National park seeks glowworm spotters

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/jun/06/animals-insects

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The UK's oldest national park needs northerners to go glowworm spotting, an enjoyable exercise as and when we get warm summer evenings.

Naturalists in the Peak District are carrying out a survey of all sightings, present and past, of the little creature whose small greenish light is at its most frequent and bright in June.

The glow is created by the female in the same spirit as Omo bottles left in kitchen windows, according to urban legend, as a code for 'On my own'. Males are either attracted or simply curious at the strange phenomenon, and so life goes on.

Searching the whole of the vast national park may sound an intimidating prospect, but staff ecologist Rebekah Newman is helpfully narrowing things down. She says:

Of particular interest this year are the sides of old railways tracks which have now been turned into cycle and walking routes where survey work is being supported by the SITA Trust. We'd very much welcome people's help on this, especially if they have records of their sightings going back a few years.

Because glowworms only glow after dark in midsummer, it has proved difficult to amass detailed records from right across Derbyshire and the Peak District. It's possible that they are more widespread in limestone dales and grasslands or alongside trails and railway lines than we know of.

Many of our records are now up to 30 years old, so it would be really valuable to get an up to date picture.

Concern over a possible decline in UK glowworm numbers is not based just on the familiar problem of habitat change, but the growth of light pollution which can affect the ability of the glow to do its job. This is in spite of its small but concentrated power which the former Mayor of Bath, Coun Will Johns, used in an interesting experiment when I was a reporter on the local Evening Chronicle .

His proof that a glowworm gave out more light than was cast halfway between street lamps in his Twerton ward led to better lighting being installed. Shortly after this, I found a glowing glowworm by the A46 at Charmey Down and took it home to my flat. Alas, it slipped through a crack in the floorboards, glowed for a while in the cavity below and then went out.

That was a particularly unfortunate glowworm, but they are all vulnerable. Their larvae live for two years, but when they emerge from their pupae into adult worms, they no longer feed which allows them only a short lifespan in which to breed. Nick Moyes, formerly of Derby Museum, has been studying glowworms in Derbyshire since the 1990s and has been commissioned to help the survey. He says:

With the public's help we can find out a lot more about glowworm sites than we would if we had just looked for them ourselves. I'm helping to survey the Tissington, High Peak and Monsal Trails this June, and would love to receive details of any sightings of glowworms here, or anywhere else in Derbyshire or the Peak District."

Glowworms have been reported from as far south as Derby and Calke, right up to Markland Grips, Grindleford and Taxal. All records – including past ones - should emailed to wildlife@peakdistrict.gov.uk or write to Nick Moyes at Glowworm Survey, Peak District National Park HQ, Aldern House, Bakewell, Derbyshire, DE45 1AE.