More than 300 brown hairstreak butterfly eggs discovered near Llandeilo this winter after decade of decline
Record numbers of eggs of the rare brown hairstreak butterfly have been found in south-west Wales after landowners stopped flailing hedges every year.
The butterfly lays its eggs on blackthorn every summer. But when land managers and farmers mechanically cut hedges every autumn, thousands of the eggs are unknowingly destroyed.
Conservationists have now persuaded landowners to cut hedges in a more gentle rotation, with sections left uncut for up to three years, to enable more eggs to survive over winter. The caterpillars emerge with the foliage in spring and hatch into adult butterflies in July.
The brown hairstreak is difficult to spot as a butterfly but every winter volunteers assess its populations by counting its minuscule cream-coloured eggs, which with careful searching are visible on the bare branches of blackthorn.
