Freezing rain is a rare phenomenon, and at New Year it is both rare and inauspicious. Nonetheless, that is how 1996 began. December had been cold and, after a brief mild and wet spell, January and then February followed suit. Cold easterly winds dominated, bringing snowfalls to the north and east, a few of which crept towards the west. The first reasonable day of the year, at least in the Cotswolds, was February 27th, which brought out the first bumblebees and Marsh Fritillary larvae at Strawberry Banks, near Stroud. The following day the first butterfly appeared, a Small Tortoiseshell basking upside down on a wall in Cirencester, though the temperature did not feel quite warm enough. Butterflies often appear earlier in the year in towns than in the countryside, simply because of the extra warmth issuing from heated buildings.
The year's first proper butterfly was a male Red Admiral, patrolling a hilltop territory at the old Large Blue site near Buckfastleigh in south Devon, the infamous Site X. It was flying in the glade that contained the Large Blue warden's dilapidated caravan and may even have overwintered therein, alongside various Field Mice, beetles, spiders, slime moulds and other esoteric biodiversity – and the previous August's washing-up. Think of the most disgusting domestic mess you have ever encountered, double it, multiply that by pi r squared, stick it in a white caravan turned green with age and algae and you've got the Large Blue warden's caravan. But that splendid and deeply memorable Red Admiral was a foretaste of what was to come. Oh, and by the way, the Large Blue site had been seriously over-grazed by Farmer Brown's cattle, again.
Thereafter March was cold and sunless, but reasonably dry. Hardly a butterfly showed. Winter would not let go. Chiffchaffs were only just starting to arrive on the south Devon coast at the end of March. April did not burst through, offering only a handful of warm days. It was not until almost the end of the month that the first Orange-tip was seen, a fresh male dancing over a roadside patch of Lady's Smock on the edge of Meathop Moss, in south Cumbria. On the moss itself the Green Hairstreak was only just starting, in contrast to the abundance noted there on April 24th 1993. Up on the nearby limestone hills the Blue Moor-grass had been severely scorched by frost and lying snow, and was straw-coloured, whereas this is normally one of the earliest of our native grasses to flush green. The north had clearly had it tough. A group of us up there for a Butterfly Conservation seminar thought about going out to look for the nocturnal larvae of the Scotch Argus, then realised the idea was daft and retreated to the pub instead.
It would be pleasing to say that May redeemed the situation, but it was the second coldest May of the century, after 1902. Frosts were a prominent feature well into the month. It was, though, like the preceding months, distinctly dry. Pearl-bordered Fritillaries, somehow, emerged with a bang mid-month in Ashclyst Forest, north-east of Exeter, and over Bracken stands in the steep gorge-like valley by Castle Drogo, on the north edge of Dartmoor. The late May period, normally a peak time of year for our early-season butterflies, then became stuck in a rut.
Unexpectedly, one of the most memorable dates in twentieth-century butterflying folklore dawned, Thursday May 30th 1996. It started grey, but a pale sun appeared, which burnt away the clouds of morning, and a clear afternoon materialised. Moreover, the wind was in the south, the deep south, and increased steadily, depositing a film of Sahara dust on parked cars. At Strawberry Banks the first Marsh Fritillaries appeared, along with my first Common Blue of the year – very late. At Rodborough Common the butterfly transect route was walked in full sun, for the first time that year. Nothing special was flying there but it was good to note that the Duke of Burgundy had not been entirely written off by the poor May, and that the Brown Argus was out in good numbers. Then, I retreated to the north end of Cirencester Park Woods where the Pearl-bordered Fritillaries were at last emerging, some forty of them, resplendent over Bluebell carpets which were just starting to flower properly. At 3.15 precisely, a Painted Lady appeared; it dropped out of the sky to feed on Bluebell flowers in one of the clearings. One Painted Lady does not make a summer, but sixteen do! By the end of the day I had counted that many, almost all of them dropping into the Pearl-bordered Fritillary clearings to feed on Bluebell flowers, which traced the afternoon with heady fragrance. The following day I surveyed other parts of the woods and saw another eighteen, again all looking pristine, complete with the iridescent sheen they bear when freshly emerged, and again feasting avidly on Bluebells. These were not home-grown butterflies but immigrants from way across the Channel, and they were accompanied by myriad Silver Y moths. Within the space of two days the 1996 butterfly season had metamorphosed into a veritable paradise. The Painted Lady had blasted all the doom and gloom away. Thank God I had booked those two days off!
