You may well have noticed the distinct lack of insect life around this spring and summer….and it’s no wonder when you consider the weather we have been experiencing since the beginning of April. Cool temperatures, strong winds and lots of rain appear to have had a significant effect on insects, with the numbers of many species being a fraction of what they should be for the time of year.
For example, my butterfly transects are conducted weekly around the site, last week’s producing 38 individuals. Usually in the middle of July, I should be counting 150-200 butterflies in a transect! Moths too seem to be suffering, with smaller than usual catches in the moth trap recently and the hundreds of blue damselflies normally seen along the water’s edge on Phase 1 have been very slow starting.
The bad weather can affect insects in a number of ways, from simply making it difficult for them to fly and therefore to feed, find mates or lay eggs, to inhibiting emergence from pupae, sometimes even drowning them in waterlogged soil. It will be interesting next year to see the knock on effects of 2012’s bad spring and summer.
However, it isn’t all bad news as there have been several new sightings for the year this morning as I managed to record my first gatekeeper, Pyronia tithonus and small skipper, Thymelicus sylvestris butterflies along the public footpath by the silt lagoons. And thanks to volunteer Graham Gamage, we can now confirm the continued presence of purple hairstreak, or Favonius quercus on site in the woodland – one of our star butterfly species and a scarce, under-recorded species in the UK. Thanks to Graham also for the first southern hawker dragonfly, Aeshna cyanea record of 2012 this morning from Phase 1.