Frickley Country Park
Owned by the land Trust and managed by Groundworks
Site Details:
Recorders: Distance : 1568m Walk time: 1 hour
Frickley Country Park is a former colliery and restored as a green place. It has over 7 miles of footpaths and cycle-ways, This park has a mix of open meadows, wetlands and woodlands, providing homes for a wide variety of birds, butterflies. A very varied and interesting butterfly site with areas of dry neutral grassalnd devloping supoprting a colony of Dingy Skiper and Common Blue is numerous.
Teh eastern corner is particularly rich and smal;l heath is abundant
Sections:
From the Car Park S1-S3 follows along a brook with damp Grassland. It is favoured by Ringlet and Orange Tip and teh long grass gatekeeper and the Whites.
S4-S6 are grassy banks with low numbers,
S7 and S8 are the banks and exposed coal shale areas of the created pond and its fine grasses are favoured by Small Heath.
S8 having the largest counts particularly Common Blue, Gatekeeper and Meadow Brown. are
S9 starts the second half of the route.
S10 is very much favoured by Small Skipper.
S11 is very quiet
S12 favoured by Smal heath, meadow borwn and Small Skipper.
S13 in contrast is favoured by Gatekeepers and smal heath
S14 and S15 are similar and have teh very largest counts S14 is favoured Gatekeerp and Small heath whiel S15 is more favoured by Meadow browns
Results: 2024
Countywide, after a warm winter April turned cold, very wet and dull and everything just about stopped and it was near impossible to transect walk all month. By May there were already losses among our spring species being down a third in numbers. June brought Arctic winds, a complete reversal of the Hot June of 2023 when nine species reached all time highs here and across the UK. For the first two weeks of this June temperatures were 8’C cooler than in 2023 around a frigid 9’C with only 5 good days of sun at the end of the month. The first three weeks of July had the same theme of cool and damp with 5 warm sunny days at the end. Transect walking for many was very difficult. The persistence of the cold and damp over such a long period had a devastating effect with numerically two thirds of our butterflies in the critical later stages of their development; mortality was very high. It was also one of the longest June ‘Lulls’ lasting from late May to the beginning of July. When the main flight season did arrive it was slow to build up and there was no usual peak. Better weather in August helped save the second generation and very unusually numbers actually went up at the start of September.
Losers
For many species it was a triple whammy after the heat and droughts of the previous 2 years and last July’s poor flight period this year made it a perfect storm. Overall, annual numbers were down 41% against the average and 45% down on last year. Half our species were down more than 50% and a quarter down more than 70%. The Lycaenids, Vannesids and the Fritillaries were amongst the worst affected. Many transect walkers did not see a single Common Blue, Small Copper, Holly Blue, or Brown Argus until late into their 2nd broods.. Four of our long term declining species Common Blue, Small Heath, Small Skipper and Green-veined White had their worst year ever recorded.
The Winners and less bad losers
Northern Brown Argus had an exceptional year up near 50% Other species bucking the trend were Brimstone and Marbled White. The damp loving Ringlet on many limestone/dry sites were up a half while on most wet sites they fell by a half. However if it wasn’t for Ringlet holding up the overall numerical losses, this year would have been significantly worse. It often happens when Meadow Brown has a very poor year, like this one, Ringlet does proportionally better, and vice versa in a warm year.
It has all happened before… many times.
It was our worst year since 2016 but nearly as bad as 2009 when numbers were down 50%. 2024 comes after a run of 6 relatively good years since 2018 along with rapidly rising temperatures including 2 of our hottest summers which were followed by two of our best butterfly years in 2019 and 2023. It is likely 2024 was a blip