There was no stopping 1996 now. Thirty-six Painted Ladies were seen on June 1st, mostly on Bluebells, in Cirencester Park Woods, where they outshone the Pearl-bordered Fritillaries. Some were also seen basking in late evening light along the lanes as I took a daughter for a pony ride. They had already reached the north of Scotland. By happy chance I had a work trip to the Isle of Wight booked, to advise on conservation grazing regimes. A fresh wave of Painted Ladies hit the Island on June 5th. I saw over a hundred feasting on, and laying eggs on, thistles along the cliff top at Compton Chine. They completely outstaged and outnumbered the Glanville Fritillaries. On the way home I called in at Pondhead Inclosure, south-east of Lyndhurst in the New Forest – Lyndhurst was traffic-jammed and the Forest was calling. There again were Painted Ladies feasting on Bluebells. Other Ladies were seen along the road home, active during a warm evening. The diary recalls: The first thing I saw on crossing into Gloucestershire was a Painted Lady. That was at 8.45 pm. It had been a twelve-hour day. Diary again: Arrived home to find an empty house and a note reading ‘Millie Hospital Cirencester’. It turned out that she had broken an arm whilst being chased in the garden by an errant brother.
During the emotional days that followed, butterflying had to be rationalised. The odd cloudy, even drizzly day was actually welcome. Mercifully the Painted Ladies quickly found our garden. There was a constant stream of them heading through, northbound, on June 6th and 7th. An expedition to Bircher Common, north of Leominster in Herefordshire, on June 13th, to advise a new warden on management for the High Brown Fritillary, was memorable for the car journey: I passed 50 Painted Ladies, all heading west into Wales. They were active long into the evenings. Regular evening pony rides, with an able daughter, produced counts of up to 45 along a 5-kilometre route of quiet rural lanes. Many were basking on a hillock I christened Painted Lady Rise, which attracted them in subsequent years.
Eventually I was able to get out properly again. A trip to Cheddar Gorge, primarily to assess the ecological impact of free-ranging Soay Sheep, turned into a memorable butterflying trip. Above the gorge, on its western side, Painted Lady males had set up territories along the cliff tops, particularly at a dizzy spot called Hart's Leap. They were accompanied by a scatter of Red Admirals, newly arrived too, and a dozen or more immigrant Hummingbird Hawkmoths. Best of all, the first Clouded Yellow of the year flew past us, on Heidi Hill. We cheered like football supporters. There was even a thriving colony of Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary, breeding on violets amongst coppiced gorse scrub. It was so magical that I returned there at the weekend with a car full of children, for a picnic, then took them strawberry picking. Summertime had broken through.
It was Midsummer Day and the Painted Lady swarm was weakening. In Cirencester Park Woods the Pearl-bordered Fritillaries suddenly shot over. Down near Porlock, the High Brown Fritillaries were starting on Bossington Hill, and Heath Fritillaries were in fairly impressive numbers at Bin Combe, on the east side of Dunkery Beacon. They were emerging late, as larval development had been held up by the cold, slow spring.
The Fates, being kindly disposed, had arranged for me to travel to North Wales to help with a training course. We were to meet at the Great Orme headland, just outside Llandudno. Here, I visited the richest area of limestone grassland I have ever seen – adrift with Bloody Crane's-bill, Dropwort, Nottingham Catchfly and mega rarities like Hoary Rock-rose and Spiked Speedwell, not to mention the commonalities like Bird's-foot Trefoil. There were also problems, in the form of invasive Cotoneaster, Strawberry Tree and Turkey Oak. The local subspecies of the Silver-studded Blue was more abundant, nay profuse, than I had ever seen a butterfly, with the possible exception of the Meadow Brown in an East Hampshire wood on Midsummer Day 1976. We were only there for a short while, but I left my heart behind and swore to return for a proper exploration. That evening I had to do something absurd – give a lecture during an England v Germany football match. As this was in Wales, and North Wales to boot, there was no escape. Now, had this been rugby, or rather rygbi …
The journey home involved a stop at a Carboniferous Limestone promontory called Graig Fawr near Prestatyn. Here, an erstwhile National Trust tenant farmer had abused much of the SSSI with chicken manure, slurry and Rye Grass, before going bust and surrendering the tenancy. The steeper land was beyond his reach and still supports a very rich limestone flora. It is in effect an outpost of the Great Orme in miniature. In 1983 Professor Chris Thomas released thirty female and ten male Silver-studded Blues, from the Great Orme, as part of his PhD research. A thriving colony resulted: I saw over 500 during my visit. Of course, the first and last butterflies seen in Wales that trip were Painted Ladies, though they were ageing.
