Scottish Borders Butterflies 2021

Due to Covid travel restrictions our planned holiday to Spain was cancelled for the second year in a row. I always look forward to a trip abroad and the opportunity to see different butterflies.  On previous trips to Spain I have managed to see about 40 species of butterflies, so for the second year in a row my tally was going to be particularly low.

I am lucky that we have some land where we have done much to encourage butterflies and just a few hundred metres above our house there is an amazing valley where there are a lot of interesting species. There are a few interesting species that occur a few miles away, so I decided this year to see how many species I could find in the Scottish Borders.

The year started off well with a couple of Small Tortoiseshells, Aglais urticae,  visiting the garden in March and in April Peacocks, Aglais io, and Commas, Polygonia c-album,  joined them. Despite the good start to the season the weather was cold and wet later in the spring and I didn't find any caterpillars of these species, which is unusual. However, they obviously did manage to breed as there were more adults later in the summer, but not in as good numbers as normal.

I am always pleased to see the first Orange Tip, Anthocharis cardamines, of the season, as to me they mark the start of the butterfly season. This year they did well here and were seen in good numbers.

Of the other three species of whites, the Green-veined White, Pieris napi, didn't do as well as normal for some reason. Unusually, it was outnumbered by the Small White, Pieris rapae. Large Whites, Pieris brassicae, are never really numerous, but they were a regular visitor.

In early  June I drove over to Burnmouth to look for Small Blues, Cupido mimimus. Although there was a cool breeze coming in off the sea I still saw quite a few, along with Small Heaths, Coenonympha pamphilus, Small Coppers, Lycaena phlaeas, and Wall Browns, Lasiommata megera.

Back home and a walk up the valley added Northern Brown Argus, Aricia artaxerxes, and Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary, Clossiana selene, to the count along with loads of Small Heaths, Ringlets, Aphantpopus hyperantus, and Meadow Browns, Maniola jurtina.

Red Admirals, Vanessa atalanta, arrived in June and in September their numbers picked up as the new generation appeared. I was amazed how long they remained here with the last one I saw being on the 25th October, long after the first frosts.

At the beginning of July I headed towards Treepwood where I had seen old records of Large Heaths, Coenonympha tullia. It was difficult to find a suitable location amongst the fields grazed by sheep, but eventually I managed to find a boggy area with Cotton Grass growing. After much stumbling about I was delighted to find one Large Heath. I am not sure if numbers would have been higher earlier or later in the year, but hopefully they are doing well there.

In another visit up the valley above the house that month there were a few Dark Green Fritillaries, Argynnis aglaja, and loads of Small Skippers, Thymelicus sylvestris. Amongst them I spotted one Large Skipper, Ochlodes sylvanus.

Towards the end of July I went to Kelso to look for White-letter Hairstreaks, Satyrium w-album. Iain Cowe, the Borders butterfly recorder, had previously shown me how to find eggs on Elm trees, so I headed to the same spot. Within a few minutes I spotted some butterflies high in the trees and a little later one kindly flew down and landed on a branch next to me.

I was planning on a visit to a valley a few miles away to see Scotch Argus, Erebia aethiops, but the weather at the weekends was disappointingly poor. However, one lunchtime when I was walking around my meadow, I spotted a dark butterfly which turned out to be a beautiful fresh Scotch Argus. Of course, I didn't have my camera with me and I couldn't find it once I had run back to the house to get it! However, six days later I spotted a quite faded Scotch Argus in the meadow. Unfortunately, I will never know if it was the same butterfly!

So, I managed to see 23 species of butterflies in the Scottish Borders this year. I don't think there are many more species that I could have seen. Green Hairstreak, if I had been in the right place, possibly Grayling somewhere on the coast and Painted Lady, had there been more around this year. I was very pleased to have seen a Large Heath and White-letter Hairstreak - two butterflies I have never seen before.

