Issue 1 Winter 2016
The Local Environmental Records Centre serving Cheshire, Halton, Warrington and Wirral
Issue 7 Spring 2019
1
Dark-edged bee-fly (Bombylius major) ŠLeanna Dixon
RECORD Newsletter. Issue 7: Spring 2019 Contents RECORD Round up
3-4
Wildlife on your doorstep by Lisa Reeves
5-6
Chester Zoo’s Nature Reserve News by Andy Jennings-Giles
6-8
Mosquitoes in West Wirral by Michael Clarkson
9-13
Wildlife Gardening - musings and misconceptions by Natalie Hunt
13-17
Count Me in Graduates by Sue Budd
18
Bumblebees and Garden Flowers in Rural Cheshire by Chloe Aldridge
19-22
Upcoming events in Cheshire
22-23
A note from the editor‌ Welcome to the Spring RECORD newsletter, as the weather warms up and the days become longer we begin to spend more time outdoors and in our gardens, this issue has a particular focus on recording in gardens with some great wildlife gardening tips. We also have an interesting insight into the mosquitoes of West Wirral plus our regular update of what has been happening on the Chester Zoo Nature Reserve. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this issue with particular thanks to our Volunteer Newsletter Editor Caroline Harcourt for all of her assistance, if you would like to contribute to our Autumn issue please get in touch. Leanna Dixon (Data Services Officer, leanna@record-lrc.co.uk)
2
RECORD Round Up Take a look below to find out what we have been up to at RECORD‌.
Left: Butterfly Drop-in Session. Right: Andy Harmer at the Mustelid Wildlife Exchange Session demonstrating how to build your own mostela box
We have been continuing with our Wildlife Exchange Sessions in collaboration with Chester Zoo and it has been great to see many new faces this year. Our February session on Badgers was so popular that we had to run a second event! Helen Bradshaw and Jane Cullen from the Wirral and Cheshire Badger Group (WCBG) shared their insights into badger behaviour and the fascinating, odd and amusing things Cheshire Badgers have been getting up to. In March we were joined by Andy Harmer and Roy Leigh who told us about their Cheshire Mustelid recording project, you can find out more about the project on their facebook group here. This year we are theming our Drop-in Sessions and in March we kicked off the season with a Spring bees evening which also saw the launch of the Cheshire Bee Recording Group. The aim of the group is to allow those with an interest in bee recording to get together to practice bee identification and increase the number of bee records for Cheshire through regular field outings and indoor sessions. So far the group has had field outings to Ness Gardens and Chester Meadows, if you would like to be added to the bee group’s mailing list to hear about this years programme of events please email leanna@record-lrc.co.uk. A handy guide to Spring bees was also produced for the drop-in session which
Left: Cheshire Bee Recording Group at Ness Gardens. Right: Male Orange-tailed mining bee (Andrena haemorrhoa) at Ness Gardens 3
can be downloaded here. Our April session focused on butterflies with an emphasis on how to separate the whites and skippers, if you would like to attend our next session we are now taking bookings for May when we will be looking at Shieldbugs.
Scarce fungus weevil (Platyrhinus resinosus) ŠLeanna Dixon
During a recording session at Cleaver Heath Nature Reserve in April, Eric Fletcher spotted a Scarce fungus weevil (Platyrhinus resinosus), which is a first for Cheshire! The larvae of these weevils develop inside the fungus King Alfred's cakes (Daldinia concentrica). At the end of April we held a Wildlife Recording Day at Royden Park/Thurstaston Common as part of the City Nature Challenge for the Liverpool City region. Despite a wet day we still got a good haul of species records and encouraged the use of the iNaturalist app.
Royden Park/Thurstaston Common Wildlife Recording Day; Top left: Using the iNaturalist app. Top right: Green longhorn moth (Adela reaumurella). Bottom left: Common frog (Rana temporaria). Bottom right: Beetle larva ŠLeanna Dixon 4
© Lisa Reeves
Steve McWilliam ©
Wildlife on your doorstep by Lisa Reeves
©Caroline Harcourt
©Lisa Reeves
The garden is finally waking up and is bursting with new life. Flowers are springing up from the ground and the hedges are noisy with the sound of busy birds. I love sitting in the garden listening to the birds, especially the dawn chorus. The first birds up in the morning are Robins and Blackbirds, who sing loudly to defend their territories and attract a mate. You can’t afford to have a lie-in at this time of year if you are a bird. Late morning I watch the Blue tits squabbling on the feeder whilst Goldfinches gather nesting material I have put out for them (donated by my furry dog friend). Sparrows hop along the ground picking up fallen seed, while a nearby Blackbird plays tug of war with an earthworm. During the afternoon the sun appears, basking the garden in a bit of
warmth. Bees are now waking and buzz around the low growing flowers. They are enjoying the nectar of the celandines and bluebells around the pond as well as the dandelions and daisies in the lawn. I Nesting material for the birds
even capture a glimpse of a butterfly fluttering around the wild area at the bottom of the garden where nettles and Wild garlic grow.
