The first Hawthorn leaves were spotted on an early-leafing bush at the Chawton roundabout on the A31, in East Hampshire, on February 3rd 1983, indicating how ridiculously mild the winter had been. Providence, of course, resents being tempted, and a bitter February ensued. Heavy snow fell on the 10th and 11th, and sat there, in stolid occupation of the land, only thawing late in the month. March was kinder, even producing a minor influx of that incessant wanderer from sunnier climes, the Painted Lady, along with a scatter of immigrant Red Admirals. That month belonged to the Small Tortoiseshell, logically so as this butterfly had been numerous throughout the summer and autumn of 1982. April wobbled, badly, being the wettest on record, though it gave a scatter of good days. Once again, the first Orange-tips emerged in Hampshire on April 16th, the day the first Cuckoos arrived. Then, there was even a heavy thunderstorm at the end of the month, a precursor of things to come.
May was so wet that Common Toads bred in the tractor ruts on Noar Hill, for the first and only time. The Duke of Burgundy flight season commenced late there, on May 11th, ushered in by a windswept individual which was rapidly blown away. Over in Alice Holt Forest, by mid-May White Admiral larvae had scarcely grown following their long hibernation, and Ash trees were starkly bare. Things were so late that the Pearl-bordered Fritillary was not out in the Chiddingfold woods on the 22nd, when the first Wood Whites were emerging. Frustrated away from conducting an experimental mark-and-recapture exercise on Duke of Burgundies on Noar Hill, I was forced first to study Wall Brown larvae again, as a consolidation exercise, and then to move on to White-letter Hairstreak larvae on the undersides of Wych Elm leaves.
Spring failed, but only for summer to burst through spectacularly and produce three hot dry months, before being blasted away by gales in early September. June commenced with a bang, literally, for a series of heavy thunderstorms crossed the Channel in its earliest hours, as if to obliterate a dismal spring and usher in a most hegemonic summer. Sunday June 5th started bright, though with a sultry and distinctly ominous breeze from the south-east. I had cycled the 8 kilometres to Noar Hill, into a stiff headwind, to count Duke of Burgundies in the chalk pits, knowing that the butterfly had emerged in goodly numbers there and would that day be at peak season. I counted 229 of them in two hours before all butterflies stopped flying. From noon, individual Dukes were seen flying into the tops of low trees, which they do just before the advent of seriously wet weather. I never finished my count. Nonetheless, 229 was the highest tally I ever managed on Noar Hill. Perhaps I would have totalled around 260 had the weather not deteriorated. Had I conducted a mental risk assessment I would have abandoned the count before noon, but I didn't; instead, I carried on in the greater interests of science and passion. Thunderstorms enliven me, electrifying the mind, and I relish them. I arrived home in the midst of a cataclysmic storm that lasted until mid-evening.
On the following day, which was cloudless, several immigrant Clouded Yellows were reported from the Isle of Wight and the South Downs. Seemingly, the butterflies had flown in on the back of the storms. These reports were difficult to comprehend, for I was part of a generation of naturalists who believed that Clouded Yellow invasions were a thing of the past. The butterfly had scarcely graced our shores during the 1960s and 70s. The thinking was that agricultural intensification in central and northern France deterred them from invading the Realm of Albion. There was some justification for this view, as between 1950 and 1983 the butterfly had only shown up in anything approaching reasonable numbers in 1955 and 1969. Even the great summer of 1976 produced only a handful. But 1983 changed all that: at least 15,000 individuals were recorded that year, by perhaps a quarter of the number of butterfly recorders active today.
In Hampshire, Clouded Yellows arrived in pulses during early June. Evidence suggests that they used the major river valleys, spreading onto the adjoining downland slopes. Having dedicated that period to studying the Duke of Burgundy and overseeing the reintroduction of the Marsh Fritillary to Conford Bog, near Bordon, at the request of the National Trust, I could only receive others’ records, and wait in hope. The wait ended with a scheduled trip to the Isle of Wight on June 15th. Magic was evidently in the air, for the ferry trip over to the island was sublime, with the whaleback downs shimmering alluringly in an azure haze. There is only one way for the naturalist to cross over to the Isle of Wight – on the Lymington-to-Yarmouth ferry.
