Leyburn
Old Glebe YWT
Site Details:
Recorders: Jennie White & Stella Swan & Mike Gibson & John Smith Altitude 142m Distance: 1200m Walk time: 1 hour
A traditional hay meadow, Leyburn Old Glebe is the richest remaining fragment of Ellershaw, a district well-known to naturalists since the 19th Century. The meadow is rich in flowers in spring and summer supporting a range of orchids including the burnt tip orchid and the green winged orchid, makes it a very special place indeed and a rich variety of butterfly species. The banks and washlands of the river Ure favour plants like cuckoo flower and Devils bit scabious abound. It has one of the largest orange Tip counts anywhere! Dark green Fritillary appears most years and occasional Northern Brown Argus. Chimney sweeper moth is also common on Pignut.
Sections:
Small Heath favours S5+S8 along with Meadow Browns. Orange Tip very much favours the side of the river Ure S7 and S8 along with Small Copper . Speckled Wood favour S2 and S8 while Common Blue favour S4-6. Comma favour S7 and Dark Green Fritillary S8 Some years the Browns prefer the main meadow of S5 rather than riverside S8 which may be a management difference.
2024 Results
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
Leyburn Old Glebe had a poor season and signifcantly worse than the county average or indeed nearby limestones sites which did better. However here it seems cold and wet in this very bad season produced the poorest year so far and indeed worse than the previous low point in 2016. meadow brown went from best year last year to worst year thsi year and Small heath was not recorded. Damp loving Ringlet held its ground and was down proportionally less as was the only . The other highlight is Peacock which doubled over the previous year inline with many sites and is showing a strong recovery after the drought years. 99% drop in Small Tortoiseshell from its 2019 peak with only 1 insect recorded was universally bad and came bottom of teh resident species table. Most of teh specie strends thsi year match the county just a littel more exagerated here.
2023 Results
County wide 2023 results reflect the 2022 Heat and drought with Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock nearly halved for the second year against their 5 year average. Red Admiral arrived in force in July and took advantage of soft nettle growth of the rains and had their best year ever. Drought sensitive species on thin soils were badly hit, particularly Dark -green Fritillary and Northern Brown Argus but also Ringlet, Green-viened White and Small Heath. Less drought affected species along with the hottest June on record built even more on gains last year leading to Comma, Brimstone, Holly Blue and most Browns having a fantastic year reaching all time highs. A increase of 9% overall was mostly due to sheer numbers of Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers ment 2023 nearly pipped 2014 as best year in modern times. Most noticeable was the large differeces between moisiture retaining mineral soils of the valleys and thin, dry limestone or sandy soils. A large number of damp grassland, hedgerow and woodland dominated sites benefitted hugely with 3 sites seeing more than 50% increase . A smaller number of thin, chalky, sandy or craggy sites did badly some down up to 25%.
Leyburn was slightly down on its 5 year average but still pretty good and only really pipped by 2018/19 peak. Another site seeing the remarkable return of the Wall these last two years. On its well known sites it has done badly but this site shows significant improvements in other respects with Small Heath continuing to increase at a good pace while for most sites these last two years have been poor , in addition Small Skipper had its best year ever here while although rising long term has had two bad years in the drought. Lots of positives.
2022 Results
The longer term annual trend is for increasing counts and 2022 comes in as second highest year after the big peak in 2019. Interestingly our scarcer species are responding very positively with Small Heath and Common Blue seeing a big come back. Both the skippers were well up which seems to be the case on many Dales sites but the reverse of the lowland. In common to most other places apart from upland sites the Vanessids were universally down due to the heat and poor nettle quality driving them into very early hibernation and only comma managed a second generation successfully. Its great to see the return of the Wall after some years and this species apears to have had a good year with lots of dispersal going on. Small heath was down on last year but still a tad up on the average. The other Browns all werw all up about a third including Speckled Wood and follows the county trend.
2021 Results
Despite the weather the year ended with broadly similarto the 5 year average if a tad down on 2020 and with 2019 being exceptional.
The patterns are somewhat similar to elsewhere in yorkshire with Small Tortoiseshell and Small Heath both having very good years but also decreases in many other species particularly Large Skipper Small White, Red Admiral, Peacock, and Speckled Wood. Comma in particular had a very bad year almost everywhere.
Where it bucks the Yorkshire trends is with Small Skipper, Common Blue and Small Copper increasing and Orange Tip decreasing . we do know the summer in NW quarter of the County was warmer and sunnier than average and significantly different to most of Yorkshire.
Results 2020
Numbers are well down compared to the good year of 2019. 2019 was characterised by the Painted Lady invasion and numbers of Meadow Brown recorded doubled compared to normal however this years results are very close to average and not the disaster forecast by some. Both species have returned back to more normal levels but there is little signs of drought effects of the dry spring seen on other transects. However Green-viened White and Peacock numbers are also well down. In contrast Common Blue numbers which have colapsed on some transects showed a steady rise to good numbers . This could be because it is a damp site and the spring drought had a lesser effect. Small Heath is showing a steady rise in numbers these last few years and Small Tortoiseshells numbers have more than doubled and are again a common butterfly after a few years in the duldrums as on all transects. The skippers showed a good increase in contrast to some other dryer sites