White Admiral 106

Suffolk Naturalists ’ Society

Suffolk Naturalists’ Society The

Newsletter 106 - Spring 2021

Welcome to this Spring issue of the White Admiral newsletter. I had planned an issue earlier in the Winter but thought it prudent to have a ‘full’ Spring issue rather than two slimmer volumes. I am still on the look out for new copy for future issues and being in full time employment I do struggle to dedicate lots of time to gather and chase potential new contributors. So if you have ever thought about writing about natural history please don ’t hesitate to get in touch with me via the details below, it would be most appreciated.

In my last editorial (Autumn) I wrote about the coming of the new national lockdown and it is now nice to know we are slowly seeing a return to normality in terms of restrictions. I have certainly relished being allowed to travel outside of our local area as we had rather exhausted the available walks in Colchester. In other news I am returning to work for Suffolk County Council and will be working for the next two years on the delivery of a mobile phone walking application for the Rights of Way team. I am looking forward to working in the Suffolk countryside again!

Following the success of our last members ’ evening on Zoom with guest speaker Dr Ross Piper (please see the excellent write up by Gen Broad on page three) we will, once again, be using the platform to deliver our Spring Members ’ Evening and AGM where we will have a talk by Kerry Calloway from the Natural History Museum on earthworms. I do hope you can join us for this evening - all the details needed to join are on page two.

I hope you enjoy this issue of White Admiral - stay safe!

92nd AGM and Spring Members ’ Evening

7.00 p.m. Wednesday 21st April 2021 | via Zoom

To join the Zoom Meeting visit this link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81242815867

Or input the meeting ID into your app:

812 4281 5867

The waiting room will be open from 6:50pm

Agenda

1. Apologies for absence

2. Minutes of the 91st Annual General Meeting 2020 (see Suffolk Natural History 2020 Vol. 56 p.209). Correction: Matthew Deans should have been elected to Council – see item 4

3. Hon. Chairman’s brief report – Martin Sanford (Full reports from Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer will be made available on the SNS website later and will be published in the next issue of Suffolk Natural History

4. Council Members

Council received the following nominations:

a) Matthew Deans – Proposed by Martin Sanford, seconded by Gen Broad (as from AGM 2020).

b) Juliet Hawkins has kindly agreed to extend her term of office. Proposed by Gen Broad, seconded by Martin Sanford.

5. Any Other Business

Following the conclusion of formal business there will be a talk by Kerry Calloway from the Natural History Museum, London. She will be talking about the biology, ecology and recording of earthworms.

Contributions to White Admiral

Deadline for copy for Summer issue is: 1st June

Dr Ross Piper - Report by Gen Broad

Thanks to Covid -19 pandemic restrictions, the SNS AGM, usually held in April, was delayed until the Autumn Members’ Evening on 25th November 2020. The evening was hosted virtually on ‘Zoom’ and, after a brief AGM, we were treated to a fascinating talk on deadwood invertebrates. There had been no change in officers and the reports from the Chair, Treasurer and Secretary are available in the latest issue of Suffolk Natural History.

We were delighted to welcome Dr. Ross Piper, zoologist, entomologist, author and presenter, as our guest speaker. Ross’s travels around the UK, Europe, the Americas, Africa and Southeast Asia, to study animals, has resulted in a broad range of experience. He brings this experience vividly to life with great enthusiasm in his fascinating talks. To see his academic papers on communicating animal diversity, the ecology and conservation biology of beetles, the ecology of solitary wasps and YouTube presentations, please visit his website at https://www.rosspiper.net/home/ .

Ross is keen to emphasise the importance of deadwood as a habitat, encouraging us all to leave standing

dead trees and fallen branches to decay in a natural process. Each piece of deadwood will provide habitat for a variety of animals depending on the type of wood, its size, moisture content, position and fungal diversity. Creating deadwood habitats is easy, even in a small garden. If your garden isn’t large enough for trees, tall stumps or logs part buried in soil in full sun make fine habitats and even wooden fences, such as hazel poles, are good searching grounds for invertebrates. Ideally, your deadwood habitat will have nectar sources nearby such as hawthorn and dogwood. Almost any kind of tree species can be used, from large to small, including oak, beech, sycamore, birch, hazel, ash, alder, willow, rowan and cherry.

Beetles and flies make up the majority of the 2,000 or so saproxylic (deadwood) invertebrate species in the UK. They are often very rare and are specially adapted to feed on the dead wood of the bark, cambium, sapwood or heartwood. The size range is immense, from less than 1 mm to 7.5 cm, the size reached by the magnificent stag beetle.

In the UK, saproxylic beetles number about 650 species from 53 families.

Opportunities for new studies are immense as the biology of most saproxylic species is poorly understood.

Knowledge on exactly where the species live, what they eat and who eats them is often a mystery just waiting to be unravelled by an enthusiast! Many of them lead fascinating lives, perfect for naturalists to study in fine detail.

Ross generously made his presentation available to SNS, so you can view

it on our website at: www.sns.org.uk/ pages/dates.shtml. Please check the presentation for detailed explanations of how to look for these beetles. A approach works well. For example, try watching a tall decayed stump in a sunny location on a warm day or humid evening for an hour sometime between April and October.

ll be astonished at the amount of life you will see! Other simple methods clude beating May blossom and deadwood material onto a white sheet and sieving wood mould from behind bark and rot cavities. Higher tech methods include interception traps, lures (such as pheromones) and raising species in breeding cages.

The take-home message from Ross is ‘Treasure any deadwood that you do have and if you haven ’t any, create some! Then watch carefully to see what life it holds.’

A huge ‘Thank You’ to Ross for sharing his profound knowledge of, and compelling enthusiasm for, deadwood insects.

Image Caption:

Laemophloeus monilis

Credit: Ross Piper

Very rare beetle found in parkland on beech, oak, sycamore and lime under decaying bark on standing and fallen trees and branches. The nearest record to Suffolk is Cambridgeshire.

A Mass Aquatic Bug Migration?

Adrian Chalkley

At the beginning of August I was sent a sample of aquatic bugs which Howard Mendel had collected from an enormous swarm which had descended on his garden. These were lesser water boatmen or corixid bugs.

Howard’s email said “On the evening of 30th July a blended MV bulb I run in my porch attracted hundreds and hundreds of corixids (it would have been thousands had I not switched the light off). Even the cats ran for cover (there were at least 20 swimming in their water bowl!)”.

