Some observations on changes in the wildlife of Epping Forest since 1939
Butterflies
Apart from the widespread decline in numbers of most species, perhaps the most striking change in
the Forest - a welcome one - has been the re-appearance in the early 1980s, after an absence of over
a 100 years, of the Speckled Wood Pararge aereria. It quickly became common and widespread
in the Forest having already spread through much of Essex. By the summer of 1991 one was seen
fluttering against the window of a pub in Higham Hill, Walthamstow, E17!
Another welcome change has been an increase in the frequency with which the Comma Polygonia, c--
album and Holly Blue Celastrina argiolus butterflies are now seen. Although the latter species is
known to fluctuate, both were much less frequent, especially the Comma, sixty years ago than they
arc now. However it is most notable that in the 1940s White Admirals Ladoga camilla could be
found in the oak and hornbeam woodland north of Connaught Water (TQ404954). Their food plant,
honeysuckle, is still available but the species has long gone from the Forest.
Changes in bird populations
Nightjars and heaths
In the 1940s, the Nightjar was represented in Epping Forest by several pairs. Loss of habitat such as
changes in the Forest's heaths cannot really be said to have played a large part in its disappearance,
since populations have decreased nationally, although the changes to the Forest heaths have been
quite marked. The heather, mostly Ling Calluna vulgaris and some Cross-leaved Heath Erica
tetralix varied in age, but over large areas it was two feet high and apparently holding its own against
the bracken. But, particularly since the early 1960s birch has become invasive. So much so that,
until they were cleared, dense impassable thickets of birch grew up (by the 1970s) where there had
previously been heather. Fires were to some extent responsible for the loss of heather and creation of
favourable conditions for birch germination. No cattle grazed the heathland (Long Running -
TQ433997) in the years covered by my memory, neither do 1 recall any significant rabbit presence,
but it was a favourite area with the Fallow Deer, until their influence lessened as their numbers
declined in the 1960s.
In the last decade the Conservators have enclosed some 1.6 hectares (4 acres) of old heathland
(Long Running) and grazed 4 - 6 English Longhorns for two or three months each summer for the
last five years (see Dagley & Samuels 1999). This policy, added to the removal of the Molinia
tussocks by scraping off a layer of top-soil, has encouraged are-establishment of the heather largely
from dormant seed.
Chats, Starts and Nightingales
Loss of habitat accounts for some decrease in numbers, or the total loss, of some bird species, but in
the past, even when the habitat was apparently more suitable, sudden changes and fluctuations in
population still occurred. For example Henry Doubleday tells us in 1831 that Whinchats Salicoid
rubetra were numerous in Epping Forest. Yet in 1839 he writes: - the Whinchat....''has become so
scarce here this year that I do not think I have seen half a dozen all round this neighbourhood".
Again in the case of the Stonechat Salicoid torquata, or locally 'Furzechat', Doubleday, again
writing in 1831, says of it that it ".. .used to abound in the furze bushes at the sides of the forest, but,
116
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 18 (2001)