St Aidens Astley-Outfall
Managed by RSPB
Site Details:
Walkers: Andrew Tiffany Length : 1711m Altitude: 12m Walk Time: 45 mins
St Aidan's has been transformed from an old, open cast mine to a reserve that's alive with wildlife. Its relatively small size means you can easily explore a rich variety of habitats including reedbeds, wetlands, meadows and woodland.
Sections:
S1: Numbers are quite low
S2: Main Grassland area and fairly dry where Gatekeeper are in the highest numbers.
S3: Damper area with more Ringlets
S4: Mixture of grasslands and shaded woodland boundary where Speckled Wood are nearly as common as Gatekeeper and the Vanessids can be seen with Comma in good numbers
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
Lowther suffered rather more than the county averages possibly being a wet grassland habitat . The Hedge and meadow browns that prefer dry suffered badly here while the damp loving Ringlet actually did a smidge better even so those two brown species accounted for a major part of the losses. Peacok doubled as it did in a number of other good sites for this species as did Brimstone.