Caithness conservationists get kudos from the King

The small blue butterfly is the UK’s smallest butterfly. The number of small blues in Scotland has declined by 39 per cent in the past 20 years, with now only 80 sites left in Scotland. Caithness is home to the three northernmost colonies of small blue in the country.

Working with conservation programme Species on the Edge, UHI’s Supported Learners have become ambassadors for the small blue butterfly in Caithness. They have raised money for two ‘Butterfly Banks’ – embankments of small blue habitat - in Dunnet Community Forest through creating and selling keyrings, posters and information blocks.

They also created signage to raise awareness of and protect the new small blue habitat, allowing the butterfly-friendly wildflowers planted on the banks to grow undisturbed. The Butterfly Banks have been a great success; last winter, volunteers planted the banks with kidney vetch – the sole foodplant of small blue caterpillars – and around 100 kidney vetch plants flowered this spring. Since then, both small blue butterflies and small blue eggs have been spotted on the banks.

Last term, the students continued their awareness-raising work, writing letters to Jamie Stone MP, Maree Todd MSP, and to HRH King Charles. One student wrote to King Charles: “We are ambassadors for the small blue butterfly which lives in Caithness near the sea. We need to look after them because their populations are going down. We raised funds at our Christmas fair and used the money to build a butterfly bank in Dunnet Forest. We also painted colourful signs for the bank. We hope when you come north you will visit the butterfly banks and tell many people about them.”

The students were delighted to receive encouraging responses from all three – including a letter from the Head of Royal Correspondence on behalf of the King, praising their work for the rare butterfly.

Louise Senior, People Engagement Officer for Species on the Edge, said: “We always look forward to our visits with our small blue ambassadors. They’re such an enthusiastic group who are keen to learn and eager to try out new activities.

We’ve been impressed with how seriously they have taken their role as ambassadors for the small blue butterfly. They have applied their talents in all sorts of ways to help increase the profile of this threatened creature, from fundraising to creative arts, and now letter writing.

I think our small blue ambassadors are proof that you don’t need to spend long days in the field carrying out surveys or habitat management to support our endangered wildlife, but that as long as you have a genuine interest there are all sorts of ways to help.”

Eleanor Pratt, Classroom Auxiliary for the Supported Learning group at UHI NWH, said: “The students (and staff!) always enjoy activity sessions with Species on the Edge. Although a lot of nature is not accessible for our students, Species on the Edge have overcome this by bringing nature to the students.

As Ambassadors for the small blue butterfly, the class have taken pride in hands-on projects, including sign making, spreading the word, and raising funds through crafts.

The latest class exercise was to write to prominent figures to highlight the plight of the small blue butterfly. The class received responses from Jamie Stone MP, Maree Todd MSP, and at the very end of term a letter from HRH Charles III. This brought much excitement and curiosity – a letter from the King!”

To learn how you can get involved in work to protect small blue butterflies in Caithness, please contact Louise Senior, People Engagement Officer for Species on the Edge: louise.senior@plantlife.org.uk