Magic moments in place of tranquilicy ............................. 1 9 Down the Scallode Wash to Botany Bay

Down the Stallode Wash to Botany Bay

by Richard Champion

\v'ha1 nnc.lli\'c names these arc' Not some romantic foreign shore in this instance but a little hit of Suffolk that is as far west and north a~ you c:an go without a passport. The good weather promised for July ."\Oth 1999 duly arri,·cd and I set off to do some huttcrfly recording in this area that I had nc\'cr prc\'iously \'isitcd. N11 '<Hl!Wr h.1d I p.irknl up at the mu1h rnd of the S1.1llodc \v'.1,h and begun sorting out my rucks.ick than the first hu11crfly nf the day - a pristine male wall landed beside me on the gravel track. As this was a "new" record for the millennium survey, I set off north along the track with high hopes for the remainder of the day. An hour later I reached the railway line at the south end of Botany Bay and had recorded 16 species including the three skippers, the three whites, all the common browns, plus Peacock, Comma, Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell, Brimstone and Common Blue. What surprised me the most was that in many places along the track, the Wall was the common butterfly - indeed I must have seen nearly 30 in the first hour. I carried on to the north end of Botany Bay where you come to the Little Ouse and the county of boundary, and turned east along the top of the dyke that separates the river from the new RSPB Lakenheath Fen reserve. Once again the Wall was the common butterfly on several sections of the dyke and a couple more "new" black dots were added to the rerrad map, bur the only additional species seen was a single Painted Lady. The day was turning our to be a real scorcher so I retraced my steps back to the car for some food and water. As I sat on the grassy bank enjoying my lunch and the glorious sunshine a Clouded Yellow flew past and landed a couple of yards away.

This was my first Clouded Yellow since 1996 and it put on a wonderful show, flying and resting, for at least a quarter of an hour, but almost needless to say I had no camera with me! Ever the optimist, I decided to move on and visit the last two "under-recorded" tecrads in this part of Suffolk, and was fortunate to record five species in each afi:er some prolonged searching. The Wall is not a common butterfly in north-west Suffolk, but by the end of the day I had recorded it in seven tetrads, five of which were new. This prompted further intense searching for this delightful butterfly over the next few weeks in the remaining blank tecrads in this part of the county. Nowhere else were they to be found in the same numbers encountered along the Stallode Wash, but rather as singles or twos and threes along drove roads, bridle-ways and bye-ways. In many parts of the Fens these trackways criss-crossing agricultural "deserts" provide the only habitat of any kind for butterflies and other wildlife. Where the Wall is concerned, this is especially true where verges are lefi: un-mowed (or are much wider than the single width cut commonly taken down each side), and are backed by at least one hedge or a ditch. The north end of the Stallode Wash produced a few third brood specimens of the Wall in late September 1999, and it will be interesting to see if the high second brood numbers will translate into better than average first brood numbers in 2000.

Wall Brown by Douglas Hammersley