I have decided to put out more little bee hotels this year as they were quite popular with the solitary bees last year. I do love to watch the bees use them in the summer months, as they dart in and out of the holes and then plug them up with a leaf or some mud. In the evening, I make sure I put out fresh water and food for the night time garden visitors. The first to arrive are the hedgehogs. They are scurrying around the garden at the moment looking for things to eat as they are hungry and thirsty after their winter slumber. They will also be checking out suitable nesting sites and potential mates. It won’t be long until I’m wondering what all the commotion is in the Celandines in the spring garden garden, as the male hedgehogs try to impress a female with their circling movements and their snorting and snuffling noises. Not to mention head butting and pushing other rivals out of the way. 5
©Lisa Ree
As darkness descends on the garden there is a strange smell in the air. This is the male fox and he is extremely busy right now. He has been eagerly marking his garden territory as well as finding food for himself and his mate. She is in her den at the moment and will stay with her cubs until they are weaned. It won’t be long though until I see her again looking for food and, hopefully, in the summer I’ll get to see her beautiful cubs. There is so much you can do in the garden about now. A hungry hedgehog Perhaps sow some wildflowers for the bees, (even if they are only in a pot). You could maybe put a bee hotel in your garden or put bits of nesting material out for the birds. It’s also the time of year when a lot of us start to tidy the garden, but be very careful using a strimmer. Always check long areas of grass before you strim as hedgehogs and other wildlife could be hiding there. Maybe even keep bits of tree prunings to make a little twig pile for some insects and other small creatures. Whatever you do in the coming months, give your garden wildlife a helping hand, and they, in return, will help you keep down your garden pests. Learn more about garden wildlife by visiting Lisa’s Blog Ljay Nature
Serge Wich©
Chester Zoo Nature Reserve News March 2019: Cloudy, the blackthorn floats upon the blue by Andy Jennings-Giles At the time of writing (4th March) I’ve just finished my first official survey of the season, looking for signs of Otter and Mink in the wet meadow and along the Shropshire Union Canal. Despite the lack of definitive Otter signs (though there was one potential spraint on the parapet by Caughall Bridge), there were plenty of indications that spring is just around the corner. One arresting sign was the repetitive call of the Chiffchaff, presumably a fresh arrival from southern Europe or north-west Africa. I say presumably, as an increasing number of Chiffchaffs are now over-wintering in the UK, something that started in Cheshire in 6
the 1960s. Chiffchaffs appear to be doing very well in Cheshire, between 1985 and 2005 they increased from 1500 breeding pairs to over 15,000, which is mirrored by a large increase in breeding numbers nationally. Another emblem of spring is the sulphur-yellow catkins of Grey willow, which are actually the male flowers packed with protein-rich pollen. Every time the sun came out this morning, a number of queen Buff-tailed bumblebees suddenly appeared, greedily collecting up the pollen and nectar. This is an important early source of food for the queens, who need to feed immediately after hibernation, when many other flowers are yet to emerge. A small number of the Blackthorn bushes
Grey (male) 04.03.19 Greywillow willowcatkins catkin (male)
have erupted into a drift of blossom, with the white contrasting strongly against the dark, naked branches. I noticed the first one started to blossom on the 19th February, nodoubt spurred on by the unusually warm spell we had. The pond with the dipping-platform has a good clump of frogspawn again, and the amphibian surveys over the next few months should let us know if the Great-crested newts have colonised from ponds nearby. Over the winter period we’ve carried out some much needed habitat management on our ponds, as well as in the wetBlackthorn in blossom meadow down by the canal. We commissioned local contractors to remove 90% of the Typha (Typha latifolia), Flowering rush and Bur-reed from our platform pond, since by the end of the summer these species had almost completely covered any submerged vegetation. This might appear to be a drastic measure, but we removed around 50% of the vegetation in the winter of 2017 and this hardly made a dent in the cover by the end of the growing season. We made sure that we left the majority of submerged vegetation, and some of the rhizomes of the marginal vegetation will certainly regenerate. A number of dragonfly and damselfly species use scythe-like ovipositors to inject their eggs into standing stems or debris near the water’s surface, so there is always a worry that drastic management such as this might affect numbers. We will monitor the situation closely to see if there is a reduction in the number or diversity of these species during the summer. In these situations, there is a difficult balance to strike, since allowing the Typha to completely take over the pond would eventually cause it to dry out and reduce other vegetation. The ideal situation would be if we could allow cattle or ponies to wade into the pond, breaking up the rhizomes and creating bare patches that would naturally prevent succession. Since we cannot currently allow grazing animals, we will have to continue to manage our shallow ponds manually. Another option might be to deepen areas of the pond, since Typha cannot usually colonise water over 1.5 m deep. One significant drawback of doing this is that deeper water is usually far less suitable for most other pond plants and animals. The Freshwater Habitats Trust have found that water from 0-30 cm depth around the edge of a pond contains the vast majority of species, which is why our new ponds have shallow undulating margins and a depth of less than 1 m in the middle. We also removed a fair bit of vegetation from 7
