Mothing at Coton Orchard

I helped out at my first public moth event and bioblitz on 1st July at the wonderfully serene Coton Orchard, a couple of clicks west of central Cambridge.
It’s a mature and well-established early twentieth century orchard with great soil and a lot of biodiversity, Anna Gazeley told me at the event. Plenty of wild blackthorn growing on patches that no longer host apple trees and several areas of rewilding and meadow creation underway. There were dozens of Marbled White, Small Skipper, Meadow Brown, and Small Heath butterflies enjoying the meadows while Buzzards circled the thermals overhead.
Marbled White butterfly
Coton Orchard is, unfortunately threatened by what can only be described as a wholly inappropriate, costly, and ten-years out-of-date transport-infrastructure project for Cambridge. All in the name of sustaining Cambridge’s purported 15-minute city ethos. It looks like a very misguided busway idea to me and many others, despite what the developers and some members of the council claim. Indeed, the 2020 biological survey of the site suggests that the development would have a very detrimental effect on the ecosystem and the wildlife. Purported offsetting of the harm by planting new trees elsewhere does not and never can compensate for destroying established systems. It’s greenwashing at its worst.
Privet Hawk-moth on privet stem
Anyway, there was a good crowd of people of all ages who turned up quite early on a Saturday morning to see the grand unvei...

Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - July 2, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Lepidoptera Source Type: blogs