Village Elm Trees.

 Many of the older inhabitants of the village will remember the magnificent avenue of Elm trees that lined the Bridport road as we went into Dorchester, all now felled by Dutch Elm Disease. Elm was never prominent down in the valley, where Ash was the most numerous of our native trees, but there are still scattered remants. Elm is an important food source for the caterpillars of 59 moths and two butterflies, the Comma and the White Letter Hairstreak. The Comma will also eat Nettles (plentiful in my wildlife garden ) and Hops, but the White Letter Hairstreak sticks to Elm and Witch Elm, which probably explains why they haven't been recorded in the valley so far. There is a county wide effort this year to locate surviving Elms and check for White Letter Hairstreaks, so what can we do in Martinstown? Our one Witch Elm by the Pound, which survived the Dutch Elm Disease attack, died three or so years ago, but there are six Elm saplings at the side of the bridleway up to Ewelease Dairy. Easily identified by their heavily ridged bark, they are at present abundantly in flower and look healthy. The butterfly is known to use saplings as well as mature trees, so in the absence of the latter it may well be forced to use the former.  We must keep our eyes open as we climb the hill.

White Letter Hairstreak. Photo.  David Simmond

Elm Blossom.  Photo. John Elliott

Elm Bark. Photo. John Elliott.

The Start of the Butterfly Counting Season.

Having been released today from 'Shielding' and the weather being good I took the opportunity to visit the Tadnoll Nature Reserve to firstly, check on the condition of the transect route and, if any, count the butterflies. Pleasingly the transect was much drier than it often is at this time of year. The heathland section drains rapidly and is usually dry but the old water meadows can be difficult after a wet winter. This area is now destined to becom 'mere' and many of the old drainage channels seem to have been blocked and are no longer  difficult to cross. I got round the transect quite easily, in spite of the fact that I forgot my boots and went round in shoes. A team of seven of us covers the 26 weeks of the counting season, doing three or four weeks each, and I upload the counts into the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme data base.

And did I see any butterflies?  Yes, 3 Peacocks and 1 Comma.