Hello and welcome to the National Trust Podcast. In this mini episode, we'll be meeting Sabine Nouvert, a National Trust ranger in Beddgelert who's working hard on a rather unusual project... Conserving seaside butterflies in inland Wales.
We've just entered Hafod Garregog Nature Reserve. It's pretty boggy, so watch your step. So we're going to walk through it and I'll take you to a spot where I normally count the butterflies in July and August. And I get to tell you why they're such a special species. Some of us in the team here would call this, the Jewel in the Snowdonia Portfolio for National Trust. It's really one
of our favourite spots. That's because of the wildlife that's found here, but also because of all of the plants and the landscape. So we have like the famous mountains around us in the, in the background and then closer is all the oak woodland. And then this mosaic of bogs and you just feel like you're in the middle of a, like a, a naturalist candy store or something. Where we are is like, it's a mixture of bog with a special
bush that grows in the bog called Bog Myrtle. And then in the bog, there's all these hills of, covered in heather and scattered birch and oak trees and, and this spot used to be, it was coastal, in the olden days and then about 105 years ago or something like that. They built a cob wall, closer to the sea and they've claimed all of this land. So we're now inland. But a good 100 years ago, this would have been a coastal site.
We would be on the shore. So we're standing on like a a rocky hill and so we would have been, we would have been on the shore. The Silver Studded Blues are tiny, little small blue butterfly and they've got a really pretty a lacy white edge to the under underside of their wings with a very intricate pattern on the underside of its wings that looks a bit like a white lacy edge to it. Well, the silver studded blue butterflies are very important
in the UK. They're red data book species. So that means they're endangered. So what's unique about the population that we have here is that they're inland. We think that this population is, is a remnant population from when this was a coastal site. It's a bit deep here. Be careful.
Basically, the butterflies need the bog which has lots of different plants flowering and the butterflies feed on the nectar from all those flowers in the summer and when they've done that, they can then lay their eggs on the dry hills on the heather. And so they need the bog for the nectar and they need the dry hills to lay their eggs. Meanwhile, the bog is at threat of getting overgrown with bushes and tall grasses. So us, as land managers, we've brought in cows
to graze the bog and they do a really good job at that. That means we've got lots of flowers for the butterflies in the bog. The problem is that they go up on the dry hills to rest and then they trample the eggs and the grubs of the butterfly. So they can cause a lot of damage to the butterfly population just by trampling their eggs even though they're benefiting them by maintaining the flower rich bog. And we have to find a
balance. It's just this complicated balance of getting the bog in good condition with the cattle grazing and, and the whole habitat for the butterflies in good condition. So it's, it's just a tricky balance that you're always manipulating and playing with.
Thanks for listening to this week's National Trust mini episode. In next week's mini, we'll be hearing the tale of two dragons who you may encounter on a walk around one of Beddgelert's accessible paths.