Left: Frogspawn in the platform pond. Right: Pond management on the margins of our platform hide
the new pond by our bird-hide as this was also getting choked with Typha. Each seed head can produce over 200,000 seeds and it can also spread vegetatively, so it’s certainly something we need to keep on top of! It can often be a problem in the first few years after pond creation until the nutrient levels settle and the other plants can reach equilibrium. We commissioned Ecological Land Management to cut some areas of grass around the meadow pond and in the wet meadow. The area around the pond is directly behind the dead hedge and we decided not to cut it in late summer as there may be young amphibians hiding in the tussocks. They cut this area using a pedestrian mower at a height of 15 cm to avoid harming any hibernating newts, frogs or toads and carefully cut around the log-habitat piles. Later they cut a trial area in the wet meadow, which we had noticed was gradually succeeding from unimproved species-rich grassland to ruderal vegetation dominated by Great willowherb and bramble. Whilst the ruderal vegetation is important in its own right, we want to maintain a balance since the area is notified as a Local Wildlife Site for its wet-grassland flora. Adjacent patches have been left as these are important for invertebrates, nesting birds and small mammals. I carefully hand searched the bramble patches for Harvest mice, Hedgehogs and other creatures that might be sheltering there before cutting commenced. We will monitor the area to see what re-generates now that the ground has been cleared. We’re hoping that species such as Cuckoo-flower, Ragged robin and Meadowsweet might now have a chance to thrive. These species are all far more abundant in the adjacent field that is grazed by cattle each year, which just proves how important disturbance and nutrient removal is to maintain wet-grassland long term. If you’re interested in assisting with surveys and/or habitat management on the nature reserve please contact me directly at a.jennings-giles@chesterzoo.org.
This area used to be more than a metre deep in Willowherb and bramble. There should now be light and space for wildflower species to thrive
8
Mosquitoes in West Wirral by Michael Clarkson
It is difficult to convince most people that mosquitoes can be fascinating and exciting but my hobby over the past 10 years has convinced me that this much-maligned group of insects demands great respect and further study. Most people think that a mosquito is a mosquito and that’s it! However, in Britain, there are over 30 different species, each with their own special characteristics and peculiarities. Many species have their own special place to breed, although they all need water for the immature stages. Some breed in freshwater ponds, ditches, water-butts and in buckets or other containers left in the garden but a few breed only in the rainwater which accumulates in holes in trees and a few prefer saltwater. Many bite humans but some bite only birds. Only the female mosquito bites, they need blood to produce eggs; the males feed on the juice of fruit and flowers. The females lay eggs, singly or in batches stuck together like a raft. Some species lay eggs on water and others lay their eggs on the ground or on a tree where they can live for up to a year, waiting for the conditions needed for them to develop. A tiny larva develops inside the egg and it has a special tooth to eat its way out when conditions are right. From then on, the immature stages need to be in water to live and develop through four larval stages to the pupal or chrysalis stage from which the adult fly emerges. All these immature stages are very active and easily visible to the naked eye and, under ideal conditions in a British summer, go through all the stages in around a fortnight. It must be admitted that mosquitoes can be an awful nuisance and cause a lot of distress by their bites, which are usually very itchy and can occasionally become infected. One good thing is that in Britain, no human diseases are transmitted by mosquitoes, though in parts of mainland Europe the same mosquitoes may transmit serious diseases to humans and animals. Public Health England keeps a watchful eye out for these diseases and for mosquitoes which don’t occur in UK at the moment. One mosquito transmits bird malaria in Britain and has caused serious disease and death to penguins in zoos. Mosquitoes are found everywhere in Britain and everyone must know what it is to be bitten by one but some species are abundant in certain areas and can be a real nuisance. This is certainly true of the mosquito which is common in the west of the Wirral Peninsula, the area bordering the salt marshes associated with the River Dee between England and Wales. It has the elegant scientific name of Ochlerotatus detritus, the Salt-marsh mosquito. The River Dee is tidal, of course, and near to the sea at Hoylake down to Heswall, the daily high tides cover the mud and sand and wash away any eggs which might be laid there. Further inland along the river, at Parkgate, Neston and Little Neston to Ness, Burton and beyond, the river has become silted up which has given rise to thousands of pools which are not covered by the tides each day. When these pools become filled with saltwater by really high tides, they become ideal places for the Salt-marsh mosquito to develop to huge numbers of adults when conditions are just right. 9
In 1983, more than a hundred complaints of mosquito bites were recorded by the Health Protection Unit (HPU) of the Local Authority, Ellesmere Port and Neston Borough Council and measures were taken to try and control the numbers of mosquitoes. The HPU kept excellent records of complaints from residents, which varied from year to year and from month to month, with most complaints in the autumn.