July came in promisingly. In the Cotswolds, grassland butterflies were appearing late, but in pleasing numbers. The transect route on Rodborough Common abounded with Marbled Whites, Meadow Browns and Small Heaths, though Ringlet numbers were down – it does not enjoy hot summers. Even nearer to home, White-letter Hairstreaks were in goodly numbers, with most local clumps of mature Wych Elm holding a colony. Some appeared in our garden, even drinking by the side of the children's paddling pool one hot afternoon. A new generation of elms, mainly Wych Elm, had reached maturity and had become suitable for this beleaguered butterfly.
In the woods, White Admirals were emerging late. A short visit to Ashclyst Forest on July 10th was memorable for the sight of males searching Honeysuckle tangles, repeatedly pecking at certain spots. Close inspection revealed that they had located female pupae that were about to emerge. This was an old New Forest collectors' trick, used as a way to acquire perfect specimens. The other admiral, the Red Admiral, was prominent that day. A mass arrival had recently hit Devon.
By happy chance a mid-July trip up to the Lake District had been arranged with Martin Warren of Butterfly Conservation. Millie, recovering from her broken arm, came too. First stop, Meathop Moss, at Witherslack. It was calm, hot and sunny, with an anticyclone stationed over the Lakes. Large Heath was fully out and truly abundant, clearly having a good year. It was not possible to count them, though, as I had left my watch in the car – never make that mistake, as timed counts produce invaluable data. The butterflies would disappear when a cloud came over, reappearing wondrously with the sun. One such revelation offered a vista of sixteen Large Heaths close by as the sun reappeared. It was too hot for the females, though, for they had taken to shading in cottongrass tussocks. Up on Yewbarrow, the Yew-haunted hill above Witherslack church, High Brown Fritillary and Dark Green Fritillary males were emerging nicely, whilst June's Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries were still flying in numbers. I needed a photograph of a Northern Brown Argus with the white forewing spots, only most of them lacked these spots. Indeed, during the years I have known the Morecambe Bay limestone hills the Northern Brown Argus seems to have all but lost its white spots, and now looks very much like an ordinary Brown Argus.
It was time for the Mountain Ringlet. All good Mountain Ringlet expeditions begin with a visit to Wordsworth country at Grasmere, in this instance because a young lady needed to visit the facilities. I also showed her Wordsworth's grave. That did the trick. She progressed to become an English scholar. Martin decided to visit the Mountain Ringlet colony at Fleetwith and Grey Knotts, south of the Honister Pass youth hostel. Millie and I took the more arduous side, the north side, ascending Seatoller Fell and Dale Head. The lower south-facing slopes of Seatoller Fell drew a blank, probably because the butterfly had finished for the year there, but higher up below Yew Crag we found a colony still going, though the males were all but spent. Millie spotted a female Mountain Ringlet drowning in a shallow pool, and promptly rescued it. After drying its wings for a couple of minutes it embarked on a crawl through the short grasses, laying two eggs on dead horizontal Sheep's Fescue blades before fluttering off, crash-landing as Mountain Ringlets do, crawling again, and laying two more eggs, again on horizontal blades of Sheep's Fescue close to Mat-grass tussocks. Four eggs in five minutes! By Mountain Ringlet productivity standards that was amazing. And Millie found a Wheatear's nest, with young, amongst rocky rubble. On descending we found a note from Martin, who had departed for the south, on our car windscreen. It read: ‘The MR roadshow hits big! I saw 158 in 60 mins, a staggering 128 in 30 mins in the best bit. Mega. I failed on egg laying, they all just sat there. Thanks for the trip – another to remember. Safe journey. Pip, pip.’
