Annual Report 2011 Southampton Natural History Society Annual Report 2011
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Southampton Natural History Society ANNUAL REPORT 2011 SOUTHAMPTON NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY ANNUAL REPORT 2011 CONTENTS Page Indoor Meetings 2 Publicity Events in 2011 3 Membership Secretary’s Report 4 Obituary: Chris Oliver 5 Field Meetings 6 Lord’s Wood by Graham Manchip 12 When TinyToadstools Aren’t Toadstools At All ... by David Hubble 14 Mutate, Mate, Sporulate! by David Hubble 15 Now I Know Where My Sparrow Go To Sleep by Darren Naish 18 Weather Records 2011 21 Members’ Records for 2011 25 Mycota 28 Flora 31 Fauna 34 Society website: http://sotonnhs.org/ Cover: Juvenile Hedgehog Photograph : Keith Plumridge Design: Mike Creighton Founded 1907 - 1 - Indoor Meetings In 2011 we started holding an additional September Indoor Meeting to take advantage of the lighter evenings. Therefore we held eight Indoor Meetings in 2011 including the April A.G.M. All were held on Monday evenings at the Edmund Kell Hall, Bellevue Road. On 3rd January we invited members of F.O.S.O.C. (Friends of Southampton Old Cemetery) to join us for a talk on ‘Garden Butterflies’ by Brian Fletcher of Butterfly Conservation. As a result, there were thirty-two attendees, despite the fact that it was only two days after New Year’s Day and the weather resembled that of Siberia. We learnt a lot about what to expect in an urban or suburban garden and how to attract more butterflies and other nectar-feeding insects. Brian gave a similar talk at the Hawthorns Centre on 19th November. 7th February was a perfect cure for the winter blues and twenty-nine members came along to witness the ‘Most Flowery Places in the World’ by Bob Gibbons. The locations included ‘The Burren’ in Ireland and the Lizard Peninsula of Cornwall and abroad they ranged from South Africa and Australia to California and Eastern Europe. Despite not being very well travelled, even I had visited five of the places featured, including The Algarve and Transylvania. There was another invite extended to F.O.S.O.C. on 7th March as one of their members presented the talk. We recorded a record attendance of thirty-seven, including twenty-eight members. John Vetterlein gave a PowerPoint presentation entitled ‘Conservation of Wildlife in Southampton Old Cemetery’. We thought that there aren’t enough talks about conservation efforts on our doorstep, so this was a welcome subject. John explained how, since 2003, F.O.S.O.C has transformed the rather overgrown cemetery into a haven for all wildlife. John also spoke about the rich and varied flora and the regular butterfly monitoring. Our A.G.M. took place on 4th April and saw change of chairmanship after thirteen years. I stood down as Jan Kidd took to the Chair; I was also surprised to be awarded Honorary Membership. There was a complete change in the general committee—we thanked Anthea and Vernon Jones and Kathy Emmott for their service on the committee and welcomed John Poland and Vicki Russell for a second term and Graham Manchip as an entirely new member. There was an American Supper, a three-team general knowledge quiz and an opportunity to view the new display materials. Eighteen members attended. The idea of a September meeting proved to be a popular one, with thirty people, mostly society members, attending. We invited Rosemary Webb to present a talk on the ‘Orchids of Crete’ on 5th September. Although this was a narrow subject, - 2 - the pictures were of excellent quality and many were of forms or variants that have hardly ever been seen previously let alone photographed. There were many stories woven around the subject as a result of the speaker’s 25-year familiarity with this eastern Mediterranean Island. Twenty-two members attended a talk by Marina Pacheco, of the Mammal Society, on 3rd October. It was good to find a speaker willing to focus on the recording of a species group, another important aspect of the society’s activities. Marina covered the full range of mammals likely to be recorded in Britain in a most friendly and informative manner, hopefully stimulating some interest in the more elusive of these species. After a 25-year gap we were delighted to invite Dennis Bright to present a talk for us on 7th November. The talk was covered a long-term project to increase the populations of Barn Owls, a highly protected species, in the upper Test Valley on Hampshire. Over many years this has resulted in working with numerous private landowners to improve habitats along the valley and create artificial nesting places. We were encouraged that there has been an increase in Barn Owl numbers, especially in the Test Valley. Twenty-one members came along. Our final Indoor Meeting of the year took place on 5th December and was a