Whilst the tube I received may not have been a totally representative subsample of those thousands of flying specimens, after identifying them under the microscope they were predominantly of one species as follows:

27 specimens of corixids comprised of:

Sigara dorsalis 4 males 17 females

Paracorixa concinna 5 males only

Sigara limitata 1 single female.

It is possibly worth explaining these are very small, mostly herbivorous bugs which are around 8mm or less in length. Many freshwater invertebrates are flightless but Corixids have wing covers called hemelytra beneath which they may have functional wings and if

so are able to fly in order to dis perse between water bodies. Howev er, wing development does vary according to both the season and local weather conditions, in other words they exhibit flight polymorphism. There is limited information on migration and flight polymorphism in the books I have read on the Aquatic Hemiptera Heteroptera. However, it is suggested that mass flights occur, with suitable weather and habitat conditions, most frequently at or around the beginning of August. There is some evidence that suggests rising temperatures may play a part in stimulating the development of flight muscles. It appears also that an anticyclone with rising pressure tends to stimulate morphs with well developed wing muscles to gather in shallow lake edges. Then either due to population pressure or habitat degradation, for example a drying wetland, this promotes a mass exodus. Possibly this particular occurrence can be explained by mated females of Sigara dorsalis stimulated by local conditions flying off to oviposit in a potentially better location, with a few males joining in and the odd female S. limitata & P. concinna swept up in the confusion.

It is of course highly likely that favorable atmospheric conditions may have produced similar large migrations of corixids or indeed other aquatic invertebrates on or about July 30th 2020. I would therefore welcome any

information from readers who run moth traps and have witnessed similar invasions in 2020, either around that date or during similar weather conditions.

aquatics@sns.org.uk

Image Captions:

(Top images) Sigara dorsalis ; (Bottom) Sigara dorsalis male fore tarsus

National Bat Monitoring Programme – Roost Count

Anne and Dennis Kell

In the last issue of White Admiral we gave you an overview of the four different long -term surveys undertaken for the National Bat Monitoring Programme (NBMP) with a promise to share a little more detail of the specific surveys we have been involved with. In this issue we discuss the findings from our roost survey.

The houses in our road in Copdock were built in the 1970s. Of the 26 houses, 16, including ours, have vertical hanging tiles on the upper half of the house – see photo on the next page. Under the gable eaves the hanging tiles run in a diagonal line unevenly overlapping the horizontal tiles below providing gaps ideally suited to bats, in this case the Common Pipistrelle Pipistrellus pipistrellus . The tiles themselves hang on battens providing a bat-sized void between the bricks and tiles and a good purchase for roosting – see photo on the next page. We have lived in the house for 20 years and bats have been seen leaving the gable eaves every year and were probably resident before we moved in. The first sign we have that they have returned is the accumulation of their droppings on the window sills. However, they are a fickle bunch and show little loyalty,

utilizing any of the similarly clad houses in the road at, what appears to be, a whim. So there can be no certainty that they will be present on consecutive nights, which makes monitoring their numbers difficult. Most of the houses have their gable eaves facing west and east but a few have eaves facing north and south. This provides a wide variety of different temperature regimes and bats are known to change roosts with changing climatic conditions, so that the temperatures within the roost, especially a nursey roost, are optimum.

Having established that the bats have taken up residence, the roost count survey requires a minimum of two counts during the month of June, the first being between 6 th and 15th, and the second between 16th and 25th, with the option of adding additional counts in the first and second halves of July. You are recommended to ‘set up camp’ at your chosen roost site 15 minutes before sunset. A comfortable chair is recommended, a bat detector is useful, but not essential and, for big roosts, a hand-held counter aids accuracy – see picture on next page (the glass of wine is optional!). Initially, the bats emerge singly and at intervals

but as sunset comes on their numbers increase and several bats can emerge from different parts of the eaves at the same time, making counting challenging. Similarly, as you lose the light, picking up the bats by sight becomes difficult and a bat detector is a great help in alerting you to the presence of a new bat. In the case of our roost, most of the bats leave the area immediately for their feeding

grounds but some will circle around before heading off, so care must be taken to avoid counting the same bat twice. By late June, and if you carry out the optional counts in July, the young will have been born and mothers may well come back within the time of your count to feed them, so again, care must be taken not to double count the bats. Additional data is also collected on cloud cover, wind strength, precipitation and air temperature at the time of the count. Out of curiosity, we also carry out counts outside of the prescribed time frame. We have been submitting data to the NBMP since 2008. Unfortunately, during the designated recording time intervals, our bats often abandon us for the neighbouring houses giving the impression that the roost is absent. However, when the bats have been in residence at the prescribed time in June their numbers have been fairly consistent at between 50 and 60,

Left: Tile cladding on the outside of the house showing battens | Right: Tile cladding on the outside of the house showing overlapping diagonal tiles – location of entry/exit points for bats

Settling down to count the bats.

indicating the establishment of a nursery roost. Later readings in July give numbers in excess of 80, with our maximum count of 133 in July 2019. At this time the baby bats are emerging and can be seen to be flying in tandem with their mothers, following their every move.

With lockdown keeping us at home this year we found ourselves gazing up at the eaves more often than in previous years so we had more records than normal. Droppings were first observed on 14 th May so our first count was the following night, with the bats being in residence for the following week. By 24th May they had moved to the adjacent properties and didn’t reappear until 18 th June, by which time the numbers implied we had a nursery colony. Sadly, yet again, the absence of bats in early June meant that our records for the first recording time interval showed no bats. However, in the second recording interval they had returned, giving a count of 60 emerging Pipistrelles. By mid -July these numbers peaked at just over 100 as the young bats started to emerge with their mothers. Watching the mothers trying to coax their offspring to take their first flight is wonderful. The mothers emerge first and repeatedly fly in circles under the opening calling to their baby. You can often see the young bat with its nose peeking out

between the tiles and you can feel its sense of apprehension at having to launch itself into the unknown. In the majority of cases the first flight is successful and it is very unusual to find a grounded baby bat that didn ’t quite make it. In some roosts, such as loft spaces, the young can exercise their wings in the relative safety of the roost before their first launch but the space under the tiles is quite restricted and would not allow for any practice flights.