Millie and I stayed on an extra day. It was obvious where we would go, Fleetwith. Only by the time we had ascended, 11 am, it was already hot and cloudless, and Mountain Ringlet females were shading in grass tussocks. The mountains became obscured in a heat haze. My timed count outscored Martin's of the previous day – totalling 211 in 50 minutes, including 137 in the core area. The vegetation structure in this favoured area, where females had gathered en masse, consisted of a carpet of dense Sheep's Fescue with frequent tussocks of Mat-grass. That seems to be what Mountain Ringlets like best, but butterflies eternally encourage theorisation and hypotheses, which they then shoot down in flames. Meanwhile, young Millie made a delightful rock garden of lichens and mosses over a flat rock, and found a Ring Ouzel nest amongst the rocks, only the young were just leaving the nest. The journey home was arrested by an excellent evening flight of Purple Hairstreaks at the Hilton Park Service Station on the M6.
Down south, the Purple Emperor seemed to be having a poor season, especially in Alice Holt Forest where Forestry Commission thinning works were decimating its habitat. Nationally, it was first noted on July 13th, at Bookham Common in Surrey, by Ken Willmott. I searched for it vainly in woods in south Gloucestershire and north Wiltshire, feeling that it was calling for me. The White Admiral was shooting over quickly in the heat, as is its habit in hot summers. On the East Hampshire heaths the Silver-studded Blues were long gone, after a short, sharp and sweet flight season.
Then, at the end of July, the home-grown brood of Painted Ladies started to emerge – and threatened to obscure the entire UK, town and country, under a cloud of butterflies. There was some evidence to suggest that this might happen:
Diary, July 24th 1996: Babbacombe, north Devon. Amazing abundance of Painted Lady larvae. The immigration here must have been incredible. In the thistle-infested field in front of the house I estimated that 60 per cent of all the Creeping Thistle plants held at least one larva, most had more – and there were literally hundreds of Creeping Thistle plants. In another field I found a single 1-metre tall Spear Thistle which had over 50 larval tents on it, and other Spear Thistles there were skeletonised. I even found larval tents on 30-centimetre tall nettles and tiny isolated thistle plants among a maize crop. Very few on Marsh Thistle, and then only on well-leaved plants. Most of the larvae were full grown, many had already pupated.
There was no need for farmers to mow thistles in north Devon – the caterpillars had done it for them. The previous day I had found numerous full-grown larvae on nettles along a lane in the Heddon valley, on the Exmoor coast. There was going to be an eruption, even an eructation.
There was only one place for the Painted Lady show to kick off, the Kingcombe Centre in West Dorset, just down the road from where I was born. In 1996 my Kingcombe butterfly course (only it was never a course, more of an experience) ran over the weekend of August 2nd to 4th. We were in luck, an anticyclone was building. We started with a visit to see the Lulworth Skipper in its most westerly locality, Bind Barrow near Burton Bradstock, in near-calm conditions. The skipper was abundant: I counted 138 during my standard fifteen-minute walk around this small clifftop site. Impressive. There was also an impressive evening flight of Purple Hairstreak in the Kingcombe meadows that evening, plus a scatter of freshly emerged and rather crepuscular Painted Ladies. As in north Devon, Painted Lady larvae were almost profuse on Creeping and Spear thistles in the Kingcombe meadows.
The following day I saw well over a thousand pristine Painted Ladies. At one point I had to stop the Kingcombe Centre's minibus and remonstrate with the driver, Nigel Spring, who was squashing Ladies willy-nilly along a hilltop lane. ‘You can get out and walk!’ he replied. I did, and found that a minor cloud of Painted Ladies was feasting in the adjoining Red Clover field. At Lydlinch Common, near Sturminster Newton, groups of 20–30 Ladies were feasting on small patches of Saw-wort. Then, in a fifteen-minute spell of bliss, I counted 334 on Hemp Agrimony patches along the western ramparts at Hod Hill, near Blandford Forum. The Red Admiral was almost as profuse, with a massive appearance of fresh specimens. They had crept up on us unnoticed, amongst the blizzard of Painted Ladies. Best of all, the Clouded Yellows were in properly at last. We saw nine on Hod Hill, and would have seen more had we investigated the large field of Lucerne on the southern slope below the hill fort – there is nothing Clouded Yellows like better than a Lucerne field. The following day Powerstock Common, near Maiden Newton, gave a count of 352 Painted Lady in two hours, plus over a hundred pristine Red Admirals. Kingcombe had put the world to rights.
