What To Look For In May
Butterflies, falcons, bluebells, Wild Garlic and baby bilberries
Welcome to our monthly ‘What to Look For’ selection of the wildlife in and around the Outdoor City. If you have other tips about what’s out there, or any comments at all, do add them in the comments section.
Thanks as usual to the members of Sorby Natural History Society, the RSPB Sheffield Group, Sheffield Bird Study Group and Sheffield Museums for their help and expertise. Special mention to Roger Butterfield, Chris Kelly and Andy Deighton for briliant photos this month.
And please, folks, forward this monthly post to other people who may be interested in this kind of thing, as the more readers we have here, the happier we all are. (Do ask them to subscribe too so they get these posts straight to their inbox).
Peregrine Falcon
The city’s famous webcam (located on St George’s Church tower near Broad Lane) has revealed four eggs which the falcon watchers of the webcam’s University of Sheffield / Sheffield Bird Study Group team report have now hatched.
Watch the birds in real life too, around the city centre and Crookes (and beyond), swooping for pigeons and other prey once those chicks are here.
The team also run a Peregrine blog with updates on the drama high above the city.
Green Hairstreak Butterfly
When settled with its wings closed, the Green Hairstreak butterfly is not much bigger than a thumbnail, with a wing span between 27 and 34 mm. So as a tiny green creature on the new green plants of our moorland edges, it’s hard to spot, but there are plenty of colonies out there, often looking for bilberry flowers (see below).
Its peak flying season is May, and photographer Chris Kelly says: “With its iridescent emerald wings and black and white striped legs and antennae, it is a jewel of a creature. I once pointed one out to a couple of birders who had just emerged from Padley Gorge, and they were enchanted saying it was the best thing they’d seen all day.”
Bilberries and Bilberry Bumblebees
Bilberries are flowering right now, if you have a careful look. The berries (which we’ll return to later in the year) were once a popular foraged food all over our local moorland, but the pinky red flowers (which look like berries themselves) are popular with bees as well as the Green Hairstreak butterfly.
Watch out for the Bilberry Bumblebee too, with its orange abdomen, on its namesake flowers. It’s a declining species and Sorby Natural History society want to hear about your sightings of the Bilberry Bumblebee at: invertebrates@sorby.org.uk
Holly Blue Butterfly
Another beautiful, but small, early butterfly. The species has two (or sometimes three) generations each year. The spring generation often lays its eggs on the flower-buds of Holly bushes, so in May the Holly Blue can be seen flitting around Holly bushes on sunny woodland edges, or in Sheffield's leafy suburbs. Photographer Roger Butterfield said last year he spotted half a dozen one afternoon whilst walking through Broomhall and Nether Edge.
He adds that numbers of Holly Blue fluctuate from year to year, mainly due to the impact of a parasitic wasp, Listrodromus nycthemerus.
Swifts
Are just beginning to arrive in the UK for their 3-4 month stay. “Swifts are fascinating,” says RSPB birder John Robinson. “When a young swiftlet drops from its nest for the first time, it can be on the wing for three years without landing. They feed, sleep and even copulate on the wing, only landing to nest and fledge their young.”
Locally, Swift activists like SBSG member Chet Cunago are lobbying for nest preservation and for the council to ensure new buildings have swift bricks - I wrote about this earlier this year.
She also offers advice and help for anyone finding a grounded swift or swiftlet, which can be rescued. See the Sheffield Swift Network site for more.
Cuckoo
The red-listed bird is now being heard around the edges of Sheffield, but seeing them is another matter. Photographer Andy Deighton managed to catch a pair of Meadow Pipit ‘foster parents’ feeding a very large (compared to them) young cuckoo a few years ago. They even landed on its back before feeding their youngster, as if this was quite normal.
Dingy Skipper
Although rather scarce, the Dingy Skipper butterfly occurs in a range of grassy habitats. It likes to bask on patches of bare ground that warm up quickly in the spring sunshine.
It can be seen along the Steel Valley Walk at Stocksbridge and in the fields around Ughill and High Bradfield (and some of the limestone dales in Derbyshire). The species also colonises areas of ‘brownfield’ land, such as old tips and derelict industrial sites. Its unglamorous name comes from its resemblance to a bit of old carpet, says photographer Roger Butterfield.
Sand Martins
Another mention of these birds, just because there seem to be so many of them this year, nesting in Neepsend and Attercliffe walls as well as the nestboxes by the River Don. Look out for them off Rutland Road or Ball Street.
Wall Brown Butterfly
The final May butterly may be familiar to older readers, as it was once common, but has seen a big decline in recent years, although there are some signs it may now be recovering slightly.
Named for its habit of basking on walls in the May sunhine: Roger Butterfield’s photo shows Wall Browns in High Bradfield churchyard.
Ramsoms, or Wild Garlic
Flowering at the same time as Common Bluebells, often in the same woods, the smell of Wild Garlic is powerful. Woodlands full of Ramsoms used to be boundary markers and villages were named after them (Ramsbottom in Lancashire, for example).
Locals still collect them as a salad leaf, or if they’re modern Outdoor City metropolitans, to make into pesto.
Common Bluebell
Now’s the time to see the spectacle of the blue woods. (As I’ve written about at some length over the last week). They are incredible everywhere, but even if you do live near the bluebell woodlands of Ecclesall or Grenoside or Greenhill, don’t miss out on seeing the spectacular Woolley Wood.
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