A New Butterfly Species for the Quantocks

A wonderful surprise for the Quantock Wildlife Watch; it has recorded a butterfly species previously unrecorded on the Quantocks – the brown hairstreak. The brown hairstreak is a wonderful find as it is under threat nationally with distributions having dropped by 49% since the 1970s; it is categorised as a high priority for butterfly conservation and is also a UK BAP priority species. We have two observations recorded, both in the north west area of the Quantocks, we hope other sightings might be added to these in future.

The Quantock Wildlife Watch has now had almost 350 people contribute over 3,000 observations resulting in 1,111 species recorded so far with figures changing daily (data correct 20th Sep 2022). This just goes to show the wonderful array of species we have here, with a high proportion of species only having one observation currently so there is a good chance you can add something new and maybe even a previously unrecorded species!

There is currently a fantastic variety of fungi to be found, and indeed we now have 206 species observed within the Quantock boundary on iNaturalist. Using the iNaturalist application is also a great way to learn about the different things you see as you are out and about, or browse what others have seen and where they are if you might like to take a look yourself.

The more we know and understand about our local wildlife the better job we can do to protect it. If you haven’t yet got involved and would like to, all the information you need can be found on our website here, it really is very simple and you can learn a great deal very quickly. If you are already recording observations, firstly thank you, but please remember it is important to keep doing so. Even recordings of species you have previously recorded are important as in future we hope to be able to use the data to look at distributions and also seasonality / possible trends within data.