Above: Marsh Fritillary
Last week I walked around Chamber Farm Woods near Barney to look for the Marsh Fritillary. This is a butterfly that is in decline, and this is mainly because of its habitat. The Marsh Fritillary likes damp flowery meadows where lots of Devil's-bit Scabious grow, which is its caterpillar food plant. This habitat is in decline because of the drainage of fields and overgrazing.
Little Scrubbs Meadow within the Chamber Farm Woods complex and surrounding area is the only site in Lincolnshire where you can still see the lovely butterfly, Butterfly Conservation's Butterfly Report 2021.
The search for the Marsh Fritillary
Above Informational Sign about the Meadow
As I walked down the path towards the meadow, I first came across this sign, which tells you all about the site's resurrection from its previous life as an old unimproved grassland and conifer woodland. This was reseeded with seeds from existing flower-rich rides from Chamber Farm Wood to create this new area. By doing this, the existing meadow was doubled in size. This has been invaluable to the comeback of this butterfly.
This meadow has been a golden victory for Chamber Farm Woods and Lincolnshire, and not forgetting the butterfly itself as in previous years, there have been record numbers of these butterflies at this site in their hundreds.
Above Marsh Fritillary resting on a blade of grass
This year their numbers were down to previous years; this might be due to last year's excessively hot summer, which undoubtedly impacted the plants which the butterflies rely on.
After hunting about a bit, my partner and I found 4 Marsh Fritillaries, a big change from the previous numbers. When hunting around for these butterflies, we did find other interesting invertebrates, including a variation of caterpillars, a Tortric Moth, a Hazel Leaf-roller Weevil, and a Swollen-thighed Beetle.
Unknown Caterpillars
Twin-spotted Quaker
Unknown Caterpillars
Tortric Moth
Hazel Leaf-roller Weevil
Swollen-thighed Beetle
After a bit of a walk through the woods, we called it a day and headed home to check out the pictures.
It was indeed a great day out.
Good to see those Marsh Fritillaries in the end, although I was surprised by how few there were. I think you're right, the caterpillars would have struggled with food in that ridiculous 40C heatwave last year
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The Marsh Fritillary looks like stained glass. The Tortric Moth has really cool designs on its wings. And another of those funny green beetles!
nice post
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Fantastic photos of some very interesting little critters. Too bad the butterflies have lower numbers so far this year... hopefully they will recover quickly!