COUNTRY LIFE
Photo: Adonis Blue by Mark Heighes
Saving our butterflies
A
mong our butterflies, one group
best sums up those hot days of
high summer. On a south-facing
downland slope, bright blue butterflies
skip and chase across the hillside. The
large blue is a very rare beast, only
found on a tiny handful of sites where
it has been reintroduced, and the small
blue flies earlier in the year, but the
other five ‘blues’ are all on the wing in
the summer holidays.
It’s on the grasslands like Arreton Down
that the blues really come into their own.
The familiar common blue, the large
powder-blue chalk hill and the dazzlingly
azure Adonis blue butterfly can be seen
on the wing together, and in the best
years on the best sites, the numbers really
can be staggering.
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By Lianne de Mello, Hampshire
& Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust PR
and Communications Officer
However these stunning butterflies
have been in decline, with some halving
in numbers in as little as two decades.
Not only does this threaten our food
production - one out of every three
mouthfuls of food that we eat depends
on pollination taking place - but it also
impacts upon other species, like the
farmland birds that feed on these insects.
One of the main causes of the decline
in the butterflies, bees and other
pollinators in the UK is the way that
landscapes have been managed over the
last 50 years. 97 per cent of wildflower
meadows have disappeared and use of
pesticides have been introduced, making
it increasing difficult for them to find the
food and shelter that they need.
There are many things that we as
individuals can do to help our pollinators,
from planting nectar rich flowers to
providing homes such as bug hotels. But,
what we really need to do now is to work
in a bigger more joined up way to ensure
that these wonderful and essential
species can thrive and we need your help
to do this.
Find out more about what you can do
to protect butterflies, bees and other
pollinators at: www.hiwwt.org.uk/protectour-pollinators.
www.visitilife.com
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