In 2007, the HPU carried out trapping of adult mosquitoes in sites close to schools or in residents’ gardens and these mosquitoes were identified at the University of Liverpool’s Veterinary School Leahurst Campus. This survey showed that the Salt-marsh mosquito was by far the most important species causing the nuisance though 12 other species (Table 1) were found, almost all of which also bite humans. Table 1. Species of mosquito that have been found in West Wirral (in alphaAnopheles atroparvus/messeae
Ochlerotatus (formerly Aedes) cantans
An. claviger
Oc. caspius
An. plumbeus
Oc. detritus
Coquillettidia richiardii
Oc. geniculatus
Culex pipiens
Oc. punctor
Cx. torrentium
Oc. rusticus
Culiseta annulata
The numbers of marsh mosquitoes varied from month to month with a peak in the autumn coinciding with the number of recorded nuisance complaints to the Council (see graphs below). Traps have been used by Leahurst staff every year for the past 10 years and great differences in the number of Salt-marsh mosquitoes has been seen from year to year. The best trap has been shown to be the Mosquito Magnet Independence Trap (right) , which has several features to attract and trap biting flies, including mosquitoes and midges. 10
In essence, the trap acts like a human being in its attraction for mosquitoes, producing warmth and carbon dioxide, like our breath, and a chemical similar to human sweat. Mosquitoes are attracted to the trap and are then sucked into a net by a fan. It is not surprising that the trap costs around ÂŁ1000!
These studies show that the mosquitoes have a seasonal prevalence with a peak in the spring and a much larger peak in the autumn, in agreement with the time when most complaints occur. Studies have also been done for the past eight years on the developing stages in pools on the edge of the River Dee at Little Neston to try and work out the factors which give rise to large numbers of mosquitoes in the auDipping a pool for immature stages of mosquitoes with a jug on a pole
tumn and why some years are much worse than others. Samples are taken by a piece of equipment which is like a jug on a pole, 11
A dry pool during the summer (left) & pools after a high tide of over 10 metres
though it is specially produced for mosquito surveillance in tropical countries. The number of larvae of different sizes are counted at weekly intervals and the development of the pu-
pal stages particularly noted. A clear pattern is seen, with peaks in the immature stages in spring, fewer numbers during most summers and peaks of enormous numbers occurring in autumn, with some years being far worse than others. These differences have been shown to be associated with the timing and height of the monthly highest tides and with rainfall. An understanding of these factors has formed the basis of a ‘Mosquito Forecast System’ which has been produced Neston Town Council website for the past three years and includes a traffic light warning system and comments. These three years, especially 2018, had dry summer months with relatively low high tides and the mosquitoes were not much of a nuisance. By contrast, in 2014, the summer tides were particularly high and there was a lot of rain between the tides, which resulted in large numbers of mosquitoes. Traps were placed in ever-increasing distances from the river and Salt-marsh mosquitoes were found in most of the Wirral as far as Bebington, which meant that the mosquitoes had flown or been blown for about five miles! A variety of methods to control the mosquitoes have been tried by the Local Authority but the options are limited by the conservation status of the Dee Estuary in both the UK and EU. The estuary is a beautiful wild area with a unique flora and fauna and is home to enormous numbers of birds, which vary throughout the year. The whole area is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and an EU Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and it is a privilege for those of us who live nearby to explore this wilderness area. Control methods have to be approved by Natural England and the only spray which is allowed is a natural parasite of mosquito larvae, a bacterium with a long name, known briefly as Bti. This is very
effective at killing larvae when sprayed in the pools where they are developing but it doesn’t kill eggs or pupae and so is fleeting in effect. Our studies have shown that since the mosquitoes lay their eggs on mud and not on water, the deep pools rarely contain the developing stages. Instead, these are found in large numbers in shallow pools which get covered in mud when there are particularly high tides. The local authorities and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) have been digging out small pools to convert them to deep pools and this has been shown to reduce mosquito numbers. However, there are so many small pools scattered over much of the estuary that it is impossible to dig out the whole area and, anyway, this would result in destruction of important wildlife habitat. For the present, those of us who live in this area are going to have to offset the beauty of the river estuary with 12
its unique wildlife against the nuisance of a biting mosquito! It is hoped that the Mosquito Forecast will help with the timing of leisure activities like barbecues, perhaps aided by mosquito repellents! For a detailed account of the history of mosquito problems in Neston and of the first survey of mosquitoes by M. Clarkson see his paper in the ‘European Mosquito Bulletin ’
Wildlife Gardening - musings and misconceptions by Natalie Hunt
A common misconception I’ve found from chatting to people is that you must have space and be pre-
pared to leave your garden to go ‘wild’ and messy to attract wildlife. This is not the case and I worry that this idea puts a lot of people off considering wildlife in their own backyard. You don’t need a big space to garden for wildlife and leaving things to go completely wild is only going to attract certain species that like overgrown grass! When I think of gardening for wildlife, I see it as attracting as many species as physically possible and making it so welcoming that they stay, whilst still having a reasonably aesthetically pleasing and productive garden. No pressure then!
