A total of 22 reports in 2007 seems low compared to 10 years previously but is hard to interpret confidently. Several sites that previously held the Dark Green Fritillary did not feature but it is impossible to know if visits were made under appropriate conditions to confirm absence. There were no repeat records from various points that had returned sightings of presumed wanderers in 2006, but another record from Loosely Row in Bucks suggests a colony nearby.

Dark Green Fritillary
Photo © Nick Bowles

Sites that offer promise of new colonies establishing include Sydlings Copse (Oxon) with 6 records in 2007, Lambourne Downs area in Berks which produced several records for the first time for around 10 years and a site in north-west Oxfordshire. This latter site is a new area as far as Branch records go.



Dark Green Fritillary records for 2007
(UTB/Levana)

It is worrying that there were no records from our own reserve at Holtspur during 2007, emphasising the trend of a total decline in the east of High Wycombe / Beaconsfield area. This may be a consequence of the extinction of the once very strong colony in the Gomm Valley. Efforts have been made to get the Gomm Valley's landowner to recover the overgrown habitat there.