Dear residents of Parwich. I am after your help!
My name is Jim, a Derbyshire naturalist and former countryside warden. For almost 20 years I have had a fascination with one of the UKs most enigmatic insect, the Common Glow-worm and most evening through June and July I am out searching the Derbyshire countryside to try to locate and record the species which is actually a type of beetle and not a worm at all.
Many people are totally unaware that Glow-worms (a close relative of Fireflies) even exist in Derbyshire or even the UK. They do and Derbyshire is quite a good place to find them, especially in the limestone areas of our county, where they may be found in many of the limestone dales.
Unfortunately, the number of populations of this species has declined over the past century through changes to land use, use of pesticides and increased levels of light pollution. Therefore I am trying to locate as many of our surviving Glow-worm populations as possible.
Over the last five or six years I have been trying to find new i.e. unrecorded populations as well as visiting sites with historical records, some dating back to the mid 1900’s.
There are no records that I am aware of for the immediate area around Parwich. The nearest populations being in Ballidon Dale where I saw them in 2018 and on private land a little farther east towards Brassington. There is also an old record for the Tissington Trail near Newton Grange.
It is possible that Glow-worms do exists around Parwich village and some of you may be aware of them, or have seen them there in the past, perhaps lighting your way home with their yellow bioluminescent glows, down one of the lanes on a summer evening.
Glow-worms are usually found on unimproved pastures & meadows especially steep banks or dale sides, where they feed upon slugs and snails.
I’d be grateful if anyone who may know of the whereabouts of any Glow-worms, even memories of seeing them decades ago around Parwich (or indeed anywhere else in the county) could let me know via my email address
More information about Glow-worms can be found on the UK Glow-worm Survey website (www.glowworms.org.uk ) that Glow-worm enthusiast Robin Scagell has run for almost 30 years. I now assist Robin with the survey as well as conducting my own searches in Derbyshire.
Many thanks
Jim Alder
UK Glow-worm Survey records verifier
PARWICH.ORG 
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