The butterf ly that’s back after 40 years
A RARE butterfly which vanished from England more than four decades ago will flutter once more in its former heartland.
A group of chequered skipper butterflies is to be released at a forest site whose exact location is being kept secret to foil ‘butterfly rustlers’.
The species is considered among Britain’s prettiest, with gold and brown patterned wings and a distinctive darting flight.
It was historically found in a band of woodlands and grassland from Oxfordshire to Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire.
Though still found in Scotland, it disappeared from England in 1976 after changes in the way our woodlands were managed.
The chequered skipper did not take kindly to new pine forests in its former breeding grounds and a decline in traditional coppicing methods accelerated its decline.
For the reintroduction project, several dozen males and females were captured in Fagne-Famenne region in the south of Belgium, where the species is widespread.
It is hoped that they will mate and thrive again in the 200 square miles of Rockingham Forest in Northamptonshire, which has a similar landscape and the same food source for caterpillars – a type of perennial grass called false brome.
Those in Scotland were not considered because they favour a diet of purple moorgrass.
The new habitat has been restored to ideal conditions with wide, flowerfilled rides in a project organised by the charity Butterfly Conservation and the Forestry Commission.
It forms part of a wider ‘Back From The Brink’ programme with funding from the National Lottery and People’s Postcode Lottery.
This aims to save 20 species from extinction and benefit 200 more through 19 different projects all around England.
Dr Nigel Bourn of Butterfly Conservation said: ‘It is a privilege to help return this charismatic little butterfly to its former stronghold of Rockingham Forest.’