The Comma • Autumn 2011 - Butterfly Conservation

Larvae in final instar (Trevor Bucknall)
I brought violet seedlings into the warm in
January to force them on and then, in early
February, the pots with larvae in were moved into
a sunny position. When the sun comes through the
larvae emerge and feed in earnest, non-stop in fact.
At times I thought I had run out of food plants. A
lot of care is required at this stage due to the
amount they eat, and the fact that many climb up
on to the netting to pupate in the sunlight and need
regular spraying to stop them drying out.
We had some disappointments with predation
by spiders and ants despite our best efforts.
The good news is that a total of 78 adults were
released over a period of a few weeks, and each
The story made headlines in the Worcester News
(above) and the Malvern Gazette newspapers.
A mating pair in the wood at Grafton. Black and
red marks on the wings denote release on different
days. (John Tilt)
time the adults were marked with a different colour to
see how they migrated around the wood and to see if
they mated. This was on top of a release of 110 larvae
during the previous July.
Fortunately, the weather was largely good during
the flight period and lots of mating and egg laying was
observed. I also kept back a few adults to captive
breed, and have a few hundred captive larvae to top up
in 2012 if necessary.
Many thanks to Natural England for permission
and funding, Worcestershire Wildlife Trust as joint
owners of the reserve, the Forestry Commission for
permission to take stock from Wyre, Nick GD for his
expertise, and John Tilt for being a taxi taking stock
from my workplace to release them into the wood!
Also, this could
not have
h a p p e n e d
without the
t r e m e n d o u s
volunteers who
put in over
2,000 hours to
create the right
habitat for the
release.
Pearl-bordered
Fritillary pupae
(Trevor Bucknall)
Autumn 2011 • The Comma 5