If you view the national data for roost counts the trends do not give a positive picture, with a significant decline in numbers. This is in complete contrast to the results from the field survey, which we hope to report on in the next issue of White Admiral. It would appear that it isn ’t just our Pips that are fickle but this is a common problem across the country with the

Data for 2020

Number of bats emerging from the roost

bats regularly switching roost sites. As a consequence, the roost count is not considered a reliable measure of population change. The Bat Conservation Trust, who manage the NBMP, are currently investigating the causes of this negative bias and ways to correct it.

Roost count index for Common Pipistrelle England (Above).

The graph above shows the unsmoothed index value for each year (green crosses), the smoothed trend (solid line) and 95% confidence intervals (dotted lines).

NBMP Annual Report 2019 Bat Conservation Trust

Monitoring Suffolk ’ s Geological SSSIs

Geological SSSIs are protected for their research potential and monitored on a regular basis to check that the geology remains accessible. During the Winter of 2020-21 the Geology Trust (GT) was contracted by Natural England to assess several geological SSSIs. County groups which are members of the GT were asked to carry out this work and GeoSuffolk took responsibility for 11 Suffolk SSSIs: The Cliff, Gedgrave (in the Alde-Ore SSSI); Beeches pit, Icklingham and High Lodge (both in Breckland Forest SSSI); Buckanay Farm pit; Chillesford Church pit; Flixton Quarry; Gedgrave Hall pit; Great Blakenham pit; Hascot Hill pit; Richmond Farm pit, Gedgrave; Stoke Tunnel cutting, Ipswich. You can find the citations, maps, etc. at https://

designatedsites.naturalengland.org. uk/SiteSearch.aspx.

Fortunately, this is outdoor work and Natural England obtained permission for us to investigate these sites during the Covid -19 restrictions. Apart from Stoke Tunnel Cutting in Ipswich* they are all quite remote and it was a privilege to be allowed to visit them at this time. The site visits were made by either Bob and Caroline Markham or Howard Mottram – we were not permitted to have additional helpers. Suffolk has 40+ geological SSSIs and I have chosen three of those we visited to exemplify the variety of geology and conservation needs in our county. They record changing climate, from warm Coralline Crag seas 4 million years ago, through 2 million year of

Caroline Markham

Richmond Farm pit

cooling of the Red Crag/Norwich Crag seas and into a Pleistocene interglacial, and they exemplify the balance needed between investigation and conservation in geological SSSIs.

Richmond Farm pit SSSI is protected for its Coralline Crag – a marine limestone unique to Suffolk. This is the ‘Rock Bed’, hard enough to have been used as a building stone, so it has stood the test of time and still displays excellent exposures of large crossbedded units - with very little change since the Victorians recorded it. The origins of the pit are ancient, but it has been suggested that rock for Wantisden and Chillesford Churches was taken from here. It is on private land but can be seen from the road from Orford to Gedgrave as in the photo which illustrates the strong aesthetic appeal of the Coralline Crag. This pit was easy to survey and in good condition with several exposures showing a variety of sedimentary structures.

Chillesford Church pit SSSI, also on private land, is protected because it has Chillesford Beds resting on Red Crag which are exposed together so well nowhere else. It shows the stratigraphical sequence of marine fossils, including molluscs and foraminifera, and also pollen. The pit was deepened in the 1960s for sand for the American air bases, but its condition has deteriorated over time,

with talus and vegetation obscuring many of the exposures. We found a small exposure of the lower part of the Chillesford Beds under some brambles, and we found Red Crag some distance away in the floor of the lower pit in front of the church. We recommended that part of the lower face could be cleared, and steps could be cut into the talus to give access to the upper beds. However, many of the fossils are friable and are only to be found here (unless special excavations are carried out elsewhere) and particular attention should be directed to their conservation, i.e., expose part only and keep the rest buried.

Beeches Pit SSSI is an old brick pit in the Breckland Forest and is protected for several geological interests but notably its tufa (limestone deposited by springs) discovered in the 1970s and which has been Uranium -series dated at 300,000 years old, i.e., following the maximum ice advance. Fossil freshwater molluscs, vertebrates ( Bos and Cervus), and several worked flints have also been found here. Tufa deposits are, by their nature, of limited extent and so this site is designated as a Finite Mineral/ Fossil site, so its conservation needs differ from the two crag pits above which have a Disused Quarry classification. It needs to be maintained so that it can be opened up for scientific investigation in the

future and so we were looking for things that would make this difficult, e.g. trees, engineering works/ structures, tipping, rather than for exposures of the geology. We found

its condition to be good from this point of view with traces of archaeological research excavations dating back to the 1990s still in viable condition for further research.

*Stoke Tunnel cutting SSSI involves working with people - at the school where the playing field contains part of the SSSI - and so the survey has not been completed at the time of writing.

National Insect Week 21 - 27 June 2021

Colin Hawes

This year the Royal Entomological Society (RES) is once again holding its annual National Insect Week Photography Competition. The 2020 Photography Competition had a record 2,443 entries (2,095 from 72 countries in the over -18’s category and 348 from nine countries in the under 18’s category). You do not have to be a RES member to enter this competition so why not have a go? Contact the RES via their website www.royensoc.co.uk. All the winning

2020 entries can be viewed at: www.nationalinsectweek.co.uk/ photography . The 2,443 entries showed that these amateur photographers had engaged with nature, connected with insects, and taken a closer look at “The Little Things That Run The World”.

With acknowledgements to ‘Antenna’ the Bulletin of the Royal Entomologi cal Society.

Otter man Empire Trevor Goodfellow

At my home in Thurston, I have a large pond of around one acre. From about 2014, I started seeing damaged fish on the bank and after placing trail cameras around, I discovered that an otter had been stealing my carp. The first thing people said to me was ‘no, where’s there a river near you?’.

in the daylight, but cold Winter nights are their main feeding time.

The nearest river is the Blackbourn and there are fishery lakes one mile away, a short distance for an otter to travel for food as I read that they can travel up to 15 miles! I placed several cameras at different points to try and discover their direction of travel and I also followed their tracks in the snow. This led me to believe that they are probably coming via the shortest distance from the Blackbourn river.

Since 2014, otters have normally come infrequently, just every few days, but more recently, they have been coming up to 10 days in a two-week period, leading me to suspect that I have a temporary holt somewhere close by.

