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Well, a break from the office is always a good idea, especially if its with the backing of the company. With this in mind, I took up the challenge of hunting the Marsh Fritillary butterfly across some of Devon's more picturesque moor land.
When I say hunting the butterfly, what I actually mean is that I spent the day trudging through boggy moors looking for small webs that the butterfly creates in order to protect the larvae and let it grow. To do this, a group of us stood in a line across the moor and worked our way down to the other end, checking for Devil's Bit Scabious, a plant favored by the butterfly.
Looking under these plants we sometimes found small, thick webs with butterfly larvae in. The idea is to track these via GPS and create a map of how many are on each moor. As the butterfly is endangered across Europe, this is a pretty important task in order to keep an eye on the numbers. The hard part is determining the webs of the catapiller from other webs created by funnel web spiders, who also build around these plants.
Along the way we came across a snake, pheasant and several frogs, not to mention bogs and plenty of cow pats. We also found a nice truck stop to grab a greasy fried breakfast for lunch before braving the weather and heading back out to search the land.
It’s nice to be able do something for the community, even if some think it might be less important than, say, helping old people or painting Schools (two other tasks which the company I work for sponsors). Hopefully next June we’ll be able to go back and count the actual butterflies. This year the weather was against us, so we’ve ended up just counting the webs.
Still, despite getting wet from both the moor and the rain, it was good fun. My legs still ache from stretching over large holes in the ground (the moorland can be quite bumpy) but I feel like I’ve done something worthwhile.
When I say hunting the butterfly, what I actually mean is that I spent the day trudging through boggy moors looking for small webs that the butterfly creates in order to protect the larvae and let it grow. To do this, a group of us stood in a line across the moor and worked our way down to the other end, checking for Devil's Bit Scabious, a plant favored by the butterfly.
Looking under these plants we sometimes found small, thick webs with butterfly larvae in. The idea is to track these via GPS and create a map of how many are on each moor. As the butterfly is endangered across Europe, this is a pretty important task in order to keep an eye on the numbers. The hard part is determining the webs of the catapiller from other webs created by funnel web spiders, who also build around these plants.
Along the way we came across a snake, pheasant and several frogs, not to mention bogs and plenty of cow pats. We also found a nice truck stop to grab a greasy fried breakfast for lunch before braving the weather and heading back out to search the land.
It’s nice to be able do something for the community, even if some think it might be less important than, say, helping old people or painting Schools (two other tasks which the company I work for sponsors). Hopefully next June we’ll be able to go back and count the actual butterflies. This year the weather was against us, so we’ve ended up just counting the webs.
Still, despite getting wet from both the moor and the rain, it was good fun. My legs still ache from stretching over large holes in the ground (the moorland can be quite bumpy) but I feel like I’ve done something worthwhile.
> it grow. To do this, a group of us stood in a line across the
> moor and worked our way down to the other end, checking for
Nothing like a good trampling,
hehe.. sorry a really hurtful pun.
I like spiders. Did you see any harvestmen?
> moor and worked our way down to the other end, checking for
Nothing like a good trampling,
hehe.. sorry a really hurtful pun.
I like spiders. Did you see any harvestmen?
Hah, no, I think he comes with his owner on all these things. Possibly hindered more than he helped!
Did they bring the dog for something or did he need just need a walk.
Ha.
There were 7 of us altogether, and a dog. Just enough to cover some of the smaller moorland (the moors tend to be seperated inot smaller squares by firebreaks)
There were 7 of us altogether, and a dog. Just enough to cover some of the smaller moorland (the moors tend to be seperated inot smaller squares by firebreaks)
That sounds pretty cool, how many where you?
And yeah, it looks exactly like a normal butterfly.
And yeah, it looks exactly like a normal butterfly.
Between us we found about 10 webs, which would hold a fair few larvae each. The butterflies only fly between May and July, I think, and we would have been going to spot them in June if the weather was any better, but we had to make do with finding the webs.
Nice Peebles
I -swear- I see that butterfly around here all the time.. maybe there's a subtle difference or something, but as far as butterflies go I would say that one that looks very similar to that is the most common butterfly around here.
I was meant to go on a tracking thing a while ago when I was looking at what to do with myself and volunteer work. I think I decided I was too lazy and skipped it.
How many of those Marsh Fritillaries did you see?
I -swear- I see that butterfly around here all the time.. maybe there's a subtle difference or something, but as far as butterflies go I would say that one that looks very similar to that is the most common butterfly around here.
I was meant to go on a tracking thing a while ago when I was looking at what to do with myself and volunteer work. I think I decided I was too lazy and skipped it.
How many of those Marsh Fritillaries did you see?
Well, a break from the office is always a good idea, especially if its with the backing of the company. With this in mind, I took up the challenge of hunting the Marsh Fritillary butterfly across some of Devon's more picturesque moor land.
When I say hunting the butterfly, what I actually mean is that I spent the day trudging through boggy moors looking for small webs that the butterfly creates in order to protect the larvae and let it grow. To do this, a group of us stood in a line across the moor and worked our way down to the other end, checking for Devil's Bit Scabious, a plant favored by the butterfly.
Looking under these plants we sometimes found small, thick webs with butterfly larvae in. The idea is to track these via GPS and create a map of how many are on each moor. As the butterfly is endangered across Europe, this is a pretty important task in order to keep an eye on the numbers. The hard part is determining the webs of the catapiller from other webs created by funnel web spiders, who also build around these plants.
Along the way we came across a snake, pheasant and several frogs, not to mention bogs and plenty of cow pats. We also found a nice truck stop to grab a greasy fried breakfast for lunch before braving the weather and heading back out to search the land.
It’s nice to be able do something for the community, even if some think it might be less important than, say, helping old people or painting Schools (two other tasks which the company I work for sponsors). Hopefully next June we’ll be able to go back and count the actual butterflies. This year the weather was against us, so we’ve ended up just counting the webs.
Still, despite getting wet from both the moor and the rain, it was good fun. My legs still ache from stretching over large holes in the ground (the moorland can be quite bumpy) but I feel like I’ve done something worthwhile.
When I say hunting the butterfly, what I actually mean is that I spent the day trudging through boggy moors looking for small webs that the butterfly creates in order to protect the larvae and let it grow. To do this, a group of us stood in a line across the moor and worked our way down to the other end, checking for Devil's Bit Scabious, a plant favored by the butterfly.
Looking under these plants we sometimes found small, thick webs with butterfly larvae in. The idea is to track these via GPS and create a map of how many are on each moor. As the butterfly is endangered across Europe, this is a pretty important task in order to keep an eye on the numbers. The hard part is determining the webs of the catapiller from other webs created by funnel web spiders, who also build around these plants.
Along the way we came across a snake, pheasant and several frogs, not to mention bogs and plenty of cow pats. We also found a nice truck stop to grab a greasy fried breakfast for lunch before braving the weather and heading back out to search the land.
It’s nice to be able do something for the community, even if some think it might be less important than, say, helping old people or painting Schools (two other tasks which the company I work for sponsors). Hopefully next June we’ll be able to go back and count the actual butterflies. This year the weather was against us, so we’ve ended up just counting the webs.
Still, despite getting wet from both the moor and the rain, it was good fun. My legs still ache from stretching over large holes in the ground (the moorland can be quite bumpy) but I feel like I’ve done something worthwhile.