At Compton Chine we found the Glanville Fritillary numerous, seeing in the region of a couple of hundred of these hyperactive orange butterflies, skimming swiftly over the crumbling sandy cliff face and feeding greedily on the flowers of Bird's-foot Trefoil and Thrift. One particularly splendid individual fed for a while on a purple Southern Marsh-orchid spike, a memorable sight for those entranced by beauty. When a dark cloud came over they hid in grass tussocks. By Compton's Glanville Fritillary standards this was a good show, but this butterfly was comprehensively outgunned by another, for that afternoon I more than doubled my life tally of Clouded Yellows, which were arriving low over the sea in ones and twos. By the happiest of chances my dear friend Ken Willmott had also been lured over to the island: ‘It's laying eggs!’ he shrieked in delight, as a female flew in off the sea and halfway up the cliffs before commencing the all-important task of egg laying. Indeed, the females were depositing two eggs a minute on the leaves of tiny plants of Bird's-foot Trefoil and Hop Trefoil situated in pockets of bare sand, in the hottest spots. Two females were of the pale helice form, a rare colour form that occurs only in the female of the species, in which the gold is replaced by pale white. The Clouded Yellows were not alone, for a few Painted Ladies also arrived from distant shores.
Another batch of heavy thunderstorms hit central southern England on Midsummer eve, but these may have knocked out more Clouded Yellows than they brought in. But the influx had laid a mighty number of eggs, and had spread right the way up the country – and the weather was set fair, suggesting that there could be a sizeable emergence of home-grown Clouded Yellows later in the summer.
July dawned hot and fair, and then intensified in heat, exceeding 30 degrees Celsius for the first time since July 1976. The White-letter Hairstreak, which had had the worst of possible times following the demise of most of its elm trees during the mid-1970s, staged a most welcome comeback, having miraculously colonised the beginnings of a new generation of elms. White Admirals emerged in stunning numbers in Alice Holt Forest and elsewhere, including a couple of ‘Black Admirals’ – the rare ab. nigrina variety – followed by a mighty emergence of Silver-washed Fritillary and then Purple Emperor. The latter began to emerge in Alice Holt on the 11th, and went on to have one of its most monumental seasons. At Bookham Common in Surrey, Ken Willmott saw a string of eleven in the favoured male territory there, including a dark male of the lugenda or iole variety. This is the highest number of Purple Emperors seen in a single vista that I know of – ever. I have never exceeded seven myself, though I have managed that tally on several occasions. Ken became known as The Blessed Willmott after this veritable blessing, though no one has had the effrontery to tell him, for he is a man of impressive modesty.
I missed much of the 1983 Purple Emperor season, for NCC contracted me (ably supported by Mrs O) to survey the Carboniferous Limestone hills of the Morecambe Bay area for butterflies. Rather incredibly, they had little information on the butterfly wealth of these hills, as there were no active butterfly recorders in the region and those who travelled up from the south visited only a few well-known localities, notably Arnside Knott. I had visited the region before, having stayed with a cousin of Mother's in Grange-over-Sands in August 1967, and having visited Arnside Knott and Witherslack in 1976 and 1981, but this expedition felt like a pilgrimage into a new world, a promised land. Our journey up north took two days, in an old but intrepid Morris Minor (registration NCG 67F, Oxford blue) as we were delayed by punctures at Warwick and Preston. But the weather held, fantastically, which is what matters. For ten days we arduously searched the grey limestone hills on both sides of the Kent estuary, under sunny skies and in temperatures in the mid-twenties. Each place we visited revealed its own intense magic in its own particular way. At each, I left part of my soul behind, for such is the nature of our love for special places. Even the walled limestone massif of Whitbarrow revealed its secrets – it is a haughty place at the best of times, belonging more in the foothills of the Pyrenees than northern England, and it wishes to be treated with respect. We decided to storm it, like Joshua Son of Nun when he took the Promised Land.