Container gardening in a small yard - I squeezed in a waterbutt, bird box and bee boxes as well as all the plants
My first garden was a very small, brick and concrete yard behind a terraced house with narrow flowerbeds either side against the boundary walls. Neighbouring gardens were also mostly hardstanding with barely a plant in sight. Being a rented property, any gardening I did had to be easily transportable, but I still wanted to try and attract as much wildlife as possible. Using all manner of containers, mostly from second-hand sources, I planted a container garden of flowers, shrubs, trees and vegetables, experimenting as I went along as I had very little horticultural experience at the time 13
other than what I had gleaned from books and television. I made a pond from a glazed bowl, sunk into the existing flowerbed, and put up small bee boxes made from blocks of wood with holes drilled in and bark nailed to the top! To my utter amazement, within only a few days of putting up the bee boxes, Red mason bees started taking up residence. I observed many different bumblebees, solitary bees, wasps and butterflies appearing over the few years I lived there. Frogs even found the little pond. My neighbours started to comment on how many insects they were seeing and one or two actually started to add a few plants to their otherwise hardstanding space. After we left, my landlord said how many bees still visited the plants I had put into the existing flowerbeds.
View across the herbaceous borders and lawn in mid-summer
I moved to a house which, by today’s standards, has a reasonable sized garden, about 8 m wide by 20 m long, located in an urban environment, at least 1 km from the nearest countryside. Over the last ten years, with my horticultural and wildlife knowledge growing all the time, I worked on developing the garden into a space that works for both me and wildlife. The garden is divided up into a vegetable and cut flower garden, herbaceous borders and lawn and a patio area with a small pond. The garden is neither well-manicured nor left to grow ‘wild’, it is somewhere between the two. It is designed and managed to look attractive and be productive throughout the year but still support wildlife. Lawn cutting is kept to a minimum and is at the highest mower setting. Cutting back of the herbaceous borders is left until spring to allow species to overwinter without disturbance, the ‘No Dig’ method is used in the vegetable garden and no chemicals are applied.
View across the vegetable and cut flower patch in mid-summer 14
Patio area – attracts lots of butterflies, bees, wasps and beetles
My wildlife recording over the years has been fairly ad hoc, i.e. limited to mostly weekend observations of an enthusiastic amateur and would be considered far from the scientific approaches of, for example, Jennifer Owen’s 30-year study of a suburban Leicestershire garden. Nevertheless, I can quite honestly say that I have observed an ever-increasing number of species, particularly insects, visiting or living in my garden. I have recorded at least 18 different species of butterfly, nine bumblebee species, had Early mining
bees nest in the lawn every year and for the bryologists, recorded 21 species of mosses and liverworts so far. I’ve even had a Field grasshopper regularly chirping away along the lawn edges in late summer and the magnificent Hornet hoverfly has visited on and off. Having recently completed a master’s degree in conservation and armed with a far greater knowledge and understanding, a current work in progress is going back through all my photographic records to identify the invertebrates in more detail. So, the moral of the story is that I think you can have both a wonderfully productive garden and increase urban biodiversity at the same time without having masses of space and a messy ‘wild’ approach. It just requires changing your thinking a bit to include wildlife when making decisions about what you plant and where. I can’t tell you how much pleasure I get out of my little green space every year and watching out for what wildlife is going to turn up next! Here are just a few tips which, hopefully, you might find useful from what I have learned over the years and that I think have greatly increased the biodiversity in my garden. Tip 1 Try to have something in flower in as many months as possible. Cram in as many bulbs as you can for early and late season blooms and don’t forget about including flowering shrubs, so many of them flower early in the season and sometimes over winter, providing important early sources of food for pollinators.
15
Tip 2 Variety is key. Mix grasses, herbaceous perennials, shrubs and trees to create different heights of vegetation and mini ecosystems, which is much closer to how things work in nature, rather than always putting small plants at the front, big ones at the back and in uniform rows. If you are short on space, think vertically and grow things up walls, cane wigwams and arches. Throw out the rulebook on plant spacing and just experiment to find out what works best for your space and your soil type. Plants never read the advice on themselves in the gardening books and often do as they please! No room for a wildflower meadow? No problem. I tried planting a mix of wildflower seeds in the smallest strip of earth at the base of a wall in our garden. It did very well and was full of insects.