Camera triggers between 17.00 hrs

support this theory. Some nights have seen early evening and early morning triggers indicating possibly more than one individual, maybe one from a temporary holt nearby and the other from distance.

Certainly, camera footage shows a male and a female on different occasions, although it is hard to prove their collusion and none show distinguishing marks. I can only judge their presence by any fish remains but normally one or two fish or scattered scales appear in one visit.

If the pond is frozen, bubble trails trapped under the ice map their path and lead to where they managed to get under the ice which has sometimes been 4 inches thick.

Many small tench and perch would be

Otter Kill

eaten whole leaving no evidence, but this Winter, I have lost over a dozen fish between 5 and 20 lb with a mere bite sized chunk taken out behind the gills. These larger fish are frequently revisited more than once over several nights, despite what the books might say. Rats, moorhen, crows and even a kestrel have been seen cashing in on a free meal. Occasionally a whole carcass would be carried off by red fox.

I find very few spraints but don’t really need to as I know what they are eating, and I know they are here. Camera footage has shown scent marking especially near a kill, possibly a different individual than the one that made the kill and one short video I viewed, showed a male otter just about to enter the water before the wind frightened it away.

They do seem very cautious on occasions and often either investigate the trail camera or are spooked by it. One

of my cameras does make a faint audible click when triggered so that might be enough to make them wary. So, 2021 could see my fish stock vastly reduced and if otters continue to ransack the stock, I may have to hand it over to the otter as my twice nightly Winter otter patrols have had no effect on their presence. Trail cameras have shown that they have been here at the time I walk around, and I have not seen them, and when I have, they just keep still in the reeds, not realising their eyes shine brightly in torchlight as I walk past a few feet away. It is not practical for me to install electric fences like some fisheries but thinking about the 120lb (approximately) of fish I have lost, to replace them would cost £400+ and if I had sold them to a fishery, I get £2.50 per pound = £300. Quite a cost to have an otter in the garden, maybe more bearable if I could watch them in daylight.

Camera Trap Footage Otter Prints

Lies, Damn Lies & Moth Species Totals at Landguard Bird Observatory

Nigel Odin

Okay, admit it, the number of moths out there is undoubtably going down at a phenomenal rate. We know this as there are less moths in the traps and one only has to drive around the Suffolk countryside after dark to appreciate this. In the ‘good old days’ when we were young, if you were lucky enough to have a drive in a car after dark, the vehicle would be covered in blood and marks following

the carnage of night flying insects splattered on the windscreen & bonnet. As such, it came as a surprise to find that the number of different species of Macro moths recorded annually at Landguard Bird Observatory is going up. To date 488 species of Macro moths have been noted with the grand total due to break 1,000 species this year (hopefully).

Great Prominent - an addition to the LBO list in 2020

Micro moth species totals are not included in this chart as recording is variable between years dependent on the amount of time devoted to identifying some similar species. In the early 1990’s only one battery powered 15W Actinic trap was run, then with the arrival of electricity from 1993 onwards this was replaced by a Robinson trap, kindly supplied by

SNS. A second Robinson trap was operated from 1996. In 2007 & 2008 a 15W actinic trap was run on many nights, replaced by a twin 30W actinic from 2009 to 2016 and replaced by a 30W actinic 2017 onwards. Visiting “mothers” have also run traps on odd dates over the years. Consequently, the number of traps has increased to help compensate for fewer moths caught over the years which may partly explain for the increase above but there is no denying the fact that species diversity of macro species has gone up. Climatic amelioration seems to have helped species diversity in macro moths, but the use of this term is not what those campaigning about global warming want to hear hence the title to this brief note.

My First Suffolk Naturalists ’ Society Meeting

Bob Markham

The 25th August 1956 was a day of torrential rain but that didn ’t stop SNS members from visiting the large clay pit of the Portland Cement works at Great Blakenham. I had been invited and eagerly accepted. Once on site we waded through great quantities of mud to inspect the boulder heaps‘erratic’ rocks and fossils washed out of the ice-age

chalky Jurassic till (boulder clay) in the pit in order to supply stone-free clay to the works. It didn ’t take long to find belemnites, portions of ammonites and Gryphaea oysters and, quite a thrill, a reptile vertebraall Jurassic fossils brought by the ice from strata to the north and west of Suffolk. Harold Spencer, of Ipswich Museum, who had invited me on the

field trip, found a large boulder containing reptile vertebrae, which he later transported to the museum on his bicycle! (I gave my reptile vertebra to the museum in 1957, having enjoyed owning it for a period.)

One large boulder had numerous subparallel grooves and scratches cut in its surface by the abrasive action of

Image Caption:

harder rocks. These glacial striations were of particular interest to Janet Willis, the then SNS secretary. She told me that her father had taken her on field trips when she was young and her first word as ‘striations’! An excellent field trip. (I did join the SNS – and my first word was ‘spitfire’!)

Great Blakenham cement works clay pit, November 1st 1970.

On October 21st, my ‘activity tracker’ informed me that I had completed 2000 miles (yes 2000!) since lockdown day 23 March. It simply amazes and baffles me how my daily walks have added up to such a staggering total, relatively speaking, in so short a time. It makes you realise how if something becomes a routine, it can very easily amount to ‘something’. And now at the end of November, I have added another 400. It is a lifestyle change I am very pleased to have adopted. And invigorating! Also, it makes me appreciate how the bipedal gait, this more than anything else, made it possible for mankind to spread all across the world. It reminds me that we have great potential!

In amongst this routine are also the daily encounters of the varied faces of nature as the seasons change. The departure of the swallows (photo 1) for another year, blackberries in agreeable abundance, bluey-black clusters of alluring elderberries, bright pink lobes of spindle berries exposing shiny orange seeds (photo 2), leaves losing the Summer green to reveal their Autumnal yellows and oranges, beads of condensation on spiders’ webs (photo 3), exquisite

cloud formations, a momentary flash of the shimmering turquoise of a kingfisher, the low morning sun piercing the magical misty mornings, the guttural grunts of cormorants (photo 4), honking skeins and gaggles of geese, the changing faces of the moon, squeaky shrews scampering off at speed, a sprightly heron taken unawares (photo 5), a barking fox in a distant wood, little owls chasing each other, veils of mist layering the Dedham vale, the list is somewhat endless, but undeniably exciting and endearing. This constant wondrous flux the sea sons bring and the sense of time passing by makes it obvious to me that we need these spaces for ourselves too, for our own inner peace of mind and contentment.

