Hello Everyone,
With a decent spell of warm and mainly sunny weather, it was ideal conditions for new species to appear and the first Small Copper was noted on the 5th of May 2024 along the Ripley Greenway (Joanna & Matt Raisin) who also saw a couple of Dingy Skippers there on the same day. This was followed by another 3 Dingy Skippers seen at Whitwell Tip on the 6th of May 2024 (Ian Hurst) and the first sighting of the species in the Peak District on the 9th of May 2024 when a singleton was seen in Cunningdale (Dave Purchase et al), but the highlight of recent sightings in the County was the record of a Clouded Yellow seen on the 30th of April 2024 which was flying across the Forge site in Ironville towards the nearby Cromford Canal (Sally Fisher & Debbie Bliss) – this is the earliest sighting for the species in Derbyshire just beating the previous record of 3rd of May (2014). Just one sighting of the migrant Painted Lady this week when Tim Brooks saw an individual on Carder Low (380 metres above sea level) which was obviously hill topping on its way to the Arctic Circle! With a High Pressure system settled over the UK at the moment, will that bring further sightings of these rare migrant butterflies to our County this weekend?
Pleasingly the Green Hairstreak is now making appearances in Derbyshire in both the Dales and the Moors with recent sightings coming from 11 locations on the Moors and 13 locations in the Dales together with the first sighting on the transect at the National Stone Centre, Wirksworth on the 2nd of May 2024 (Alan Walker) and a couple seen in Toton Sidings on the Notts/Derbyshire border on the 30th of April 2024 (Dave Gilbert). Highest counts for the species came from Cunningdale (61 no on the 9th of May 2024 – Dave Purchase et al) and 59 no seen on bilberry across Kinder Scout on the 9th of May 2024 (Karen Mort).Meanwhile further singletons of the Holly Blue have been seen in the Lowland parts of Derbyshire with sightings from 24 recent locations, including 3 seen on the 6th of May 2024 in Goseley Cutting,Woodville (Kate Allies) One disappointment has been the poor performance of the Red Admiral, after it had such a good showing in Autumn 2023, with recent singletons at only Biggin Dale (Derek Brownlee), Hay Dale (Sue Walker), Broomfield College (Paul Foskett), Little Eaton Canal (Brenda Shore), Dalbury Lees (Maggie Percival), Coombs Dale (Al & John Roberts), Thornhill NR (Chris & Helen Perkins) with 2 noted on the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey at Pleasley Pit on the 30th of April 2024 (David Elliott) together with 2 seen in Lathkill Dale on the 2nd of May 2024 (Andrew Woodhouse)
In addition to good numbers of the Orange Tip seen in the County recently, there have been some decent counts of the Brimstone with sightings of at least 10 no coming from Creswell Crags (Jason Lowe), Chee Dale (Cate Beck & Sue Mitchell), Findern (Roger & Lynette Nash), Coombs Dale (Al & John Roberts) and Lathkill Dale (Peter Faulkner), and at last the ‘whites’ are being seen regularly across the Countryside together with Speckled Woods which can of course be seen in gardens as well, with 18 no seen on the 9th of May 2024 at Holmewood Valley Park, Chesterfield (Tony Hudson) and 25 no seen in Goseley Cutting, Woodville on the 6th of May 2024 (Kate Allies). Unfortunately no further sightings of the Wall Brown have been received for this last week and next week’s weather forecast is not great, so this weekend could be a good time to look for this Endangered species in the County!.
We are now well into ‘No Mow May’ so let’s hope that those Organisations who have signed up to the project keep to their promise to try and help our pollinators including butterflies and bees – it wasn’t too evident during April alongside the A6 roadside verges in our part of Allestree where the boundary exists between 2 different Councils ( have a look at the attached photo).It is good news to hear that Erewash B C has started a new campaign called ‘Wild about Erewash’ to help both people’s health and wellbeing together with increasing local biodiversity by greatly reducing the use of weed killer along with less formal planting and a greater focus on encouraging wildflowers and insects – if only other L A in the County took up this great initiative then we would all benefit.
