Wall Browns - 3rd generation in Suffolk

Anne Kilmer viceroy at gate.net
Sat Oct 11 17:47:05 EDT 1997


Chris Raper wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 10 Oct 1997 14:36:28 -0400, Anne Kilmer <viceroy at GATE.NET>
> wrote:
> 
> >> Is this a UK-wide thing? Are Wall Browns on the decline or had they
> >> gone through a period of expansion (in the last 30 or so years) which
> >> collapsed leaving the remaining ones are in ther more normal haunts?
> 
> >Lots of them in my garden, as far as I could tell. Field book seemed to
> >say so, at least.
> >West of Ireland, County Mayo. Fairly rural. Plenty of grass and old
> >walls for its enjoyment.
> 
> HI Anne,
> 
> Good to hear you still have them in Ireland. I have found scattered
> colonies iin the UK but they always seem to be in southern coastal
> counties. In Oxfordshire (ie. right in the middle of the UK) they used
> to be very common on the Ridgeway downs, flying along the hedges and
> chalky banks. AFAIK they disappeared about 10-15 years ago. :-(
> 
> I have discussed this with other local naturalists who had noticed
> exactly the same phenomenon. We can't work out a logical reason why
> they disappeared - possibly increased pressure from agriculture (the
> downs are heavily farmed)?
> 
> Any ideas anyone?
> 
> Cheers
> Chris R.

Are people spraying the roadsides and hedgerows with herbicides to keep 
down weeds? We've lost a lot of stuff that way.
According to Dr. Norman Hickin, who wrote a nice fat little book about 
Irish butterflies  (and No Moths!) it uses Poa annua, an annual meadow 
grass ... I wonder if the pasture grasses being planted have crowded out 
this nice little grass. 
He has a range map showing the wall brown's distribution in Ireland. 
Widely distributed, often abundant. Three broods in a good year. 
Folks in my part are too impoverished to spray, so far. Any minute now, 
though, the Eurodollars will fix that. They've already caused people to 
overgraze their pastures with their pernicious headage. (A subsidy for 
growing sheep.) No rules about how many per acre, so the canny farmers 
just bought quantities, shoved them all out there and let them die in 
the winter. amazing.
They've changed that rule, anyway.  
Anne Kilmer
South florida


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