New haven for rare high brown butterfly

High Brown Fritillary (Tim Melling, Butterfly Conservation

The High Brown Fritillary is one of only two species placed in the highest threat category (Critically Endangered) in the recent Red List of butterflies in Britain and it continues to decline (the other is the Large Blue, which is actually increasing in numbers).

Over the past decade, the distribution of the High Brown Fritillary has decreased by 49% in Britain, higher than the decrease of any other species, from levels already severely depleted by long-term declines.

Butterflies

 

This isn't just a guide to British butterflies, it is a lot more. Matthew Oates is the National Trust's, and one of Britain's, leading experts. He fell in love with butterflies, and particularly the purple emperor, at an early age, and has been following them all around Britain ever since.

 

Highly recommended. 

Read full review » 

July 2011. The UK's most threatened butterfly has been thrown a lifeline with the opening of a nature reserve designed specially to cater for its needs. The High Brown Fritillary is confined to just a handful of scattered locations in the west of the UK, but the opening of Butterfly Conservation's Myers Allotment Nature Reserve in Morecambe Bay could help secure the future of this rapidly declining butterfly.

Myers Allotment is Butterfly Conservation's first formal reserve in North West England and is their first specifically for the butterfly. The reserve is already home to a small population of High Brown Fritillaries and it is hoped that numbers will continue to rise as the Myers Allotment site becomes established.

High Brown Fritillaries
High Brown Fritillaries are large, golden-orange butterflies, but in order to thrive they need specific habitats.

Monitoring by Butterfly Conservation has revealed the fritillary does best in areas with fresh clearings that provide warmth needed by its caterpillars and wide woodland corridors enabling the adults to move from site to site.

Northern Brown Argus and the Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary
The Myers Allotment Butterfly Reserve is attractive to High Brown Fritillaries and other rare species such as the Northern Brown Argus and the Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary, as it boasts areas of limestone pavement habitat, fine, flowery grassland and violet-rich bracken.

Richard Fox, Butterfly Conservation Surveys Manager said: "The High Brown Fritillary is one of the most highly threatened of British butterflies. It was once found in woodlands across England and Wales, but has undergone a catastrophic decline and is now found at only around 35 sites."

The butterfly is on the verge of extinction in Wales where there is only one remaining colony. Morecambe Bay is now the UK stronghold for the species with the Myers Allotment reserve forming a vital cog in the long-term conservation plans for the butterfly in the UK. The seven-hectare site is leased from the Leighton Hall Estate which owns other important conservation sites in the area.

Butterfly Conservation Project Officer, Martin Wain said: "The Forestry Commission have been very helpful in setting up a Woodland Improvement Grant. "This will help us to manage the woodland over the next five years. We hope to establish a network of woodland corridors, glades and coppice areas that will benefit butterflies as well as a wide range of wildlife."