For some of us it’s hard enough work finding the chocolates hanging on our Christmas tree – but a group of wildlife lovers in South Wales are inviting people to help with a far more thorny challenge.
This Christmas, volunteers for national charity Butterfly Conservation are asking locals to join their annual winter tradition - searching for pinhead-sized-butterfly eggs in miles of prickly hedgerow.
Each winter, Butterfly Conservation volunteers Richard Smith and Paul Taylor lead bands of intrepid helpers into the fields of Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion looking for the tiny eggs of the Brown Hairstreak.
Paul said: "It keeps me fit, I get to meet people and it keeps my brain active. You also get to visit some absolutely fantastic countryside that other people don't get to go to: as a member of public at the Welsh Wildlife Centre you have to stick to the footpaths, but we get to go to parts that are normally out-of-bounds, and the same with the private sites - some really cool places.
"Last year I heard some splashing in a nearby brook, took my camera out and there was an otter right next to me playing and catching fish, so I just started taking photos. You don't see that kind of thing every day."
The Brown Hairstreak was once much more common across the UK, but has suffered substantial decline in the past 100 years. In Wales alone between 2004 and 2019 its overall abundance plummeted 39%.
The reason is simple - hedgerows: Brown Hairstreak caterpillars almost exclusively eat the leaves of spiky blackthorn which is mostly found in hedges.
The species has suffered from farmers and landowners removing hedgerows completely and carrying out annual flailing (cutting) of new growth where the hairstreak eggs are laid.
Paul takes groups of egg hunters out once a week from the start of November to the end of March each year, often in extremely cold weather.
But when it comes to getting people excited about wildlife, he has got plenty of experience: after previously working as a countryside assistant for North Warwickshire Borough Council, Paul then became The Animal Man – traveling to schools across England and Wales with his wife Lesley to lead bug hunts and get children fascinated in creepy crawlies.
He began volunteering with Butterfly Conservation in 2020 after moving to Wales, and starting leading hairstreak egg counts last year - putting his years of experience getting people excited about insects to invaluable use.
This year, his team started their monitoring at the Welsh Wildlife Centre managed by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales. After Christmas they will move to nearby private land where they have permission from landowners to monitor.
Paul said: "If we've got new people I show them what we're looking for. Most eggs are found between one and six feet off the ground. They only lay on clean, usually new-growth blackthorn, so if the blackthorn is covered in lichens and algae we discount it.
"They lay their eggs in a joint between two twigs, so you just need space. The eggs are white so against blackthorn stems they stand out dead easy - you're just looking for a little white pinhead. Some volunteers take magnifying glasses – I've got a camera that's like a microscope so I take a photo then enlarge it."
Despite being tiny, it is easier to count the eggs than count the adult butterflies which spend much of their time resting at the top of tall bushes and trees. The eggs also stay where they are for the whole winter, whereas adults are only around for a few weeks.
Paul usually starts his survey days at 10am and finishes by 3pm and, he says, "I insist on lunch between 12pm and 1pm. You have to look after volunteers."
Such is Paul's rapport with his team that this year one of them nominated him in the National Biodiversity Network Awards, in which he was a finalist. He added: "It's an honour to be recognised for the work done within Ceredigion, but also as a way of saying thank you to all our volunteers who spend so much of their valuable time assisting with surveys and recording for Butterfly Conservation."
At the end of each day the volunteers submit their results to Paul who creates a map pinpointing every egg found.
Results like this, collected by Butterfly Conservation volunteers up and down the UK, help the charity to monitor how dozens of butterfly and moth species are faring across the whole country and decide where to target staff and resources next.
But Paul and his volunteers also influence change themselves.
Paul said: "One of our volunteers, her husband works on a farm and they're talking about altering their cutting regime to benefit Brown Hairstreak. One simple thing they can do is, instead of cutting the hedges every year, just cut every two or three years. This farmer also used to go round cutting off all the blackthorn suckers but he's started leaving those because they're one of the best places to find eggs.
“We're also putting up posters around local places like garden centres about the Brown Hairstreak and inviting landowners to get in touch with us to request surveys of their hedgerows."
At the moment, landowners and farmers changing hedgerow management seems to be having some positive impact, but butterfly numbers naturally fluctuate from year to year so Butterfly Conservation stresses the importance of having long-term data sets which is exactly what Paul and his volunteers gather.
Anyone interested in joining the Brown Hairstreak egg hunt can email Paul on [email protected]