WHITE ADMIRAL Newsletter 78 Spring 2011 SUFFOLK NATURALISTS’ SOCIETY CONTENTS EDITORIAL 1 SNIPPETS Compiled by the 2 editor FEWER TURBINE TURNS MEANS FEWER BAT Kieran Mulvaney 3 DEATHS BIODIVERSITY? DON’T FORGET THE FLEA! Adrian Chalkley 4 OBITUARY Michael Kirby David Walker 6 ROSEMARY BEETLES - CAN YOU ADD Colin Hawes 9 FURTHER RECORDS FOR SUFFOLK? CO-OPTED COUNCIL MEMBER - Liz Cutting 10 IT’S NOT ALL DOOM & GLOOM Nigel Odin 11 IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY… Rasik Bhadresa 14 IN WITH THE NEW Richard Fisk 19 A HERBALIST’S VIEW OF SWEET VIOLET Caroline Wheeler 20 HOW TO IDENTIFY THE KILLER SHRIMP Compiled by the 21 editor SNS FIELD MEETINGS PROGRAMME 2011 22 BOOK REVIEW Mosses and Liverworts of Britain and Ireland Richard Fisk 26 FIRST MARINE PLAN AREA IN NORTH SEA BBC report 28 LETTERS, NOTES AND QUERIES Spurge and Burdock - replies Brian Fountain 30 Request for help with landscape project Nick Miller 30 Cover photograph: Prunus avium in Groton Wood by Rasik Bhadresa ISSN 0959-8537 Published by the Suffolk Naturalists’ Society c/o Ipswich Museum, High Street, Ipswich, Suffolk IP1 3QH Registered Charity No. 206084 SUFFOLK NATURALISTS’ SOCIETY David Walker Ancient House Lower Street, Stutton Suffolk IP9 2SQ [email protected] SPRING 2011 After one of the coldest winters on record time will tell what effect the severe weather has had on Suffolk’s wildlife. At least the Coal Tits that visit the seed feeders here at Ancient House have survived, and it is good to see other the other tits in their smart new plumage sizing up potential nest holes. Let’s hope that they have a successful breeding season to restore some of the numbers lost in the freeze. Council members have been working hard to make 2011 a good year for the SNS too. Meetings are lively events these days, with busy agendas, new ideas to discuss and plans to agree. Chairperson Joan Hardingham picked up the Rose Hill baton from Adrian Knowles and, after obtaining several quotes, arranged felling of the unsafe Holm Oaks in the woods at Rose Hill, so we can stop fretting about that problem. Treasurer Graham Simister has sought advice from the charity commisioners on making deployment of our financial resource more consistent with charity status. An example of this might be to purchase one of the wildlife sites currently in public ownership but up for sale, and then arranging for another body to manage it. Graham has also worked up procedures to enable SNS membership subscriptions to qualify for ‘Gift Aid’ tax refunds, thereby enhancing subscription income. Tax-paying members are urged to take up this option. Please refer to the leaflet enclosed with the newsletter. Gen Broad, our Hon. Sec., has not been idle either - thanks to her we have a varied and interesting field meetings programme (see p.22). The programme includes an opportunity to visit three traditional Suffolk orchard sites in varying stages of conservation under the leadership of apple expert and all-round naturalist Paul Read. You could discover unusual species in a rare setting and learn about orchard management all in one visit! Gen has also been busy in drawing up criteria and a simpler system for processing bursary applications. Rasik Bhadresa has worked wonders in organising the conference, not least in recruiting a truly impressive programme of eminent speakers. See p. 29 for more detail. This promises to be an enjoyable and edifying experience - book early! Finally, Council wishes to record its gratitude to the late Mr M.J.F. Taylor for remembering the SNS in his will. Time was spent in the February meeting discussing how to use the legacy in a worthwhile and memorable way rather than just placing it in the investment account. The eventual decision will be reported to members through these pages. White Admiral No 78 1 SNIPPETS ♣ An environmental audit has shown that Breckland is one of the England’s most important areas for flora and fauna, containing over 25% of the country’s rarest species. Sixty five species are rarely seen elsewhere, including plants such as Spanish catchfly, field wormwood, and Breckland thyme and insects such as the brush-thighed seed eater and the basil-thyme case-bearer moth. The study was organised by Dr Paul Dolman of UEA over an 18 month period and resulted in over a million records, many gathered by amateurs. ♣ 2012 will be the last year for contributing dragonfly records to the Dragonfly National Atlas, which is scheduled for publication in 2013. Suffolk records should be sent to [email protected] or via the BDS website at www.dragonflysoc.org.uk. ♣ In a 2008 nationwide survey of 121 ponds across the UK co-ordinated by Freya Smith of the Zoological Society of London, the fungus that causes chytridiomycosis in amphibia was found at 19 sites on all species of British