We had been set two main target species, High Brown Fritillary and Duke of Burgundy. The former is not a beginner's butterfly, being hard at first to separate from the similar-looking and equally fast-flying Dark Green Fritillary, with which it almost invariably occurs. But I had already cut my teeth with this butterfly, both in the New Forest and up here, on the Morecambe Bay limestone hills. The latter species was easier, for I had developed a sound method of surveying for it – by searching for the near-diagnostic peppering and panelling holes that its larvae make in Cowslip leaves. We found huge colonies of High Brown Fritillary on several of the hills, north and south of the Kent estuary, and some just east of the M6 motorway. Whitbarrow proved to be a bastion of this magnificent fritillary. His Grace the Duke of Burgundy was more elusive, but south of the Kent we found small colonies on the summit of Arnside Knott, on nearby Heathwaite, at the delightful Fairy Steps near Beetham, in two places on Gait Barrows NNR, and at Heald Brow in Silverdale. North of the estuary we found colonies on Yewbarrow, the lonely hill above Witherslack, along Brigsteer Scar, and a massive colony above the hamlet of Howe on the east flank of Whitbarrow.
Our main finding was that the area was clearly of national importance for both High Brown Fritillary and Duke of Burgundy, and probably for some other butterfly species too – and that we needed to return the following summer for further surveys, for the job was only half done. One interesting finding was the discovery that the Northern Brown Argus bred on both Common Rockrose and the rare Hoary Rockrose, for we found numerous ova and many young larvae on the latter plant along the crag and scar system that runs north to south due west of Kendal. The expedition was so successful that we were promptly contracted to return the following year.
Returning south, this time without vehicular vicissitudes, I found that butterflies had enjoyed a July even hotter and, localised thunderstorms apart, drier than that of 1976, and were consequently profuse. The Brown Hairstreak began to emerge at Selborne at the beginning of August, producing a relatively strong brood, though days quickly became too hot for this lethargic butterfly, the males of which are active only until the day warms up properly, after when they tend to become comatose high up in Ash trees. The hot weather had ensured a large second brood of the Wall Brown, a plethora of Common Blues, and a scatter of rare second-brood specimens of the Dingy Skipper, an early-summer species which will produce a few August specimens in hot summers. The downs turned grey, as is their wont in drought summers, clay soils developed hexagonal cracks, and the few dry heaths that had not been incinerated in 1976 went up in flames (heaths that had burnt up in 1976 had not yet regrown into a combustible condition).
A sizeable home-grown brood of Clouded Yellows started to emerge, from about July 23rd, probably augmented by fresh arrivals from across the Channel. Like the Painted Lady, this insect is a fast breeder, which in hot weather can metamorphose from egg to adult in six or seven weeks. There were reports of a swarm of them in a Lucerne field near Radlett in Herts. Every south-facing downland slope in southern England was graced by half a dozen or more of these living jewels, the males ceaselessly patrolling in search of freshly emerged females. There were at least ten on Noar Hill on August 4th, and I even saw a male flying down Selborne High Street, right outside the Gilbert White & Oates Museum. The females were again seen laying eggs on tiny semi-isolated plants of Bird's-foot Trefoil and other vetches in hot bare-ground situations, such as along the south-facing sides of tractor ruts. Numbers peaked during the second week of August, but remained high throughout that wonderful month. I followed another generation of larvae through in the wild, on Noar Hill and at Broughton Down in west Hampshire. The tiny larvae lay along the mid-ribs of the trefoil leaves, but the larger ones tended to hide away amongst the foliage.
September commenced with a thunderstorm, which augured well, but then fell apart as a deep Atlantic gale came over on the 2nd, persisting for three days. Butterflies were decimated by this, and were then annihilated by cold weather coupled with pulses of heavy rain mid-month. Consequently, the second home-grown brood of Clouded Yellows all but failed, for only a few individuals were seen into the autumn. I saw my last on October 6th – a female busily laying eggs on clover leaves in the lawn of a garden near Alton. Warm sunny weather during October came too late, for the bad September had stopped the 1983 butterfly season in its tracks. But three ecstatic summer months, following on from a generally good season in 1982, had set butterflies up very nicely for 1984.
Arnside Knott
The clitter of footfalls,
softened on scree paths,
past sun-straw heads of
Blue Moor-grass that wave
the July breeze, and blow
From here to here alone;
for there is nowhere else
to journey, just this place
of warm grey-stone paths,
and clear intensity of light.
Estuarine sands, stretch
silvering into distanced haze
where mountains far off fade;
whilst here, on this lone hill,
the wind and trees are one.