Wildflower ‘meadow’ by a wall
Tip 3 Think about the kind of flowers you choose. I make sure I include plenty of simple, single flowered varieties for pollinators but also include a few big, double blooms for me to enjoy in a vase! Don’t worry too much about the native versus non-native debate, it is a very complex matter about which we still don’t know the full picture. From what I’ve read, wildlife is mostly completely indifferent on the subject unless you are trying to attract a specific choosy species, so I work on the basis of a good mix of both is fine. Tip 4 Leave tidying up the garden and cutting back any plants too much until spring, giving wildlife a chance to overwinter undisturbed and allowing birds to enjoy the seed heads of flowers. Goldfinches seem to love hanging off old Verbena bonariensis flowers in winter to extract the tiny seeds. Tip 5 This one is probably the most difficult for a lot of people - learn to love a lawn which has moss and ‘weeds’ in it! Biodiversity is so much the better for it!
Early mining bee holes in the lawn and a close-up of one in its burrow
16
Tip 6 Don’t be afraid to move a plant. You don’t always put it in the right place the first time. That’s the beauty of gardening, if it doesn’t work, you can change it. The late, great Geoff Hamilton used to say if you poured a bucket of water on a plant, moved it and poured another bucket of water on it, most will never know! A philosophy I have followed successfully for many a plant in the wrong place. Tip 7 The age-old advice of adding nest boxes, bird feeders, water (both for birds and insects), hedgehog houses, access holes in fences and bee boxes really does help, in my opinion, to add to garden biodiversity. Not to mention, their inclusion allows you to observe what goes on in your garden close-up. I never tire of watching a leafcutter bee squeezing that last neatly cut leaf into a bee box. Place the bee boxes against the sunniest boundaries, at least 1 metre off the ground and with as few obstructions in front of them as practicable. If you can fit in some sort of pond feature, no matter how small, wildlife will find it even in the most urban of environments.
Bee boxes installed in the garden
Tip 8 Another tricky one - try not to see things like aphids and ‘cabbage white’ caterpillars just as pests, think of them as a wildlife food source. A balanced garden ecosystem will have good numbers of both predators and prey. True, I get just as frustrated as the next gardener when I see a perfect cabbage turned into nothing but rags in a day but then I see the Blue-tits in the nest box in the hedge picking the caterpillars off to feed their chicks and saving the rest of my crop. Or the ladybird larvae clearing the aphids from my Sweet pea plants in one afternoon. A bit of give and take.
Ladybird larva on Sweet pea
Tip 9 Get out in your garden and observe what’s going on. I’ve gleaned plenty from books, but we’re still learn-
ing the important part urban gardens play in habitat connectivity and the wider landscape, so nothing beats just watching, photographing and recording what visits your space. I have surprised many people, including local naturalists, when they find out some of the species I have recorded such as the fabulous Hornet hoverfly or the Fork-tailed flower bee. Tip 10 And lastly, but by no means, least, read ‘No Nettles Required’ by Ken Thompson for wildlife gardening reason and inspiration. This excellent book played a big part in starting me off in the right wildlife gardening direction. Happy gardening! 17
Count Me In Graduates (CMIG) by Sue Budd Saturday 10th March 2019. Visit to Ellesmere, Shropshire
ŠLeanna Dixon
We assembled in the centre of Ellesmere before our hosts for the day, Sue and Jeff, led us up to the canal wharf, which, despite the presence of a modern supermarket, retained a sense of past commercial importance. We followed the course of the canal past the spur to Llangollen, identifying the numerous species of plants along the canal towpath. As we approached the first bridge, where we would turn up away from the canal, a Tawny owl was heard calling from the trees on the left. We then headed up the slight hill towards Ellesmere Arboretum, as we did so, the sun came out and, with it, the insects. We spotted several Peacock butterflies (pictured top right) gathering nectar from Blackthorn. We also recorded Tree bumblebee, a queen Buff-tail bumblebee, a Gwynne's mining bee and several Seven-spot ladybirds. Gently turning over logs, we noted two small Smooth newts and a White-legged snake millipede. Fungi recorded included Glistening ink cap and Scarlet elf cup. As we descended through the arboretum we identified many of the trees - sometimes helped by printSmooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris) ŠSue Pinnington ed labels, although these were very scarce! After crossing the road by the mere we entered the visitor centre and watched the Herons in the heronry on the island and also watched a close up of a nesting Heron on a large screen with the aid of a camera relaying from the nest. After this, the group continued recording bird species around the mere. We had a great day out and recorded a total of 80 different species of plants and 40 species of birds. 18
Tufted vetch was well used by many bumblebees