But daily walks also imply a readiness for all weathers. So, I have everything in my wardrobe to tackle all eventualities. A variety of hats, gloves, jumpers, jackets, and boots, even thermals if needed, and importantly, waterproof overtrousers to tackle downpours. Nothing is worse than being cold and wet when you are out. So, ‘as snug as a bug in a rug’ I am when I go out at daybreak and just as comfy on my

return two hours later! And absolutely feeling on top of the world. Over the weeks I have collected so many blackberries (all converted into blackberry and apple/blackberry compotes and a lot frozen, and some turned into ice cream too) that I can ’t see us running

out of them, at least until Christmastime. And elderberries and gin are undergoing alche my as they metamorphose into elderberry gin. So now we can raise a glass to all those who are making our lives ‘liveable’, ‘lovable’ and ‘tolerable’ in these

Image Captions: 1) Swallows 2) Spindle 3) Dewy Web 4) Cormorants Basking 5) Heron at Flatford

worrying times: the nurses, the doctors, the carers, the food providers, the teachers, the relentless postal workers, the list is actually endless once you start to think about it. You realise how inter-dependent we are. In these times, we need each other more than at any other time. As I tell everyone I talk to, ‘life is all about friendship, no more, no less, so please,

please, do take care! ’. However, I have also been optimistic about man’s ingenuity and resilience in dealing with crises and overcoming adversity. The recent announcements of the three vaccine candidates are a testimony of this firm conviction in the aptitude of Homo sapiens .

Parson-naturalists have been part of the English scene for centuries and have made a major contribution to the study of the eastern region ’s plants and animals. And although the clergy have been in the forefront of the scientific natural history of the eastern counties since the days of John Ray (1627-1705), and indeed, before, there have been relatively few significant naturalists of episcopal rank.

A rare exception was Walter Godfrey Whittingham, MA, DD, FES, Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich from 1923 to 1940, a distinguished authority on the moths of East Anglia. This year (2021) marks the 160th

anniversary of his birth and the 80 th of his death.

Walter Whittingham was born 5 October 1861, and educated at the City of London School, and, like several East Anglian clergy, at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he read moral sciences. He was ordained in 1886, and despite an apparent lifelong attachment to East Anglia served much of his earlier career elsewhere: curacies in Leicester, and nearby at South Wigston were followed by an incumbency in Buckinghamshire before he returned to Leicestershire. He was Rural Dean for Leicester from 1915 to 1917, after which he became Rector of Glaston,

Bishop Walter Whittinghama forgotten East Anglian lepidopterist

Patrick Armstrong

Rutland, and Archdeacon of Oakham. In 1915 he was made an Honorary Canon of Peterborough, moving in 1922 to Peterborough Cathedral as a Residentiary Canon. He was elevated to the See of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich in 1923, serving as Bishop until 1940, when he resigned, dying a few months later, on 17 June 1941.

As Bishop he became especially active and influential in relation to what was termed the ‘business side of clerical life ’, such as the reform of the Church ’s finances, the maintenance of church buildings and parsonages, and clergy pensions, both within his own diocese, and nationally. He was sometimes outspoken, and his views were not always received with universal acclaim.

1) Ancylis paludana specimens collected at Horning, Norfolk, in 1907, now in the Whittingham Collection, Norwich Castle Museum. Picture ©Norfolk Moths. Specimen from Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery collections, NWHCM : 1942.106. Original photo by Jim Wheeler;

2) Dr Walter Godfrey Whittington as Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich ’ ;

3) Walter Whittingham in 1910.

Image Captions (clockwise from top left):

Although born in Walthamstow, and serving the church elsewhere, Dr Whittingham seems to have lived, at times, at the Mill House, Horstead, near Norwich (this large Victorian House is now an aged persons ’ home) and collected insects extensively in Norfolk. The ‘Whittingham Collection’, of many hundreds of Norfolk moths, is now held in the Castle Museum, Norwich; it included specimens collected throughout the county, including Breckland, the north Norfolk coast, Broadland, Kings Lynn and Norwich. The collection includes specimens, apparently collected by Dr Whittingham himself, bearing dates from about 1902 to the late 1930s. The Norwich Castle website lists ‘several notable achievements ’ of the Bishop as including ‘ Phthorimae seminella, a species new to science, and the distinction of Eucosma cinerana from nisella.’

While based at Ipswich from 1923 onwards, he seems to have continued his collecting in Suffolk. A note appears in the 1928 Suffolk Naturalists ’ Transactions (vol I(i), p.38) with the heading ‘New localities for local moths by the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, D.D., F.E.S.’ The Lord Bishop seems to have been as proud of his Fellowship of the Entomological Society as his Doctorate in Divinity!

He appears to have collected from ‘Minsmere in Dunwich ’, Worlington,

East Bergholt, Lackford, Shingle Street and Ipswich. Species listed included Crambus hamellus, Tortrix viburnana, Eupoecilia vectisana and Gelechia (Bryotropha) domestica, Halonota trigeminana. (The taxonomy of some species has changed.) Some of the species noted by Dr Whittingham were stated to be ‘of peculiar interest ’, as they were recorded outside the area where they had previously been noted or had been unrecorded for some time.

Perhaps his most significant contribution to the natural history of Suffolk, was his section of the Final Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of Suffolk (The Moths and Butterflies of the County), published by the Suffolk Naturalists’ Society in 1937. The Bishop was responsible for the micro-moths –he seems to have been particularly interested in these tiny creatures, some of which have a wingspan of less than 1cm. A clerical colleague wrote on the macro-moths, and a Dr Herbert Winter on the butterflies.

Dr Walter Whittington was a man of his time. Part Victorian country gentleman, and probably somewhat patrician and patriarchal, he would have been concerned for the wellbeing of his flock but may have been somewhat domineering. He was a naturalist of the ‘old school’, collecting almost for collecting’s sake, rare species as well as common, sometimes

accumulating many specimens of the same species. In today ’s conservationfocussed natural history, such zeal would be much less appreciated. Ecotheology is now an important theme, emphasising the husbanding of nature’s resources and the need for the careful management of biodiversity. But in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was individuals such as he who laid the foundations of modern natural history: compiling local and county surveys and listings and contributing to societies and local publications. In emphasising the study of minute micro-moths, tiny creatures

some of which have a wingspan of less than 1cm, he was ensuring that no part of the great bounty of nature was neglected. Bishop Walter Godfrey Whittington should be remembered in this context.