It was my birthday. Where did we want to go? ‘Slimbridge!’ the children all shouted. It was a wise choice, as it produced 400 Painted Ladies, including 100 on old Buddleia bushes by the Wild Goose Observatory. Those bushes had been planted by butterfly lover Sir Peter Scott. Sir Peter was not just a birder, and was for some time President of the British Butterfly Conservation Society, now Butterfly Conservation. More Ladies were feasting on Common Fleabane, Hemp Agrimony and Purple Loosestrife in tall fen vegetation. On the way back I was permitted to walk the week's butterfly transect at Rodborough Common, near Stroud, whilst the children visited the ice-cream emporium on the top of the common. The transect count produced 74 Painted Ladies, and a Clouded Yellow. Quality.
A week later I visited Noar Hill, to walk the week's butterfly transect there, as Tony James, the recorder, was on holiday. Our youngest daughter, Rosie (full name Euphrosyne), aged nearly four, accompanied me. She often did that summer, simply because she liked to sing in the car, without risk of being teased by her siblings. She sang her own songs: ‘Naughty, Naughty Dumper Truck’, ‘Horsy Wants to Eat the Jam’ and, best of all, ‘Dinosaur Goes Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!’ The latter was too much: I swerved into a lay-by, helpless – and discovered a White-letter Hairstreak colony, based on a mature Wych Elm. ‘Dad,’ she asked, when we were halfway to Selborne, ‘where are we going?’ ‘Home,’ I replied. ‘Oh,’ she said, and fell asleep. At Noar Hill, Painted Lady numbers were down from 145 the previous week to a mere 46, but Red Admirals were profuse and I counted nine Clouded Yellows. The Brown Hairstreak was just getting going, with a scatter of fresh males, though it was apparent that there was not going to be a repeat of the previous year's abundance.
It was time for a short seaside camping holiday, taken at the National Trust's low-facility camp site at St Gabriel's Mouth on the Golden Cap estate, on the West Dorset coast. No caravans with loud TVs, no families rioting past the midnight hour, no live entertainment every Saturday night, and no rip-off shop selling UHT milk – i.e. a proper camp site, and in SSSI meadows. It was populated by National Trust countryside supporters, folk who seldom if ever visit NT mansions. Round a camp fire at St Gabriel's one evening, it became clear that several of them had visited far more National Trust countryside than I had. They lived and breathed it. On the way to Dorset, we broke our journey at Barrington Court garden, near Ilminster. Painted Ladies, Red Admirals and Peacocks were numerous there, and I utterly disgraced myself. In the Jekyll-designed white garden, flitting jerkily round clumps of Broad-leaved Everlasting-pea (perennial sweet pea), was a strange blue butterfly, behaving rather like a hairstreak. It was a Long-tailed Blue, one of our rarest migrants, only it quickly shot off, claiming another engagement. One can behave as I did during that minute at a football match when one's team scores, and be considered perfectly normal; in a National Trust garden, though, such behaviour is deemed inappropriate, and a gross embarrassment to children.
Painted Ladies and Red Admirals were congregating along the Dorset coast. At St Gabriel's Mouth, they clustered on the clifftop flowers; then, each afternoon, many would set out south-westwards across Lyme Bay, perhaps heading towards Prawle Point, the southernmost tip of Devon, prior to proper emigration. On August 17th they were setting out to sea at the rate of one per minute. All told, over a period of three days about 500 individuals of each species were seen flying out to sea, following the same course, low over the wavelets. Back home, the Painted Ladies had virtually all gone. None of the prolific home-grown brood had shown any interest in establishing territories, courtship, mating or laying eggs.
After the first week of September the Ladies literally disappeared. I saw just three after September 8th. It seems that they emigrated during late August and early September. South-coast birders watched them go, low over the waves. The Red Admirals and Clouded Yellows remained, though their numbers steadily dwindled. The great butterfly summer of 1996 gradually waned, then slid into the past – to take its rightful place on the high table of great butterfly summers.