Hedgepiggie

[bunn]

On Friday, coming back latish, we met a hedgehog in the road.  Philmophlegm did an excellent emergency stop, and we went and found the prickly wanderer, who had tootled slowly into the verge and was noisily struggling to climb it.   I escorted him well into the hedge

Comments

[timetiger]

I'm sad to read that the hedgehog population is declining and very much hope that the trend will be reversed. Good for you for helping the little fellow you found.

[carmarthen]

As far as butterflies go, buddleia is great adult food, but the main control on butterfly populations is availability of caterpillar host plants (as a non-native plant, I doubt any of your caterpillars will eat buddleia)--if there are fewer and fewer places with native plants, butterfly populations will decline no matter how nice and full of nectar people's gardens full of non-native plants are. :-/ If you want more butterflies, I'd suggest looking into what the caterpillars of your favorite species eat.

I also suspect you're right about hedgehogs and traffic.

[bunn]

Oh, absolutely, I do understand that buddleia only attracts adults. The thing is though, there is so much caterpillar food available, that I'm a little surprised that such an accumulation of buddleias flowering in warm weather is not attracting adults that had grown up on these foods across the immediate area

[carmarthen]

Whoops, sorry, didn't mean to lecture! I think a lot of the host plant diversity (especially for butterflies) is going to be in less common plants, probably? Grasses are basically only going to host some moths, and the others maybe one or two species each, I'd think. But yeah, there are other potential factors--the wrong weather at the wrong time of year can seriously impact pupation success or overwintering in some species, and depending on whether any of your species are migratory, habitat destruction in other areas can definitely have a ripple effect.

[bunn]

The Peacock, Tortoiseshell and Red Admiral butterflies all primarily eat nettles as caterpillars, and we do have several that are down as primarily eating 'Meadow grasses (various)' too - the Gatekeeper and Meadow Brown are the two that I usually see around here. http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/foodplants.php

The national figures show a steep decline in population numbers in the last 3 years, which were very wet - but more than that, there's a long-term population decline nationally. http://butterfly-conservation.org/163-1252/decade-of-decline-for-uk-butterflies.html - and that was before last year's very wet summer.

I did see a Peacock butterfly today. I have everything crossed that by next week he will be back with an army of friends!

[puddleshark]

That does sound like perfect butterfly territory - unimproved, unsprayed rough grassland with a mix of wild grasses and butterfly food plants...

The only thing I can think of is maybe there's a problem with the actual management - the grass not being allowed to grow high enough, or being cut too early, or overgrazed by livestock or rabbits? Might your your local wildlife trust have published anything on habitat management in your area?

[bunn]

Well, I suppose it's not the sort of open downland you have down your way, and the management is probably a bit hard to take an overview of

[ladyofastolat]

The House Embedded In A Rosebush. I want to read this novel. I also look forward to listening to a Here Be Random Goats! concert at some future folk festival, where they will be supported by Enclave of Pigs.

[puddleshark]

Heh! - a landscape of infinite variety!

I would have thought that sort of fragmented landscape would suit some of the bigger butterflies - Red Admirals and such... How odd that the buddleia is not working its usual magic.

[inzilbeth_liz]

It's very sad and worrying about the decline in hedgehogs. I suspect there are multiply reasons but the possible involvement of badgers obviously interests me. Increasingly I also hear that their rise in numbers is connected to a decline in ground nesting birds. As to butterflies, it seems a good year for them here but wasps have vanished!

[bunn]

I'm glad to hear there are still butterflies somewhere!