Patrick Armstrong lives in Jolimont Western Australia but has had an interest in Suffolk’s natural history since a holiday in Southwold in 1946 (when he was five). He thanks Dr Alan Cadwallader for comments on an early draft of this article.

The Wildlife garden at Aldeburgh

Richard Stewart

Anyone traveling out of Aldeburgh towards Leiston could easily miss Priors oak on the left, but on open garden days it is well publicised. For many years Trudie Willis has opened her ten-acre garden to support many charities, with over £50,000 raised so far. In mid-Summer Butterfly Conservation has a whole day event, with guided walks, experts on hand and of course refreshments. The initially formal gardens include renovated carriages full of wildlife information and garden photos. Near the gate to

the extensive wildlife area is the enormous but easily overlooked compost heap, testimony to Trudie ’s organic principles. Within the wildlife area there is acid grassland, ponds, a copse, a long hedge of native species and a superb buddleia avenue. The whole garden is full of biodiversity: swallows nesting in sheds, purple hairstreaks in oaks, the calls of turtle doves and two species of woodpeckers, marsh harriers, red kites and buzzards passing over, lizards by the pond and both muntjac

and fox have given birth in the garden. This richness of wildlife is helped by the proximity to the coast and the RSPB’s North Warren reserve so migrants feature prominently.

Now a book about the garden has been produced by the Suffolk branch of Butterfly Conservation, covering the garden’s creation, development, and wildlife, fully illustrated with wildlife photos by well-known Liz Cutting. It is available at £7-50 from local shops,

tourist offices and garden centres or from the author, Richard Stewart, post free, cheque for £7 -50 addressed to ‘Richard Stewart ’ at 112, Westerfield Road, Ipswich, IP4 2 XW. The book will also be available at Trudie ’s 2021 open garden days. For details go to: https:// sites.google.com/site/ priorsoakbutterflygarden/home.

All profits will go to the work of Butterfly Conservation.

Wildlife Live Webinars

Claire Rowan - Suffolk Wildlife Trust

I’m delighted to let you know about a series of Wildlife Live Webinars that Suffolk Wildlife Trust launched in October last year. The fortnightly webinars have proved immensely popular and at times we have welcomed over 200 people to them. They take place via zoom at 7pm and last about an hour and a half. People

The Trouble without Wasps

Owls

Hares

The Broads: past, present & future

Trust History 60th webinar

Reserves of Suffolk

are invited from throughout the county and further afield and everyone is welcome for a small donation to the Trust.

This is the programme we have organised between now and the end of June:

John Bedford Tues, April 27

Paddy Shaw Tuesday, May 11

Sue Alderman Thursday, May 27

Simon Hooton Tues, June 8th

Michael Strand Monday, June 14

Steve Aylward Tues, June 29

To find out more about all the webinars and book your places, visit this link:

https://www.suffolkwildlifetrust.org/wildlife -live-webinars

Conservation Activity in the Dedham Vale AONB

Emma Black

The Dedham Vale AONB has a Black Poplar clone bank and nursery where we strike new cuttings to grow on Black Poplar trees. Many of the saplings in the nursery were getting too big and shading out new cuttings so we contacted farmers and landowners in the Stour Valley to say we had some Black Poplar saplings that needed to be planted out. We had a phenomenal response and are happy to say that 100 saplings have now found new homes. We ’ve just taken some more cuttings and put them in the nursery, so fingers crossed we ’ll have some more saplings to give out in the next couple of years.

We’ve also been busy creating some stag beetle pyramids. This beetle is one of the Dedham Vale AONB ’s priority species in its Nature Recovery Plan. Alex Moore da Luz, our Nature Recovery Officer, managed to secure some Natural England money to fund these pyramids and they have been built at Flatford, Bures and Langham. Many landowners got in touch and are keen to create stag beetle pyramids so our volunteers will be busy!

Alongside the money for stag beetle pyramids Alex also got funding for:

• habitat restoration for the Dedham Vale AONB ’s flagship species, the dormouse, at SWT ’s Arger Fen and Spouses Vale Nature Reserve

• the Save our Suffolk Swifts project, to be delivered through the Stour Valley Farmer cluster.

The Stour Valley Volunteers have spent most of the year unable to

work due to the pandemic which has been hard for them and us. We, therefore, haven’t been able to do all the habitat management work we ’d like to do to help landowners and community groups. As restrictions eased at the end of August we cut and raked various wildflower rich grasslands and sedge beds in the Stour Valley including Foxearth Meadows

Local Nature Reserve, Liston and the 4 Suffolk County Wildlife Sites we help

to manage. We also coppiced trees and shrubs overhanging ponds at Cavendish and Clare and cut back encroaching willow at SWT’s Cornard Mere before the next lockdown. With restrictions easing again in April we look forward to welcoming back our volunteers. We can’t wait and are looking forward to doing lots of tree maintenance, habitat creation and Himalyan balsam pulling!

Image Captions (below left to right):

1: National Trust collecting Black Poplar tree saplings to be planted in Constable Country

2: Volunteers doing some meadow management at Coe’s Meadow, Bulmer

3: Alex, Neil and Matt building a stag beetle pyramid at Flatford.

Coast and Heaths AONB Beachwatch Results 2020

Emma Black

This year our Beachwatch results are very different as events were cancelled or scaled down due to Covid-19. Most Beachwatch events that took place were in September for the Great British Beach Clean. Many individuals and families who walked along the coast and estuaries on their daily exercise picked up litter.

The results of the litter surveys carried out by volunteers in Suffolk

Key Beach watch Facts:

• 25 litter surveys were carried out on

• 25 beaches which equates to 2.95km

and north Essex, as part of the Marine Conservation Society’s Beachwatch scheme, show that 326 kg of litter was cleared from the coast & estuaries in the AONB.

We are very grateful to everyone for their valuable contribution in helping to look after the Coast and Heaths AONB and wider marine environment.

• 158 volunteers took part in Beachwatch surveys.

