Saving Species is a monthly look at how growers can help key wildlife species by Peter Thompson, farmland biodiversity adviser at the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust.

The brown butterfly family in the UK has 11 different species within it and they are all various shades and blotches of brown, except one.

Just to fool you, the marbled white butterfly is black and white, but is indeed still a member of the brown family.

Some of the most common species of butterfly found on UK farmland belong to the brown family and include species such as the meadow brown, ringlet and gatekeeper.

Habitat

One common theme of the brown family is that their caterpillars feed on grasses and so they will often be found on grass margins that have been put alongside hedges and rivers under environmental stewardship schemes.

If these margins are linked to each other, it can greatly help brown butterflies to move around the farm and colonise new sites.

A good example of this is the way marbled white butterflies will follow a newly established grass margin to move across a piece of arable farmland that had previously acted as a barrier to them.

Management tips

Another common theme that links all these butterflies together is that, perhaps rather surprisingly, they all overwinter as caterpillars. They hide themselves among grass tussocks and leaf litter and therefore require part of the grass margin to remain uncut.

If you have too much of a tidy mind and mow all your grass margins to resemble lawns, you will be destroying the vast majority of your brown butterfly population, too. So, as a rule of thumb, mow half your grass margin and leave the other half uncut.

Also remember that butterflies like to drink nectar from various flowers, so try to encourage wildflowers around the farm, maybe sowing areas of perennial wildflowers such as knapweed and scabious in margins or field corners.

For more information, contact the GWCT on 01425 651 060