Granville Country Park Butterfly Count - May 17, 2012. Keith Fowler

We were pottering around on the Western Stockpile at Granville in the early afternoon on a day that had improved steadily. A small group were studying the dominant lichen – Cladonia sp; others were searching the silver birch scrub and heather for signs of life; Graham was having a quiet moment leaning on the fence and Matt had disappeared.

A shout was heard from behind a screen of Silver birch. “Graham, Liz – over here”. No-one moved. Liz and her little group continued to study the lichen, others continued their searches, Graham was unmoved and Matt was still missing.

The call was repeated, a little more urgently this time, “Graham, Liz – over here!”.

This time one or two of us, with reluctance, heeded the call and made our way, leisurely, over to the source of the frantic call. What we found was Matt crouched down holding his net over a patch of ground.

“It’s in there”

We peered and saw nothing, unimpressed. “What’s in there?”

“Dingy skipper!”

Our attitude changed immediately; Matt had done it; he had actually managed to find and capture the target species – but we still could not see it under his net.

Carefully, very carefully, Matt inserted a pot under the net and fiddled around for a while before producing the elusive butterfly. Well done Matt.

Now, of course, everything changed, the small group abandoned the lichen, the searchers of Silver birch and heather appeared and Graham decided to let the fence hold itself up. The butterfly was handed around, studied, photographed, handed round again and more photographs taken. Finally it was released and, as if in gratitude, posed on a sprig of heather while even more photographs were taken. Eventually it got bored of all the attention and flew off.

This was, more or less, the finale of a day in Granville counting butterflies. It started off in the rain and cold when a group of half a dozen or so of us met at Granville’s car park. Matt briefed us - although we were unlikely to see butterflies we would survey the site looking for food plants.

We started off in Waxhill Meadow. The rain had stopped. We soon realised that searching for food plants without a competent botanist (or, dare I say it, a Vegetative key) was pretty difficult. Arguments over Common and Bush vetch raged but eventually we got our eye in for a few plants.


It did help that Liz found Grapholita jungiella, a micro-moth whose food plant is Bush vetch, so we knew it was there – somewhere.

From Waxhill we inspected the Dingy skipper bank and noted that it needs some attention during the winter. We paused for lunch, perching on the dragonfly, then made our way to the Western stockpile via the “Top of the World”. The clouds were thinning and it was getting slightly warmer.
In the eastern corner; was that a glimpse of a Dingy skipper? Desperate searching yielded no butterfly.

We moved on along the southern slope. The sun started to break through. A few gathered around a lichen; others went off to search the Silver birch and heather; Graham decided to check the fence and Matt disappeared.

Keith Fowler
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