Small Blue

Friday 22nd October 2021

Today we took the minibus on a drive around the Cotswolds as part of our assignment. We have to put together a landscape wide recovery plan for a butterfly - I have been allocated the small blue. This picture doesn't look like much but it is a disused quarry and has a colony of small blues. They are quite rare now, because they are so niche! The caterpillars only eat the kidney vetch plant and flowers and the adult butterflies only fly about 40m. Kidney vetch needs limestone grassland, that is sparingly grazed (but not in summer), and has some disturbance (or the seeds don't germinate). Given the 97% decline in our grassland over the last 50 years that's a tall order! A bit too niche for their own good I think!