amphibia except the Marsh Frog. The Natterjack Toad, the rarest UK species, showed the highest infection rate while the Great Crested Newt showed the lowest. All four sites sampled in Suffolk gave negative results. A repeat survey is planned for 2011. For more information go to www.arguk.org and click on ‘projects’. ♣ If you were to blindfold a Robin’s right eye it wouldn’t be able to orientate itself using the Earth’s magnetic field. Blindfold the left one however, and the birds orientation isn’t affected at all. This is because the Robin’s ability to detect a magnetic field is centred within the right eye and left brain hemisphere. (Research by Wolfgang Wiltschko, 1968) ♣ Former SNS Chairman and Treasurer Howard Mendel has retired from his post at the Natural History Museum in Kensington. White Admiral wishes him a happy and productive retirement - and hopes to receive some articles! ♣ A shocking report, published on the Defra website in November 2010, reveals that 70% of wild ducks bought in food retail outlets in England had been illegally shot with lead. Environmental Protection Regulations 1999 made it illegal to shoot water birds with lead or to use lead shot over wetlands. Spent lead shot is eaten by water birds as food or for grit and causes severe poisoning. It is one of the biggest causes of death and suffering among this group of birds, estimated to kill one in twelve wildfowl in Europe. There has been no enforcement of the law since the regulations were introduced. ♣ A four-year field trial in which more than 800 badgers in Gloucestershire were vaccinated against bovine TB showed a 74% reduction in the numbers of badgers testing positive for the disease. In a computer modelled comparison of the effectiveness of vaccination with that of culling (over a 10-year period for a 12 mile square area) the difference was only one ‘herd breakdown’ per year. More details of the analysis can be found on the Badger Trust website. 2 White Admiral No 78 FEWER TURBINE TURNS MEANS FEWER BAT DEATHS In the search for alternatives to fossil fuels, wind power is high on most people’s lists. But for all their non-climate-changing goodness, wind farms pose an environmental problem of their own: large concentrations of wind turbines can mean significant local mortality for birds and for bats, which are struck by the turning blades. For environmentalists and turbine manufacturers, finding a way to overcome this mortality is, naturally enough, important. It’s all very well reducing carbon emissions, but a ground full of bat and bird carcasses hardly screams environmental friendliness. But there is evidence that mortality rates can be reduced relatively simply, for example, by not siting wind farms in areas of high concentrations of bats or on migratory bird pathways, or by using more modern turbines with larger, slower-turning blades. It may seem obvious, but the frequency with which turbine blades turn is the single biggest factor in bat and bird mortality, and the ease with which a slight change in that factor can cause a significant decrease in bat mortality, is underlined by a new study published in November 2010 in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. In the study, Ed Arnett of Bat Conservation International and colleagues examined the effects of changes in wind turbine speed on bat mortality during the low-wind months of late summer and early autumn. They monitored 12 of the 23 turbines at the Casselman Wind Project in Somerset County, Pennsylvania in the Appalachian Mountain region and recorded bat fatalities for 25 summer and autumn nights in both 2008 and 2009. In both years, the researchers found at least one fresh bat carcass every night that the turbines were fully operational. That changed, however, when the turbines’ “cut-in speed” was slightly altered. The cut-in speed is the wind speed at which turbines are programmed to begin rotating and producing power. Currently, most turbines in the US cut in at wind speeds of approximately 8-9 miles per hour. Arnett and colleagues found that a higher cut-in speed means less frequent turbine rotations and thus fewer bat deaths. Specifically, by raising the cut-in speed to roughly 11 mph, bat fatalities were reduced by at least 44 percent, and by as much as 93 percent, with an annual power loss of less than one percent. Arnett says: “This is the only proven mitigation option to reduce bat kills at this time. If we want to pursue the benefits associated with wind energy, we need to consider the local ecological impacts that the turbines could cause. We have already seen a rise in bat mortality associated with wind energy development, but our study shows that, by marginally limiting the turbines during the summer and fall months, we can save bats as well as promote advances in alternative energy.