Nature celebrates return of endangered butterfly to our area

One of the rarest butterflies in the UK appears to be recolonising in our area decades after the last population died out.

National charity Butterfly Conservation has recorded the endangered Wood White at four local sites this summer - including a female laying eggs.

The species used to have a permanent colony in south-east Wales but that died out several decades ago and there have only been sporadic sightings since.

Butterfly Conservation says the new arrivals have almost certainly come from sites just over the border in Shropshire where it has been doing targeted conservation work to maintain Wood White populations in England.

Butterfly Conservation Head of Conservation for Wales Alan Sumnall said: “This is really exciting news for us: butterflies have suffered terribly in recent years because of human actions, but now we have a real success story - a new species for Wales - and what’s more it’s the result of fantastic, targeted conservation work by our team.”

The Wood White is a delicate cream-coloured butterfly with striped antennae. Its wings have furry edges and it is normally found flying slowly in woodland from May to August.

However, due to destruction of its habitat, its distribution in the UK declined by 76% between 1992 and 2019, to a handful of areas including in Shropshire. Even at its few remaining sites, its abundance has decreased 82% since 1979, and it is classed as an endangered species on the GB Red List.

Now there is a new hope for the species in Wales.

Butterfly Conservation’s county recorder for Montgomeryshire Clare Boyes received the first report of a Wood White from Martyn Moore at a site owned by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) at Coed Cefn-craig, near Newtown, on May 9. What’s more, Martyn noted that two of the species’ preferred plants for laying its eggs on - Meadow Vetchling and Greater Bird’s-Foot Trefoil - were present.

Excited by the possibilities, Clare arranged with NRW to access its other nearby forest sites.

She and fellow volunteer Richard Bullock went searching in July with Butterfly Conservation Head of Conservation for Wales, Alan Sumnall, and they found Wood Whites at three more sites - two more NRW forestry plantations close to the Kerry Ridgeway and at Roundton Hill, near Churchstoke, a Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust reserve nearby.

At one of the NRW sites at Siercwm, the team saw at least four individuals including a female laying eggs.

The sightings come after years of successful work by Butterfly Conservation with Forestry England to help the Wood White population in Shropshire to expand, and some of these populations are just over the border.

The charity believes the Wood Whites in Wales have come from those sites.

Volunteers now plan to do further surveys next spring and are in contact with NRW to discuss management of roadside verges along forestry plantation roads.

The exciting news also comes after a host of surprising butterfly and moth activity, much of it linked to this year's record-breaking weather.

Following the warmest and sunniest-ever UK spring, Butterfly Conservation recorded 18 species of butterfly emerging at least two weeks earlier than average, with a further 24 species at least a week early.

In Northern Ireland, the Cryptic Wood White butterfly – a close relative of the Wood White - has had two generations in one summer for the first time, with caterpillars that hatched in the spring pupating and emerging as adults in a matter of weeks.

The charity has also seen more Wood White success at a colony that it reintroduced to Fineshade Wood in Northamptonshire which this year has had two generations, with adults mating and laying eggs earlier than normal and those caterpillars pupating and hatching into a second brood of adults.

Butterfly Conservation Director of Nature Recovery Dr Dan Hoare said: “We always love to see butterflies and moths doing well in the UK, but we also know there are going to be winners and losers from the very rapid climate change we’re experiencing.

“One way we can increase the number of climate winners is by managing habitats positively so that threatened species can benefit as well as widespread mobile species. That means creating and maintaining good quality, connected habitat at a landscape scale, which Butterfly Conservation has been doing for years and will continue to do.”

PICTURE: One of the very rare Wood Whites captured locally by volunteer Richard Bullock.