Devon's Fabulous Fritillaries
Amy Lewis
Over the next 18 months, Devon Wildlife Trust has an opportunity to increase prime habitat for some of our most threatened butterflies – and set up what’s needed to maintain those habitats for at least the next 20 years – but we need your help today.
Butterflies like the pearl-bordered fritillary and marsh fritillary have been lost from much of the English landscape in the last half-century.
Devon is a vital stronghold for these species, thanks to conservation efforts on nature reserves and work with local farmers.
High brown fritillary butterfly. Photo, Chris Root
There is clear evidence on how habitats can be managed to benefit different fritillary species and this has been demonstrated on DWT nature reserves.
But because management of bracken on steep slopes and cutting of rush and scrub on wet grasslands using hand-held kit is extremely time-consuming, we have never before been able to create the maximum possible area of habitat for fritillary butterflies.
Small pearl-bordered fritillary. Photo, Andrew Taylor
DWT already has a quarter century of experience of improving habitats to increase numbers of pearl-bordered, small pearl-bordered, high brown and marsh fritillary butterflies. Our work has been recognised and we have been able to secure funding to purchase machinery to help manage land more widely and more cost-effectively.
With your support, DWT staff and volunteers can restore more than 120 hectares (300 acres) of additional habitat for four stunning butterfly species – and lots of other wildlife that will benefit from this work - on 12 very special nature reserves.
Marsland, on the Atlantic coast, displays best how fritillaries can be helped. Here, an astounding increase in small pearl-bordered fritillaries of 1,636% between 1988 and 2010 (at a time of continuing national declines) was achieved by a meticulous routine of bracken cutting in different areas.
But the new Devon Fritillary Recovery Project is the first time we will have the right machinery and additional staff time to improve habitats for these butterflies in increased areas, on more sites, more efficiently: so every pound we spend means greater benefits for wildlife.
Increasing land suitable for these butterflies’ larval food plants - dog violet and Devil’s-bit scabious - will benefit other threatened
species, including lesser butterfly orchids, narrow-bordered bee hawkmoths and Dartford warblers.
Volunteers trained in fritillary butterfly surveying will be active for years. So, your donation will help us know where interventions are working, and when to amend management.
Originally evolving in woods where large mammals created that light and shade mix, the same conditions were maintained for
centuries by human coppicing of woods for timber and cutting of bracken for a variety of uses. When this activity stopped, the butterflies lost their habitat and now need targeted land management to thrive.
Your donation will support this work on DWT nature reserves across Devon.
Marsh fritillary
Found in wet grasslands, this species makes a home on several DWT nature reserves, both in northern Devon’s Culm grasslands
and on Dartmoor, at Emsworthy Mire.
For its larval food plant, Devil’s-bit scabious, to grow in abundance, rotational cutting of scrub and rush is required, exactly what your
donation will allow DWT to do in wetter and more remote parts of these reserves.
High brown fritillary. Photo, Chris Root
High brown fritillary
Another butterfly whose caterpillars feed on violets, the same bracken management can also drive recovery of this species. It suffered huge nationwide declines between 1978 and 2022, the population dropping by two-thirds.
With your support we can ensure prime habitat for high brown fritillaries at DWT’s Dartmoor sites, Dunsford, Blackadon and Dart Valley.
We should see increases of other wildlife including tree pipits, nightjars and Kugelann’s green clock beetles on Dartmoor and grasshopper warblers, lesser butterfly orchids and keeled skimmer dragonflies on wet grassland sites.