From Andrew Daw
The West Country branch of Butterfly Conservation is keen to set up more transects in the northern part of its region. North of the Mendip Hills there is currently one transect walk, at Banner Down, Bath. Earlier in the year a call to all Bath members was made and it became evident that there was little experience in transect walking so a training day was arranged on 3 August.
Trevor Fawcett from the Bath Natural History Society was there to brief us, and I was there to help with identification problems i.e. Essex and Small Skippers.
As the weather had been so good for butterflies, quite a lot of species emerged early. So when we met, a number of the species I would have normally expected in good numbers in August were nearly over. We set out on the walk at 11 am. I pointed out butterflies to help people get their ‘eye in’ to identifying on the move.
The transect walk at Banner Down is broken into five sections. Section one ‘S1’ runs from the car park at the northern end of the reserve down the western side of open grassland, here we were blessed with a brief appearance of a Holly Blue, seven Painted Ladies and a couple of Small Coppers as well as commoner species.
S2 begins in scrub, then through woodland. Literally as soon as we started we came across a fresh Comma nectaring on Woolly Thistle. This one was quite tame and gave us a good look at both the upperside and underside. The photographers amongst us took a picture or two. Strictly speaking we shouldn’t have stopped on a transect walk, but as this was only training, the odd diversion was ok.
S3 covers open calcareous grassland area at the reserve’s southern end. This is where Chalkhill Blue occurs but we didn’t find any. It is possible that they have been lost from this site, but it is difficult to prove as they can hang on in low numbers. A few Common Blues did provide a brief moment of hope.
S4 took us back through scrub to the tall grass of the northern end; we added a Brown Argus to the day count, and I finally managed to catch a Small Skipper to show the identification features; the brown underside of the antennae tips.
S5 completed the walk along the eastern side of the open grassland; the final treat of the day - a brief view of a Clouded Yellow.