Silver-studded Blue Workshop

Silver-studded Blue Workshop 18th June

by Rob Parker

This event was organised jointly between the Suffolk Naturalists' Society and the Suffolk Branch of Butterfly Conservation and took

place at Westleton. It was listed in the fldd

meetings diaries of each society and given some publicity locally by the Westleton Common volunteers. As a result, it was better attended than many single-society events, and drew 30 participants.

The format was a morning in the village hall for a presentation on the Silver-scudded Blue, its life-cycle and habitat needs, with particular focus on myrmicophilia and site monitoring. In this, Rob Parker was assisted by Eric Parsons who had studied, bred and reported on the butterfly in the past, and by Michael Kirby who knows Westleton Common and its wildlife well. We had the benefit of Butterfly Conservation's recently acquired laptop/projection system, which was useful for displaying close-ups of the butterfly and its interaction with ants. Everyone present learned something from the morning "workshop", largely as a result of the sharing of knowledge.

In the afternoon, we moved on to Westleton Common co seek P/ebius argus in one of its most successful Sandlings habitats. The day had been timed co hit the short period between expected emergence dace and the population peak on which the site counts are best executed, yet the 2005 season ran much later than the previous two years, and we all knew that very few had been seen up till then. Happily, the butterfly knew what was expected of it, and males were soon being seen on the Bell Heather, albeit in lower numbers than we would have wished. There were enough, however, for everyone to get a good look at this UK Biodiversity Action Plan species. The group included people who were seeing them for the first time, as well as others who have been involved with the annual counts for many years. We also cook the opportunity co look at the loss of habitat co an invading alien moss, the eruptions in the soil created by emerging Minotaur beetles, and the pies in the sand used by the Ant-lions to crap their prey - the very same ants that attend the larvae of the Silver-scudded Blue. Richard Fisk and Michael Kirby made valuable contributions on these broader topics, highlighting the benefits of a multi-disciplinary field meeting. Eventually, we spotted a couple of female P. argus, and accomplished the butterfly identification element of die workshop. Hazel Leggett, who lives nearby, showed us some rabbit topiary, where grazing has sculpted gorse into interesting shapes, and cold us about the Broad-bordered Bee Hawks she gets in her garden. With impressive alacrity, Tim Huggins inspected some honeysuckle, and came back with a leaf, co show us not only the characteristic feeding signs of the species, but also a tiny black skin, discarded by a first instar larva, and exhibiting a clearly recognisable tail horn.

Most of the group had the stamina to walk co the detached piece of the common, known as the Football Piech, where we saw a good area of the "pioneer heather" re-growth which suits the butterfly for breeding. In this case, it was a 50/50 mixture of Ling and Bell Heather. We also saw encroaching bracken at the margins, and Eric explained how the butterfly sometimes chooses bracken on which co lay its eggs, creating a management problem for those who seek to eliminate the bracken for the long-term good of the bunerfly.

The concept of a joint field meeting preceded by a specialist workshop, in a friendly village hall created an enjoyable and educational outing, and seems like a formula worth repeating.

Postscript. Ironically, the planned Silver-studded Blue count at Minsmere just two days later failed because it was coo early in the season, and the back-up day failed because of poor weather. Perhaps the message is that nature always has the upper hand!