• 7,161 items of litter were recorded.

• 73.1% of litter collected was made of plastic or polystyrene.

• 579 plastic food wrappers were collected.

Top 10 Litter Items:

Fifteen - two, fifteen - four and one for his nob

As a young boy in the early 1960’s I often used to walk a mile or so to the ‘Butts’ on the other side of town with my pals. Armed with a tiddler net and a jam jar, we would spend nearly all day there.

The Butts is a local name for the flood meadows on the south side of Bury St. Edmunds near the Greene King Brewery. Here we would catch sticklebacks, tadpoles, and the occasional crested and common newt. When our jars were full, we would walk home, and I would give them their new home. I would either put them into our tiny fishpond or I would use anything that held water to house them. I once used the enamelled steel draw from the bottom of an old cooker. Using rainwater and bits of pond weed and algae to naturalise it for the new livestock, I even managed to get 3spined sticklebacks to breed and remember my fascination with the nesting and mating ritual. The tadpoles fed on blanket weed and lettuce then quickly matured into frog or toadlets. Other excursions were for butterflies, and local buddleia bushes were usually covered in butterflies in those days. It is embarrassing for me now,

but I remember seeing how many butterflies I could get in a jar, ironically the pierced paper lid held on with a rubber band actually saved the lives of very few of the captives. Although mostly large white and small white, peacock, red admiral, and small tortoiseshell were plentiful too with the occasional painted lady. Another early memory which springs to mind is of a neighbour ’s hedge which used to have a lot of caterpillars. I would collect some and feed them until they pupated and then wait to see what they hatched in to, usually magpie and brown -tail moths.

At about 11 years old, I moved with my family out of the town and I revelled in the new rural surroundings. Bird nesting was a regular pastime during which I admit I had an egg collection, although only one egg was taken if the clutch was not complete. I had to destroy my collection when it became illegal sometime in the 1970’s.

In the Summer I would strap a tiddler net to the crossbar and cycle with a mate to the heaths and forests in the area. We would collect butterfly and moth species for mounting and this often became quite competitive.

Sometimes we used a homemade killing jar using crushed laurel leaves as a poison, makes me wince now.

By the time I was 13, I had made a light trap, even with a standard light bulb, it was quite productive, often catching hundreds of moths in just a small back garden.

From then, family holidays always involved monitoring campsite outside lights for moths and walking miles with a net to catch new butterfly species for my collection. Pearlbordered fritillary, marbled white and small blue to name a few, usually ‘papered’ (using a triangular folded envelope of grease -proof paper to hold the specimen) to reduce damage before mounting.

I soon advanced from using dressmaking pins to using proper entomological pins and supplies bought from Watkins and Doncaster and soon mastered setting and data labelling.

When I left school, butterfly and moth collecting waned, and by the time I returned to entomology in the 1990’s, I had firmly discarded the idea of killing and collecting specimens. I now only photograph them, finding great pleasure in studying them further through observations, reading books, and submitting records to county recorders.

My introduction to Butterfly Conservation (BC) was not until 2011, when I contacted by Rob Parker who was

then county recorder for the Suffolk. How this occurred was coincidental as I had been playing cribbage for many years and more recently frequented The Greyhound public house in Ixworth for weekly friendly games. I would often print off photos I had taken to show friends which soon grabbed the attention of Sue the landlady who adored butterflies and collected pictures of them in a scrap book. She soon accumulated many of my photos for her collection and one of these graced the bar back-display for some time.

Rob happened to see this photo and asked Sue where it was taken, she explained she had no idea and referred him to me. It was a swallowtail butterfly which I had photographed in a friend ’s back garden in Majorca. An old BT workmate retired there, and I had photographed it during a visit. This information was passed to Rob and from subsequent conversations we had, I decided to join BC Suffolk.

I recently became more involved with BC Suffolk after taking over the post of our newsletter editor from Peter Maddison (Suffolk BC Chairman). I have found editing ‘The Suffolk Argus’ newsletter three times a year a rewarding job which involves contact with members who share their anecdotes, sightings, and enthusiasm for butterfly conservation.

One tray from a good night of MV moth trapping

Pale tussock moth

As my enthusiasm for all wildlife conservation is important to me, I also joined Suffolk Naturalists Society and continue to submit records for Bats and other mammals, insects and fungi and unusual flora.

Since joining British Dragonfly Society, I also submit records of Odonata to the county recorder.

Purple Emperor - Suffolk Wildlife Trust - Bradfield Wood

In my childhood and youth, the garden of the East Anglian vicarage in which we lived, nearly an acre in extent, was the venue for my natural history – only equalled by the heaths, marshes, seashores and woods of the area round Walberswick on the Suffolk coast, where we spent three weeks every Summer for over a decade.

My father, Edward Armstrong (who thought of himself as the last of the English parson -naturalists, although he wasn’t, quite, and he was Irish), wrote his monograph - The Wren –largely on the basis of observations in that somewhat wild Vicarage garden, and observations on the behaviour of other species of birds occasioned the odd note in British Birds . There was a fine buddleia bush near the study window whereon many species of butterflies satiated themselves with nectar. Blackbirds, thrushes, wrens and hedge-sparrows nested in the ivy, or in the shrubberies. Garden-cross spiders made their enormous cartwheel webs in the bramble bushes.

On moving to Australia, the ‘quarteracre block’ surrounding our rambling 1920s bungalow in Nedlands, Western Australia, had its possibilities. Possums sometimes could be heard in

Veranda Natural History

Patrick Armstrong

the evenings chattering in the gumtrees and in the old cape lilac tree, occasionally venturing into the loftvoid through openings under the eaves of our home. Insects included an enormous praying mantis I found on one of the gum-trees and an almost equally large grasshopper –brilliant green in colour so it was difficult to see amongst the vegetation.

Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote of:

The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.

There were no elm-trees in Nedlands, but I was frequently reminded of this fragment of verse, as there were several species of doves in the district, some of whom definitely ‘moaned’, just as Victoria’s Poet Laureate said they should, and in November and early December innumerable bees murmured amongst the brilliant mauve blossoms of the jacaranda, which we planted in the corner of the garden shortly after arriving in Australia, and by the time we left the home after 44 years was the size of a house!