Bumblebees and Garden Flowers in Rural Cheshire by Chloe Aldridge Spring in rural Cheshire, and a small smattering of bumblebees can be heard zigzagging through the long grass, or the edges of hedges in the sun, looking for holes in which to nest. The deep buzzing of the queens - mainly the Buff-tailed, Bombus terrestris (pictured right), and White-tailed, B. lucorum (really an aggregate of three species that can only be reliably distinguished by DNA), but with a smattering of other common species - is dis-
tinctive and several pitches below that of honeybees or hoverflies. Occasional concentrations of flowers - Sallow, Crocuses, even Snowdrops - draw in queen bumblebees
Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) ŠLeanna Dixon
eagerly looking for the nectar and pollen they need to feed themselves up after wintering underground and to establish their nests. In the agricultural landscape, garden plants provide a welcome resource of food for them and will draw them in from the surrounding countryside. Last summer, I spent several happy survey days recording bumblebees and what flowers each species and caste was foraging on in two large gardens in Cheshire; this was part of my data collection for a postgraduate dissertation. Both gardens are between one and two hectares and exceptionally flower-rich throughout the season. One is a domestic garden, the other a flower-growing business with a native flower bias. About 140 species of plants in flowBumblebee foraging on Aquilegia
er from 36 flower families were recorded on each. Eleven species of bumblebee were seen foraging and 19
over 2000 bumblebee-flower contacts were recorded. A high proportion of the flowers available in these gardens was visited by the bumblebees, about 80% in fact, and as a greater variety of plants came into flower, the bumblebees foraged more and more widely. Despite this, only about 20% were visited over all the survey days 10 or more times. One of the earlier queens to get going was the Tree bumblebee, B. hypnorum, distinctive with its white ‘tail’ and ginger thorax. This bumblebee, a new arrival in the UK less than 20 years ago which has spread quickly north, is hard to confuse with anything else. I saw fewer of these than others, but saw all castes – queens, workers, males – at both sites, and it was the only one seen frequently using Geum flowers, Nigella
damascena and Bramble (Rubus fruticosus agg.). By May, the queens and workers of seven of the UK’s most common and widespread species were active in the gardens: those mentioned above and the Red-tailed bumblebee, B. lapidarius, the Garden bumblebee, B. hortorum, the Early bumblebee, B. pratorum, and the Common carder, B. pascuorum. A few of the cuckoo bumblebees, which target some of the nests of the other species, were also around, but in lower numbers: B. vestalis (pictured right), B. sylvestris and a single B. barbutellus. The slightly diminutive Early bumblebees, with their short tongues, clearly hadn’t read the books, and were not just feeding on easily-accessible, dish-shaped flowers, but flowers of all shapes, such as Comfrey with its tubular corolla, which they seemed happy to crawl inside even if they had to really push themselves in to reach the nectar. Even the queens were doing this, despite being larger than the workers, which could be really tiny, and whose buzz was so high-pitched they hardly sounded like bumblebees at all. Others with short tongues, such as White-tailed bees, were frequently taking a short-cut and robbing the nectar from such flowers, biting a small hole at the top of the corolla to steal the nectar without providing a pollination service to the flower.
Echinops with two male cuckoo bumble bees (B. vestalis)
Nectar-robbing in progress!
One of the bumblebees with a longer tongue, the Garden bumblebee, seemed to stick fairly faithfully to its feeding niche, using flowers such as Foxglove, Catmint (Nepeta spp., particularly N. racemosa) Salvia spp. and Yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor), which others may have more trouble reaching; the other bumblebee species with a long tongue, the Common carder, however, was indiscriminate in comparison, going for (nearly!) anything in flower.
A Common Carder bumblebee (Bombus pascuorum) foraging on Chocolate cosmos, despite being long-tongued 20
Some flowers seemed to be a great attraction to many species of bumblebee, even when other suitable flowers were available. Flowers of chestnut trees – the native Horse chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum, along with two South American species of chestnut, A. flava and A. pavia - attracted five species of bumblebees. On the weeks when these were available, but only at one site, plentiful amounts of Comfrey (Symphytum vulgare) was ignored, despite being the most visited flower at the other site that week. Lavender, Phacelia tanacetifolia, Oreganum sp. and Borage (Borago officinalis), Aquilegia spp. and Hemp-leaved hollyhock
(Althea cannabina) attracted the most species of bumblebee, at
One of the several visitors to a Chestnut tree (Aesculus sp.)
least six species each. Other plants were heavily used, but by just one or two species of bumblebee. A long-flowering stand of Cornflower, Centaurea cyanus, for example, was used heavily and almost exclusively by Red-tailed bumblebees, and in fact 29% of their recorded flower visits were to Cornflowers. Workers of either the White-tailed or Buff-tailed bumblebees, which were not recorded separately as they are difficult to tell apart in the field, visited the Cornflowers almost as often as they visited Borage Cornflowers were well used by a few species
and Poppies (Papaver spp.).
