With the year rolling into July, things slow down in our woodlands birdwise. The trees create an impenetrable barrier, while the birds themselves are so much quieter, going round to the business of raising families, with just a few half hearted territorial songs disturbing the quiet woodland air. And the extreme heat doesn't really add to the mix, birds hate intense heat. However despite one type of animal on the wing being subdued, now is the time to see the other, BUTTERFLIES, and especially those specialists of woodland habitat.
Wolves Wood is a nice chunk of ancient woodland situated on the Hadleigh road to and from Ipswich. Its a beautiful area of coppice, with rides, open sunny glades and ponds, which attracts a vast wealth of wildlife. Despite it being towards the end of the flowering season, the damp glades were full of MEADOWSWEET, MARSH THSTLES, MARSH BIRDS FOOT TREFOIL and SPEARWORT, providing a riot of colour. HONEYSUCKLE wound its way over and across the various trees, enlivening the open glades with its beautiful scent.
With such an abundance of nectar growing, Wolves Wood has a good population of BUTTERFLIES, with large numbers of the commoner ones, such as RINGLET, GATEKEEPER, and plenty of WHITES. But its to the scarcer day fliers that my attention was drawn, and there were some good numbers on the wing. SILVER WASHED FRITTILERY were common, a large orange butterfly, with black markings, an inhabitor of this kind of habitat, ancient woodland. The odd butterfly would drop down from the canopy to feed on a bramble fluttering from flower to flower. Stopping under an oak tree, I glanced high into the canopy, and seeing small dark butterflies, I was sure I was watching PURPLE HAIRSTREAKS. Lo and behold, one flew down to my height to pause on a leaf, wings closed, but eventually to open them to reveal its dark purple colourings. The last ancient woodland specialist today was a WHITE ADMIRAL, which I was only to get a brief glimpse of flying past me, maybe a metre above my height. Such joys on a hot sunny day.
Just as beautiful as birds, butterflies are another indicator of the state of the countryside. In such well managed woodlands as Wolves Wood, there are huge numbers of them fluttering around, but away from areas like this, their numbers are small, just the odd one here or there. Gone are the days of clouds of butterflies, or even the large numbers I used to see on the buddleias when I was a kid. But all is not lost, as with sympathetic management, their numbers can bounce back fairly easily. All we need to do is to deindustrialise our countryside and let nature just breathe.
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