ONE of Worcestershire’s rarest butterflies will benefit from a combined effort at a community planting day this weekend.

People can join the Butterfly Conservation and Wychavon District Council to plant 140 blackthorn bushes in Bourne Close Green Space, Flyford Flavell, from 10am on Saturday.

The planting will take place around the edge of the site to provide new habitat for the rare brown hairstreak butterfly, which is one of the UK’s fastest declining butterflies and occurs nowhere else in the Midlands.

Mike Williams, brown hairstreak species champion for West Midlands Butterfly Conservation, said: “The work follows a survey of all of Wychavon’s green space undertaken by Butterfly Conservation volunteers last year and the site at Bourne Close was identified as having the most potential for the butterfly.

“It is close to Grafton Wood, a nature reserve managed by Butterfly Conservation and the Wildlife Trust which supports a healthy breeding population.”

Alex Morris, parks monitoring assistant at Wychavon, said: “We are delighted to be able to support this community project and hope that local residents will get involved.

“Most of Worcestershire’s brown hairstreaks are found in the Wychavon district and it is one of our most important and attractive butterflies. We want to do our bit to help protect it.”

The butterfly is mainly found on farmland and is seriously affected by annual flailing of hedgerows which destroys most of its eggs. For more information, call Mr Williams on 07802 274552 or e-mail mike@ stagborough.fsnet.co.uk.