In mid-December we were back on familiar ground in a large woodland near Fernhurst. This particular woodland is home to a small and highly vulnerable colony of the nationally rare Pear-bordered Fritillary butterfly or PBF for short (pictured on my home page). I have worked in partnership with the landowner here for many years to try and further the cause of this wonderful species and it has been good to be back on site and continuing with the management programme.

The task here is to coppice the sweet chestnut in order to maintain open ground in large clearings. This in turn allows the butterfly’s larval food-plant (dog violets) to flourish. On arrival we were faced with plenty of work to be done:

Unfortunately, there is virtually no market for chestnut of this size, so cutting and burning are the order of the day. There was about 0.8 of a hectare to cover, but with a systematic approach and some hard work, we got the job done in four days.

A very satisfying job completed, knowing that the work that we have done will benefit a variety of flora and fauna, and hopefully the PBFs will be able to exploit this area of habitat and expand their colony in future years.