I was concerned that on moving to a modern villa in a retirement village a

few suburbs away, opportunities would decrease. But no: while the villa was being prepared for our occupation two large bird-nests were found in the long-unused awnings over the veranda.

I believe they were those of western wattlebirds, which are frequent visitor to our veranda, which consists of tiny garden (about 16 sq metres, supplemented by an equivalent area of patio upon which an array of potplants provided a screen). This bird species is the first creature heard in the early morning: the field -guide is definitive: ‘Prominent in the dawn chorus: loud, drawn-out, complex chattering...’ Unmistakeable. The related

New Holland honey -eater also comes sometimes to sample the nectar from the flowers of the potted plants.

Smaller creatures include a small black spider, about 9mm across the abdomen, which make tangled webs around the veranda posts. Suspicious looking, but apparently nonpoisonous, unlike the rather similar red -back spiders that we occasionally found in the webs that had accumulated under the garden chairs on the patio in Nedlands.

A few days ago I had a much more striking find. While sorting through materials to be put out for re-cycling, in amongst a pile of old cardboard, I discovered a very large moth, about 8 -

Black house spider (Badumna insignis). Photo: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos (non-commercial use authorised).

9cm wing-span. It reminded me of the European emperor moth, highly esteemed to those of us who, in youth, engaged in the now very incorrect activity of collecting butterflies and moths.

A little research, however, revealed its much more prosaic name. It was the southern old lady moth (Dasipodia selenophora). I tried to bring it indoors to study it more closely and perhaps to photograph it, but very sensibly it departed. The food -plant of the caterpillar, I learn, is the wattle, of which there are hundreds of species in Australia. It will not have flown very far from its point of origin.

Garden and suburban ecology has become a specialism in its own right, and there are important books on the subject. Learned papers abound in scientific journals as ecological principles are applied to human-made, artificial habitats. During recent lockdowns extensive fieldwork in distant localities was impossible. But what were possible were the minor excitements of seeing interesting creatures within 5 -6 metres of one ’s back door.

Southern old lady moth ( Dasipodia selenophora). Image: John Moore, Karratha, Western Australia. http://lepidoptera.butterflyhouse.com.au/cato/selenophora.html

As a collection of volunteers and amateur naturalists it is always very special when we receive letters of thanks for the work that we do. Below is a message the editor of Suffolk Natural History and our Chairman,

Martin Sanford, received from David Walker and I am publishing it to reinforce our thanks for all the hard work that goes into putting together our yearly journal.

“Dear Martin

It is always a pleasure to receive the new edition of Suffolk Natural History, but 2020 strikes me as the best I can remember and merits special praise.

I know how much goes into producing one of these journals: planning, persistence, dedication, doing the fieldwork, gathering the data, preparation of photos, data tables, writing the report, adherence to referencing protocols, checking the proofs, and, of course, underpinning and enabling it all, years of experience and specialist knowledge, and above all, love of the subject.

It would be wrong to single out individual contributions: I think the entire contributing, editing, typesetting/design and production team all deserve congratulation, it’s a great credit to the tradition of the SNS and should be a source of pride, especially in these difficult times.

Best wishes

David”

Suffolk Naturalists ’ Society Bursaries

The Suffolk Naturalists’ Society offers six bursaries, of up to £500 each, annually. Larger projects may be eligible for grants of over £500 – please contact SNS for further information.

Activities eligible for funding include: travel and subsistence for field work, visits to scientific institutions, scientific equipment, identification guide books or other items relevant to the study.

Morley Bursary - Studies involving insects (or other invertebrates) other than butterflies and moths.

Chipperfield Bursary - Studies involving butterflies or moths.

Cranbrook Bursary - Studies involving mammals or birds.

Rivis Bursary - Studies of the county's flora.

Simpson Bursary - In memory of Francis Simpson. The bursary will be awarded for a botanical study where possible.

Nash Bursary - Studies involving beetles.

Applications should be set in the context of a research question i.e. a clear statement of what the problem is and how the applicant plans to tackle it.

Criteria:

1. Projects should include a large element of original work and further knowledge of Suffolk’s flora, fauna or geology.

2. A written account of the project is required within 12 months of receipt of a bursary. This should be in a form suitable for publication in one of the Society's journals: Suffolk Natural History, Suffolk Birds or White Admiral .

3. Suffolk Naturalists' Society should be acknowledged in all publicity associated with the project and in any publications emanating from the project.

Applications may be made at any time. Please apply to SNS for an application form or visit our website for more details www.sns.org.uk/pages/bursary.shtml.

The Suffolk Naturalists’ Society, founded in 1929 by Claude Morley (1874 -1951), pioneered the study and recording of the County ’s flora, fauna and geology. It is the seed bed from which have grown other important wildlife organisations in Suffolk, such as Suffolk Wildlife Trust (SWT) and Suffolk Bird Group (SBG).

Recording the natural history of Suffolk is still the Society ’s primary objective. Members’ observations go to specialist recorders and then on to the Suffolk Biological Records Centre at Ipswich Museum to provide a basis for detailed distribution maps and subsequent analysis with benefits to environmental protection.

Funds held by the Society allow it to offer substantial grants for wildlife studies.

Annually, SNS publishes its transactions Suffolk Natural History, containing studies on the County’s wildlife, plus the County bird report, Suffolk Birds (compiled by SBG). The newsletter White Admiral, with comment and observations, appears three times a year. SNS organises two members’ evenings a year and a conference every two years.

Subscriptions to SNS: Individual membership £15; Family/Household membership £17; Student membership £10; Corporate membership £17. Members receive the three publications above.

Joint subscriptions to SNS and SBG: Individual membership £30; Family/Household membership £35; Student membership £18. Joint members receive, in addition to the above, the SBG newsletter The Harrier.

As defined by the Constitution of this Society its objectives shall be:

2.1 To study and record the fauna, flora and geology of the County

2.2 To publish a Transactions and Proceedings and a Bird Report. These shall be free to members except those whose annual subscriptions are in arrears.

2.3 To liaise with other natural history societies and conservation bodies in the County

2.4 To promote interest in natural history and the activities of the Society.

For more details about the Suffolk Naturalists’ Society contact:

Hon. Secretary, Suffolk Naturalists’ Society, c/o Ipswich Museum, High Street, Ipswich, IP1 3QH. Telephone 01473 400251

enquiry@sns.org.uk