When Butterfly Conservation published the last butterfly Red List for Great Britain in 2010, the Grayling (Hipparchia semele) was listed as vulnerable but, unfortunately, this butterfly experienced a 52% decrease in distribution between 2010 and 2019, and its status has now been reclassified as endangered.

I feel privileged, then, to have enjoyed watching several of these gorgeous butterflies atop the Aberbargoed coal spoil tip last week, but also saddened to know that they too are threatened.

Spoil tips can be dangerous places, as I’m sure many of you are aware – the horrific collapse, on 21 October 1966, of the tip at Aberfan, not very far from Aberbargoed, which resulted in the deaths of 116 school children and 28 adults, is a well known, annually commemorated tragedy.

Though Aberbargoed’s spoil tip is mostly well anchored by the planting of trees, and a robust series of drainage channels efficiently remove rain water from the artificial hill, some bare areas remain and show the damage of heavy rain scouring their surfaces. And, though the authorities have tried to prevent it, the stability of some areas has also been undermined by the irresponsible actions of dirt-bikers using the tip as a race track.

Judging by a series of wooden pegs dotted around the area where the Grayling colony lives, some additional stabilisation work is planned there, which could destroy the butterflies. Seeing this, I made contact with a local group trying to promote the importance of the biodiversity of colliery spoil tips, and they are following up with local authorities to try to prevent any damage to the colony. Hopefully, a compromise can be reached between the necessity of ensuring the safety of the tip and the need to conserve an endangered species of butterfly.