After a very poor year for butterflies in 2024, the 2025 season has got off to a good start. Our target species has always been the very scarce Wood White and despite it returning to Rosemary Lane Wood during the second brood each year we have never seen any 1st brood specimens, that is until now.
On the 28th April I found two males along the East West ride where so much effort has gone into improving the habitat. The following week I saw the first female in the same location and watched as she carefully selected the Greater Birds Foot Trefoil on which to lay her eggs. This was particularly satisfying as we had planted these as plug plants in the bottom of the ditch a number of years ago. Neil Hulme’s advice on exactly the best locations to plant our plug plants is clearly starting to show results. So far, I have recorded 9 Wood White in a 5 week period including a second female laying eggs. Some recent rain has perked up these food plants and a bit more certainly wouldn’t go amiss. In the rest of Chiddingfold Forest it has been a solid first brood for Wood Whites so the fact that we are having our best ever season suggests our conservation working is paying off. Overall, the signs are very encouraging for the second brood which should start to emerge in late June or early July.
The summer season has now started with the sight of the first Meadow Brown butterfly on the 28th May.
Whilst conducting the weekly butterfly transect, I kept noticing some dark coloured wasps building small chimney shaped structures on the bare ground on the top of the bank on the East West ride. I think the wasp is a Spiny Mason Wasp which builds the chimneys from mud to protect its young and I could see at least 50 such structures. However, the bank was also covered in the much smaller Jewel or Cuckoo Wasps which is a parasite of the Mason Wasp. Strangely there seemed to be more Cuckoo Wasps than Mason Wasps. Now however many of the nests seem to be completely over run by the wood ants so the Cuckoo Wasps might not have had the last laugh. I shall be looking out to see if the birds and lizards feed on the ants to see the next link in the food chain.
Tom Parker