Butterflies

We are lucky enough to have three small pockets of SSSI land which are home to the rare Duke of Burgundy, Small Blue and Dingy Skipper butterflies. This population is monitored and protected by Natural England, local nature groups, Oxford University and the Estate. Since 2007 Natural England have helped the Estate to create a management blueprint to maintain and increase the numbers of breeding pairs of butterflies and moths within the SSSI scrubland. The Estate staff have worked hard to ensure there is a variety of shrub and grassland to include corridors that help the butterflies to move through their habitat without being affected by wind and poor weather. We have also created corridors to link nearby SSSI areas to each other in the form of hedgerow planting, scrubland grasses thereby widening their habitat across the Estate.