varied and interesting talk on the island of Corsica and its wildlife presented by Mike Read. Corsica lies only 100 km off the west Italian coast but has a unique Island biogeography. Mike covered a wide range of species, but focused on flowers and birds of all the habitats. Corsica has some unique orchids, the endemic Corsican Nuthatch and several other specialities, but has very few mammal species. Again tweny-one members attended. I would like to thank Julian Moseley for organising most of the talks and for other helpers through the year, especially for Anthea and Vernon Jones, who continue to serve the teas and coffees and who also prepared the American Supper for the A.G.M. Publicity Events in 2011 Southampton Butterfly Survey Launch In 2011 we have resumed closer ties with Southampton University, especially through Dr Judith Lock. We launched a joint project to record butterflies in Southampton from May 2011 to April 2012 and, hopefully, the results of this will be presented in the 2012 Annual Report. We launched this project at Building 85, the new biological science block, at Southampton University on Tuesday evening 10th May. Brian Fletcher gave a presentation on the species of butterfly likely to be encountered in the area and key - 3 - features of their identification. He also included some brightly day-flying moths and some butterfly caterpillars which may be readily encountered. We were able to supply information on the project, promote both the society and the Hampshire branch of Butterfly Conservation and, hopefully, stimulate the students with some ideas for their own projects. Twenty-eight people attended the event including eight society members and eighteen students. We hope to be able to arrange other, similar, events in the future. Display In 2011 were able to show our new display on several occasions, for example: • The Forestry Commission Volunteer Fair at Lyndhurst on 5th March. • The Hampshire Ornithological Society Members Day/A.G.M. at Winchester on 20th March. • The Launching of the ‘Friends of Hurn Forest’, also on 20th March. • The Environmental Fair at The Hobbitt in Southampton on 2nd May. • The Forestry Commission Boldrewood Bioblitz on 18th June. • Spring into Summer Festival on Southampton Common on 26th June. I would like to thank everyone who assisted on any of those additional events. Phil Budd Membership Secretary’s Report Barbara Thomas We would very much like to welcome the following new members and hope they enjoy our meetings: Mr Leslie Brown, Miss S. Chaddock, Miss Grace Dickens, Dr Naomi Ewald, Miss Claire Ford, Ms Sheila Ford, Dr Paul Garratt, Ms Helen Harris, Ms J. Hearn, Ms Janet Knox, Mr Guy Mason, Mr Angus McCullough, Mr Joshua Phangurha, Ms Elizabeth Rogers, Miss K. Walsh, Dr Francis Wenban-Smith - 4 - Obituary Chris (Christine) Oliver We have a very sad announcement that SNHS member Chris Oliver, passed away very suddenly shortly before Christmas 2011. Several members attended her funeral at the Hinton Park Woodland Burial Ground, near Christchurch on 13th January. Chris had been unwell for several months. I first met Chris in the late 1980s, when as a member of the Southampton branch of the RSPB, and from 1994, Southampton and District Bird Group. We were both involved in practical conservation work at Titchfield Haven and other nature reserves in the area. Chris retired from the teaching profession early and was able to devote a lot of her time to various charities and especially our society. She first joined the society in 1995, then rejoined in 1999 and has remained a member ever since. Chris served on the committee as a general member in 1996/7 and then again, for five years from 2001 to 2006. One of Chris’s most valuable contributions to the society has been to lead Field Meetings, mainly bird watching events during the migration season. She led at least fifteen Field Meetings from March 2002 and November 2010. The venues for these meetings included Keyhaven and Pennington Marshes; Titchfield Haven; Testwood Lakes; Shatterford and Denny Wood in the New Forest; Martin Down and Horn’s Drove Wood. The latter locality is a small block of woodland near Chris’s home in Rownhams, which the local parish council maintains as a nature sanctuary with limited public access. Chris had access to this reserve and she recorded the wildlife there and also organised practical conservation work at the site. Chris was also active in many other society activities; from 2000 she submitted records of birds, butterflies, dragonflies and ladybirds. During the 2002/3 dragonfly survey she monitored Fernyhurst Pond (Lord’s Hill), also near her home. In 2004/5 she greatly assisted the ladybird surveys and carried out a lot of work in encouraging the recording of ladybirds in primary schools in Southampton and in the waterside area.