Plantation Dilemmas

Our woodland used to be part of a larger estate. Some old documents refer to it as the woodland garden, but later maps call it Sawmill Wood. It seems that it was originally set out as a formal woodland, visible from the big house. I have seen photographs from the middle of the 1900s and it all appears to be large deciduous trees, with one picture showing some haystacks, so obviously there was grass growing under them.

In the 1970s it seems that a lot of the larger trees were cut down and there were quite a few areas around the estate that were planted with Norway Spruce and Scots Pine as a Christmas tree crop. Sadly the owners of the estate died shortly afterwards and the land was split into several smaller lots and sold off.

We had three compartments of “Christmas trees” on our land, two of Pine and one Spruce, each about two acres. The trees were now about 50 years old and about 80 feet tall. It was interesting to see that the ground under the Spruce was completely bare, with no grass, wild flowers or young trees growing. Under the Pine there was at least some vegetation, but it was quite sparse.

Two years ago we decided to have the Spruce plantation clear-felled and the adjacent Pine plantation thinned. This turned out to be quite a messy operation, as typically it coincided with a period of sustained rain! The forestry vehicles sank into the ground, so they used the brash from the trees to make temporary tracks. The mud trailed down our drive to where the trees were stacked, ready for collection. Once the work was completed we were left with a scene of devastation, with enormous piles of brash and branches scattered all over the area.

I spent the following year trying to clear the ground sufficiently to allow me to re-plant the area. This presented me with quite a dilemma. The whole idea of taking the Spruce down was to replant the area with native broadleaf trees that would provide a much better habitat for wildlife. Now I found myself having enormous bonfires. It felt so wrong to be producing all of this carbon dioxide, particularly after I had arranged to have the CO₂-absorbing trees felled.

A little bit of research was required. I know that you can’t believe all that you read on the internet, but I discovered a study that had been undertaken in Scandinavia. The researchers measured the CO₂ levels in a conifer forest prior to and after felling. It seems that for the first 15 years after felling and replanting a woodland the microbes in the soil produce more CO₂ than the young trees absorb. For the next 15 years the trees absorb more CO₂ than the microbes produce, but it takes that time to balance out the previous 15 years. So, it is only after 30 years that the woodland becomes a net CO₂ sink.

I also read that if you leave wood to rot, rather than burning it, the greenhouse gases produce are about the same, but obviously they are released over a much longer period. All interesting stuff, and quite alarming!

I also decided that it was better to leave piles of branches to break down, which would at least provide shelter for all sorts of wildlife rather than burn everything. Clearly the wood would be eaten by various invertebrates and then the rest of the food chain. Surely this would be a form of carbon sequestration.

It was very interesting to see how quickly the ground became colonised by wild flowers (or weeds, depending on how you look at it!). That first summer there was a carpet of Woodland Groundsel, Senecio sylvaticus, and a number of Spear Thistles, Cirsium vulgare, providing loads of flowers. There were also loads of young Foxglove plants, Digitalis purpurea, so the whole area had greened up by the end of the summer. The picture below is the thinned Pine plantation.

The following winter I planted 700 native broadleaf trees. A third of these were Sessile Oak (a condition of the felling licence) and the remainder were made up of Birch, Rowan, Field Maple, Aspen, Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Hazel, Crabapple, Cherry Plumb, Hornbeam and Willow. I also put in some Walnut trees, which are not native, but I wanted an alternative large tree and thought these could do well if the weather becomes warmer.

Many of these trees will provide flowers and fruit for pollinators, birds and small mammals. The trees are planted at 3 metres apart, but I have left open areas where I will continue to encourage wild flowers. I will also make sure that the trees do not become so dense that they block the light to the greenery growing below them.

It was lovely seeing the number of bumblebees enjoying the Foxgloves this summer and it is very exciting seeing the trees starting to grow. Some of them have even reached the top of their protective tubes. Despite the hard frosts last winter I only lost six trees out of the 700 planted. This is a picture I took this winter.

I am really looking forward to watching this area develop over the next few years.