Many flowers were both abundant and popular with the bees: particularly those from the Lamiaceae (Mint, Oregano, Lavender) and the Fabaceae, (Borage, Phacelia, Comfrey); but also some of the Rosa species, such as Rosa rugosa, the Dahlia spp. which flowered in August, the Cotoneaster early in the spring, and White clover, Trifolium repens. It was not always the abundant plants, however, that were targeted. The different poppy species, Papaver and Mecanopsis spp. for example, were available in very small numbers but used intensively for the time they were in flower, mainly by the Buff- or White-tailed workers, noisily rolling around the stamens, buzzing loudly as they used vibrations of their wingmuscles to loosen the pollen, a technique labelled ‘buzzpollination’. Geraniums were also prominent on the bumblebees’ menu despite not being abundant. However, only two of the eight species or varieties of geranium – Meadow crane’sbill, G. pratense and Dusky crane’sbill, G. phaeum – received several bumblebee visits.
Red-tailed bumblebee male (Bombus lapidarius)
A few female cuckoo bumblebees, nest parasites of the social species, were recorded foraging on their own earlier in the season. But a few of the male cuckoo bees present, particularly B. vestalis and B. syl21
vestris, were mostly feeding in small gaggles on not just the same species of flower when I saw them,
but often on the same individual flower head: Globe thistle, Echinops, and Sunflower, Helianthus species. The B. sylvestris males were concentrating on the Water avens (Geum rivale). One single B. barbutellus male showed up in August, slowly working its way round one large red Knautia flower. Many other pollinators such as hoverflies, beetles, butterflies, honeybees and solitary bees were foraging alongside the bumblebees, but the gardens were populated with a variety of other insects such as sawflies, so the bumblebees were just part of a wider community of insects benefitting from these gardens. For the bumblebees themselves, we cannot tell how many will produce queens that survive to found their own nests next year, but certainly the availability of a constant supply of a wide variety of plants was providing forage for a number of colonies at the same time; and although both gardens had an abundance of flowers, the bumblebees were visiting different species of flower whether they were plentiful or not.
Upcoming events in Cheshire You can now view upcoming events in our online RECORD Calendar. This calendar allows you to view RECORD and our partner events in one place and copy details to your own google calendar. Keep an eye out for our Wildlife Recording Days, Drop -in and Wildlife Exchange Sessions which are bookable through Eventbrite here. You can also sign up to our mailing list to be the first to hear about our upcoming events.
22
River Park Bioblitz Sat 1st June Meet the Moths and Small-mammal safari 8.30am-10am. Main activities from 10am- 4pm including: Wildflower and Bird walks, local stalls and crafts, Wildlife ID station, Bug hunting, Pond-life display
23
Pawprints Wildlife Rescue is Who are we? Pawprints Wildlife Rescue was founded 26th January 2018, but we opened ‘The Hoggery’ on 7th May 2018 after a lot of planning and building. We are based in Hoylake, Wirral, on 40b Carsthorne Road. We look after a variety of UK wildlife with a focus on small mammals and small birds, particularly hedgehogs.
What do we offer? We have a variety of volunteer positions available including: Hands-on experience with the animals at the rescue centre; Being involved in releasing our rehabilitated animals; Drivers for rescuing/transporting animals, vet runs, etc.; Community engagement work with a variety of children and adult groups teaching them how to make their gardens/allotments/ environment more wildlife-friendly and promoting our plastic pollution campaign including eco-bricks; Fundraising events on the Wirral and in Cheshire; Working in our Charity Shop in Liscard, Wallasey. There are many other ways of getting involved with a variety of activities, such as: Research, particularly focusing on a variety of subjects surrounding hedgehogs (e.g. distribution, parasitology); Managing social media and other means of communication including our website; School/university work placements and Duke of Edinburgh; Working with a variety of animals and different types of projects at the Tam O’Shanter Farm in Bidston, which we started managing in November 2018. The minimum age for volunteers is 14 years. You will be given an induction and hours are flexible, although we would like volunteers to start at 9:30 am if working at the rescue centre. There are also many opportunities for development and training. We will be having the Vale Wildlife Hospital at the Tam O’Shanter Farm delivering their basic Care and Rehabilitation of Hedgehogs Course on 7th October 2019, spaces are limited. If any of this sounds promising to you then we would love to hear from you. You can email us on message us on Facebook or on Twitter @wirralpaws, visit our website on or call us on 0151 317 8880. We look forward to hearing from you!
Team Pawprints 24
RECORD LRC, Cedar House, Chester Zoo, Caughall Road, Upton, CH2 1LH. Tel: 01244 383749 E-mail: info@record-lrc.co.uk Web: www.record-lrc.co.uk
Record all your Cheshire, Wirral, Halton & Warrington wildlife sightings on our online recording system - RODIS Download our RODIS Wildlife Recording App - Now Available on Android
Follow us on Facebook & Twitter
www.facebook.com/recordlrc
www.twitter.com/recordlrc
All photos are copyright of the article author unless otherwise stated.
A company Limited by Guarantee. Registered in England No: 4046886. Charity No: 1095859. Registered at: AGP, Sycamore House, Sutton Quays Business Park, Sutton Weaver, Runcorn, Cheshire, WA7 3EH.
25