This week, due to the balmy British weather(!), the weekly volunteering session was cancelled. Unfortunately at Dove Stone we couldn’t get up to the moor as the snow had drifted across the access road. The sphagnum in the buckets were frozen solid too. So I was at a bit of a loss as to what to post this week.
My mind has been drifting to this time last year when the weather was a lot warmer. In fact the weather was unseasonably warm ironically, so much so that I could start butterfly surveying.
Last year I was assigned a butterfly transect walk at RSPB Dove Stone (specifically the shore of Yeoman’s Hay and Dove Stone reservoirs) which ran from April 1 to September 30, but if the conditions were favourable I could start early.
So armed with a clip board, a compass, an anemometer, a butterfly net and a butterfly ID book I began my survey. The conditions needed to be specific, temperature above 13°C (preferably above 17°C), not too windy, and not too cloudy. The first survey was a bit light on numbers, only four butterflies seen (two commas Polygonia c-album, a small tortoiseshell Aglais urticae, and a peacock Inachis io), but it was a great first step for me in the field of butterfly surveying having never done it before.
By the time the end of September came I was practically an expert (yer right!) in butterfly surveying, and my knowledge of the insects went from nothing at all virtually to pretty decent in six months.
Hopefully the weather will improve, and next week’s post should be more relevant!
Grass-roots Wildlife 