Katie Cruickshanks is our newly appointed Conservation Officer for the Farmland Butterfly Initiative. Here she is telling us a bit about how she came to work at Butterfly Conservation and what she does...
The scorching summer of 2006 was happily spent traipsing the Dorset countryside, clambering through hedgerows, learning to be less scared of cows and losing my mind in fields of 10ft high maize.
All in a day’s work in my first job as a wider countryside field researcher with Butterfly Conservation!
In 2009 we successfully launched the WCBS to monitor widespread butterflies and the scheme is still growing today (thanks to Zoe Randle, our Surveys Officer). In 2010 I left Butterfly Conservation to work in ecological consultancy, but I have now returned to the wildlife charity at their head office in Wareham to start a new role on the Farmland Butterfly Initiative, or “FBI” as we like to call it.
Spying and intelligence jokes aside, the project aims to help Natural England (NE) to better target advice for 7 key butterfly species through delivery of agri- environment schemes.
In January, the new programme of wildlife friendly farming schemes (NELMS) will launch and this will be my chance to make a difference. I will be enlisting our top secret agents (aka Butterfly Conservation Regional Officers) to use their local knowledge to help NE advisers to get the habitat management right for the ‘not-so-secret-7’ FBI species: Duke of Burgundy, Lulworth Skipper, Heath Fritillary, High Brown Fritillary, Small Pearl-Bordered Fritillary, Pearl-Bordered Fritillary and Marsh Fritillary.
It’s all about helping advisers to think about the ‘Big three’ requirements for these species: grazing for structural diversity, scrub management and abundant nectar sources.
Find out more about the Farmland Butterfly Initiative.
Katie Cruickshanks
Conservation Officer (Farmland Butterfly Initiative)