A very enjoyable walk around Trumpington Meadows with Ian Webb, the Community Conservation Officer at The Wildlife Trust who manage the Reserve. A few fungi (Psathyrella spp, Hare'sFoot Inkcap) lichen (Physcia aipolia) were noted plus lots of emerging meadow plant species.
One of the projects on the Reserve is the construction of Butterfly Banks (also trialled at other UK reserves Journal of Insect Conservation | Springer Nature Link). These are E-shaped mounds that offer butterflies etc the choice of shade and sun and also different set ups are orientated to give north, south, east and west choices. One project showed that the extreme high temperatures experienced in the UK in July 2022 resulted in a community of butterflies becoming inactive in the open areas, unable to fly, feed or mate during this period, but that the shaded areas provided places where they could continue their activities. Work on other invertebrate species using pit traps showed remarkable differences between the hot sunny banks and the shaded areas. This suggests that producing artificial slopes and integrating patches of scrub within grassland could create an array of microclimates that allow butterflies and other invertebrates to thermoregulate, providing a refuge during extreme weather events so helping counter some of the negative impacts of rising temperatures and extreme weather events. In particular, this might help stem the decline of our northern species of butterflies and other inverts as global warming progresses.
