests of its citizens and their quality of life first, by foregoing the arguable and comparatively minute benefits which might accrue from privatisation, and instead encouraging both the new public forests and providing incentives for new productive woodland, perhaps on what is now inadequately described as 'set-aside' fannland?

Better yet - why not make all the FC lands into National Parks and beef up the conservation and leisure interests ? If you want to stay ideologically pure, you could charge people a modest fee for using these areas and thereby defray the expenses of managmg and maintaining them.

If any government wanted to do something just once for which posterity would thank them, this would be a wonderful opportunity. Just think, by this means you could more than double the amount of land protected from encroaching development and unsustainable exploitation, whilst expanding both timber production and leisure resources. It would be a marvellous step forward, cost no more than is already envisaged and really show that Britain meant what it said at Rio.

Come on, let's lead the world, let's practise what we preach and set an example to nations now destroying their forests. Let's do the right thing - we can't afford not to.

Andrew Phillips

Purdis Heath scrub clearance

Why would over thirty people tum out on a freezing Sunday morning in November to hack down birch saplings on a piece of apparent waste ground on the Eastern outskirts of Ipswich ? Well they did, and they achieved far more than was expected. In fact we cleared - and faggot bundled - well over an acre of land that used to be the favoured breeding area of what is now the strongest remaining colony of the Silver-studded Blue (Plebejus argus) left in Suffolk.

This delicate little insect is fast disappearing from Suffolk and it would be no exaggeration to suggest that on present trends, it could be the twenty-second of the fifty species of butterfly that used to live and breed in our county to become locally extinct. Indeed its hard to see how we might stop this happening. Already most of what used to be one of the finest stretches of lowland heath in Europe, the Suffolk heaths and sandlings, has all but disappeared under a tide of development. The Silverstudded Blue has gone with it, and the colony on Purdis Heath is the strongest of those remaining. Just a few years ago, the best area for the butterfly was Martlesham Heath - and one has only to go there today to see what fate awaits at Purdis. The colony at Martlesham is barely hanging on, submerged by new houses and associated human activity, bike riding and dog walking - it cannot be long before it vanishes altogether. Purdis is zoned for similar development.

What can we do to avert this tragedy ? Well, the Branch has been in preliminary discussions with Suffolk Wildlife Trust to see if it may be possible jointly to purchase the site. However, it is not certain that it will even be offered for sale, despite being designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). If we were able to bid for it, raising the money would present all the usual problems too. But the biggest worry of all is that even if we were to purchase, protect and manage it properly, a big enough task on its own, how could we safeguard it from the sheer pressure of the people who are projected to live in the new housing estates all around it? Quite clearly we are going to have to persuade the owners and the local authorities concemed (Ipswich Borough and Suffolk Coastal District Cow1cils) to allow us to create a sufficiently large reserve for this to be possible. One hopeful sign perhaps is that members of the adjacent golf club have already expressed their willingness to support such a move.

Meanwhile we want to see that the site is kept in prime condition for the Silver-studded Blues and all the associated wildlife on this site for as long as possible. Most of our readers will know that almost every bit of land in Britain has been man-managed since the late Stone Age, and heathland is no exception. Without man's grazing animals and wood collecting, heathland would for the most part be woodland, as natural succession took place. So we are pleased to be cooperating already with the Suffolk Wildlife Trnst in working on this site with a view to achieving its lasting protection. Thanks especially this time to Steve Ba.mes, who had the unenviable job of painting the myriad birch stumps to prevent re-growth - well done Steve, and to the students (and master) of Otley College who produced such a splendid turnout and contributed to one of the best and most successful days conservation work most of us had ever been involved with. It was a grand way to begin the work of the new Suffolk Branch of Butterfly Conservation, and I hope we shall keep up this high standard. Andrew /'hi/lips

IriJie ©ecune of Sufjofk,s (}Jutteif[ies I

For those of you fortunate enough to have been able to enjoy up to 40 species of butterflies in Suffolk as recently as the l 950's, it must be difficult to accept that a good year's watching in the 1990's will only yield a maximum of 31 - and this with no small amount of hard work and luck, together with the inclusion of the three non wintering migrants, (Red Admiral, Painted Lady and Clouded Yellow). If you were butterfly watching in 1900, you could have seen a further 6 species; early in the century before, another 7. Yes, we have lost 21 species in Suffolk since the beginning of the 19th century and have the dubious honour of heading the national extinction list for the combined 19th and 20th centuries.

How this has come about is open to much debate, but I am sure that no-one would disagree that changes in land use must be central to the cause. The effects of these changes were swift and dramatic in the years following the last war. Little harmful change in land management was evident until the 19th century when we began to notice the loss of some of the butterflies that used to thrive in the county. At this time, coppicing began to decline and game preservation developed, affecting Suffolk's woodland species. However, the 19th century was also the peak period in this area for the digging of chalk pits and quarries -favoured by Brown Argus and Dingy Skipper as well as the more common grassland species- although this did not stop the disappearance of most of our chalk downland butterflies before 1900. In more recent years many of these man-made habitats have also gone. The parallel decline of the working horse and the general move away from livestock to intensive arable farming led to a scarcity of wet meadows and pastures and the Marsh Fritillary became a casualty as long ago as 1904.

The reclamation of large areas of the Brecks for arable during the rest of the century and the advent of scientific agricultural methods had a marked effect on heathland species. The Silver-studded Blue disappeared from the Brecks completely. Intensive arable fanning was accompanied by a massive afforestation programme during the 1940's and I 950's and the methods used contributed heavily to the demise of our woodland butterflies. Add to this the affects of myxomatosis on grassland species and the possible influence of subtle climatic change, and it is not difficult to understand how butterflies have declined to today's levels.

That's the history, what of the future? How can we prevent any further decline and which of our butterflies are in most danger today?

The fate of the majority lies in the hands of fanners and landowners, including local authorities (and the Forestry Commission!). However, I feel we should be encouraged by the fact that many of the people who can influence the make up of our cmmtryside are keen to help ifwe can make a case and/or show them how! This we must do. Also, we must not m1derestimate our own individual contributions. From objecting to sensitive site development to making field observations, be it scientifically or casually, people who care can make things happen or stop them. If you don't know anything about it, or are W1sure how to help or where to start, why not come to the AGM on 26 March (see Events List), where the theme this year is Recording. Just in time to begin the new season !

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~i~--,..._ Make no mistake, the decline has not halted. There are still Suffolk butterflies in danger today. I would suggest that something like 6 species are vulnerable not least because they are already so difficult to find! We should all be aware of the status of the Silver - studded Blue, our adopted emblem, but what about Grizzled Skipper, Dingy Skipper, Brown Argus, and White - letter Hairstreak- and what is really happening to the White Admiral? It may already be too late for the Grizzled Skipper which was last positively recorded in 1979. The Branch would like to make a special effort in 1994 10 look for and record these 6 species in particular. Steve Piotrowski (see address on back cover) will be delighted to receive your sightings and we shall look forward to printing an article on them in a future Suffolk Argus. Good news or bad, we need to know. As champions of the reai countryside, we do not want to record the 22nd extinction in Suffolk. Steve Goddard

Acknowledgments: Thanks to Howard Mendel and Steve Piotrowski for their excellent book The Butterflies Of Suffolk (still available from Suffolk Naturalists'Society, c/o The Museum, High Street, Ipswich, Suffolk, IPl 3QH at £10 + £1 p&p) which provided a marvellous reference for this article. Many thanks also to Roger Smith, BBCS Conservation Committee Chairman and Habitat Survey Officer, for his interest and for providing other historical material.