Blue Butterfly Refuge - Nowa Huta Meadows
Hidden Corners
The largest ecological site in Kraków and a Natura 2000 area on a former bed of the Vistula. Four butterfly species are protected here, including the scarce large blue, which flies over the flowering great burnet in July and August.
The scarce large blue
The scarce large blue (Phengaris teleius) is a small blue butterfly of damp meadows, strictly protected in Poland and protected throughout the European Union. The adult butterflies fly in July and August, and the females lay their eggs only on the flowers of great burnet. After two or three weeks the caterpillar drops to the ground, where Myrmica ants carry it into their nest; there it eats their larvae, spends the winter and emerges as a butterfly only the following summer. So without the meadow, the great burnet and the ants, there is no scarce large blue.
The Nowa Huta Meadows
The meadows lie at the foot of the Nowa Huta escarpment, in the old bed of the Vistula. An oxbow lake is a reminder of the river. In 2003 Kraków City Council protected them as an ecological site of more than 57 hectares, the largest in the city. They are also the Natura 2000 site "Łąki Nowohuckie" (PLH120069), designated by a regulation of 2022 as a special area of conservation covering 59.75 ha.
Protected here are extensively mown fresh meadows and four butterfly species: the scarce large blue, the dusky large blue, the large copper and the violet copper. Naturalists have described ten plant communities in the meadows, ranging from tall sedge and reed beds, through yellow flag iris swamp and wet meadow with brook thistle, to fresh meadow with false oat-grass. 69 bird species have also been recorded here.
The biggest worry is water. The meadows are fed mainly by ditches and rain, so they dry out in dry summers, while the blues and their ants need a damp meadow. That is why water levels are monitored with piezometers, and the meadows are mown, because otherwise they would become overgrown with shrubs.
Did you know?
The scarce large blue and the dusky large blue live in the same meadows and both grow up in ant nests, but they manage in different ways. The dusky large blue caterpillar lets the ants feed it as if it were their own young, while the scarce large blue caterpillar hunts the host ants' larvae inside the nest itself.
How to watch
The meadows are best viewed from the path around them, from the escarpment or from the dyke, ideally with binoculars. Keep dogs on a lead, because they disturb birds nesting in the grass, among them the corncrake.
Sources
- Rozporządzenie Ministra Klimatu i Środowiska w sprawie obszaru Łąki Nowohuckie PLH120069 (Dz.U. 2022 poz. 1253)
- Uchwała nr 26/2018 Komisji Dialogu Obywatelskiego ds. Środowiska o poszerzeniu użytku „Łąki Nowohuckie”
- Protokół z posiedzenia Komisji Dialogu Obywatelskiego ds. Środowiska, 29.11.2023
- „Z lornetką na Łąki Nowohuckie”, projekt ścieżki dydaktycznej
- Modraszek telejus - Wikipedia, CC BY-SA