The SuffolkArgus
Autumn2005
lckworth Park 30th June by Rob Parker Thursday 30th June saw a team of seven optimistic would-be butterfly surveyors and the Estate Warden Mark Nisbett under heavy skies at the National Trust property at lckworth. The site atends into five tetrads, but casual records over the years have fallen short of an organised survey, and the plan for the day was to cover four of those tetrads, looking particularly for the species which had been missed. Regrettablythe weather was to prevent us from completing the mission. We set out in the northernmost block at Arthur's Wood where good numbers of Meadow Browns and Ringlets were joined by an early Gatekeeper, a couple of Speckled Woods and a Comma. Large Skipper and Small Tortoiseshellwere enjoying a patch of thistle, and the day would have been off to a good start had it not been for the thunderstorm. With patience and dedication we moved on to the next location in heavy rain whilst waiting for the storm to pass. Sadly, it never did, and the rain set in for the rest of the day. We have since picked up a few extra records individually, including the Purple Hairstreak chat Mark found, so an extended survey will eventually get done.
Gatekeeper by BerylJohnson 12
Bentley Old Hall Wood, near Ipswich, 9th July
National Moth Night at Wordwell - 9th July
by Richard Stewart
by TonyPrichard
Colin Hawes arranged this joint meeting with the Suffolk Naturalists' Society with permission from the owners, John and Annie Owen. It was a particular pleasure for me to be able to explore long and inviting private paths previously just glimpsed from the footpath. On arrival the twenty three of us, with BC well represented, were welcomed with drinks by Doctor Michael Banford and bis wife Angela, who live in Bentley Old Hall. Our BC contingent divided into two groups, with Alan Johnson and myself eventually following a long path adjacent to a stream right down towards the main Ipswich to London railway line, discovering many Dormouse boxes, an enormous Holly tree and, by lunch, the three whites, three skippers, ten plus Meadow Brown and Comma, hundreds of Ringlets, Red Admiral and eventually one White Admiral. This was viewed close to one of the many sunlit and flowering Bramble bushes along the wide main ride. The other group had seen three which was also our total by the end of the afrernoon, plus Gatekeeper and Speckled Wood, with someone else noting one Small Tortoiseshell. Lunch was taken in the garden at Bentley Old Hall and I was able to confirm Purple Hairstreaks in one Oak. We had good views of eight or more Slow-worms and one Grass Snake by lifting a piece of boarding but undoubtedly the highlight was the good close views of White Admirals. Colin Hawes has calculated chat there has been a gap of forty four years between their last sighting and rediscovery in 2004. My own thoughts about colonising would be from Srour Wood in Essex, just a few miles away and I would imagine an adventurous White Admiral would have no problems crossing the river, bearing in mind what our migrants manage ro do each year. The late Sam Beaufoy, formerly the Suffolk Bunerfly Recorder, spent some time studying the
For this year'sNational Moth Night we decided that attempting to search for the target species was unlikely to provide an interesting night fur any branch members who came along. The site we have recently started to record at in the King's Forest, near Wordwell, has produced a good selection of interesting and notable records since we began visiting the site. It was rather disappointing on arrival to find again that no branch members had decided to come along for the event. However,we were joined by John Chainey and Jenny Spence from nearby Hertfordshire. I also found that we had a bit of a problem when pulling into the car park as an earth bank had been thrown up blocking the trackthat we use to access the site. A quick scan of the Ordnance Survey map gave us hope of accessing the area via a more indirect route and after some skilful navigation along forest tracks we managed to arrive at the site. With just two sets of equipment we decided to cover a couple of areas, including grassland and broad-leaved woodland habitats, between the conifer compartments. Weather conditions were fair and there was plenty of activity around the lights at the start of the evening. Several scarcer species that I would expect to find at a Breckland site, appeared during the evening; Pempeliella dilutel/a, Pyraustadespicata,Royal Mantle, Wood and Four-dotted Footman. A Beautiful Hook-tip was quickly assigned 'moth of the night' status when it came to one of my lights, this appears to be a species chat is rather erratic in appearance in the county, turning up here and there in low numbers. As midnight came and went activity declined and we decided to call it a night and started clearing up the traps. While we were clearing up my traps John Chainey came up with rather an unexpected species chat they had spotted on the outside of their trap - Cloaked Pug. A very
White Admiral by DouglasHammersley White Admiral in these woods. In his lovely book "Butterfly Lives" (pub. Collins, 1947) he writes of visiting "a certain wood near Ipswich" where "when I reached a clearing, where brambles abound, to my amaz.ementI found dozens of these butterflies, many feeding on the nectar in the bramble blossoms, some floating down from the tops of the trees where they had been resting, and others skimming over the tops of the bushes. It seemed as if they could not make too great a success of my first meeting with chem".
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