W h i t e A d m i r a l Newsletter 94 Summer 2016 Suffolk Naturalists’ Society C o n ten t s E di to r ia l Ben Heather 1 Suffolk Butterfly Recording - 2011- B i ll Sto ne 2 2015 Distribution Maps First records for Barrel Jellyfish G en B r o a d 3 i n Su f f o lk Beach Bonkers Kate Osborne 5 B ee - ginners luck Colin Lucas 6 A New Excavation at Knettishall Caroline Markham 7 H ea th Growing Up Wild Kerry Stranix 10 Bee House Observations Peter Etheridge 12 Suffolk’s Veteran Trees Richard Stewart 13 The Return of the Polecat M us te la Martin Hancock 15 p u tor ius to Su f f o lk The Pogge, Hooknose or Armed Jerry Bowdrey 20 B u llhea d Rust Fungi and other Small Stuff Neil Mahler 21 Wildlife Diary (January to July) Trevor Goodfellow 23 SNS AGM and Spring Members G en B r o a d 26 E v eni ng The Starlet Sea Anemone Jenni Fincham 29 The Dawn Chorus Rasik Bhadresa 32 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 Cover Photo: Ichneumon Wasp by Ben Heather SuffolkThe Naturalists’ Society Newsletter 94 - Summer 2016 Welcome to the Summer issue of the White Admiral newsletter. A big thank you must go to all those who have contributed copy, on a wide range of topics, to this issue. Please start thinking about anything that you would like to contribute towards the Autumn issue - I can be contacted using the details below. Please can I draw your attention to the advert in the centrefold of this newsletter. The new Suffolk Dragonfly Atlas is now available to buy both online from the SNS website and in person from Ipswich Museum. The book, edited by Adrian Parr and Nick Mason, serves as a timely update to the previous Suffolk atlas produced in 1992. It uses maps, photos and written accounts to reveal the changes in the distribution of Suffolk Odonata. The book costs £10 if collected from Ipswich Museum or £12 (including postage & packaging) if ordered online. For more information please see here: http://www.sns.org.uk/pages/Dragonflies.shtml. In other news, if you haven’t heard already, the Suffolk Biological Records Centre has had a slight re-brand over the Spring and is now called the Suffolk Biodiversity Information Service (SBIS). The change of name reflects the absorbing of the Biodiversity Partnership and its officer into the record centre. To reflect the change SBIS has also updated and re- branded its website and url and can now be found at www.suffolkbis.org.uk. The updated pages also now feature a news and events feed that can be used to see what has happened recently and to highlight what events are coming up. Editor: Ben Heather Suffolk Biodiversity Information Service, c/o Ipswich Museum, High Street, Ipswich, IP1 3 Q H [email protected] White Admiral 94 1 Suffolk Butterfly Recording - 201 1 -2015 Distribution Maps Distribution maps have been received and represent 1025 prepared for 34 species that have Suffolk tetrads where butterflies regularly occurred in Suffolk have been recorded. An average of during the five year recording 14.6 species per tetrad was period 2011-2015. (Rarities have achieved. (NB. Suffolk has 1089 not been included, Chalkhill Blue Tetrads in total). All these maps has been excluded due to site are now published online at the sensitivities and more data is link below. required for the introduced Brown Bill Stone - County Butterfly Hairstreak in Central Ipswich). Recorder The maps are based on records 201 1 - 2015 Distribution Map View the species maps here: http://goo.gl/3b0P5r 2 White Admiral 94 First records for Barrel Jellyfish in Suffolk Barrel jellyfish Rhizostoma pulmo Most of the UK records on the were recorded twice off the Suffolk National Biodiversity Network coast in January 2016. These are (NBN) database are from the west extremely interesting finds as the coasts of England, Wales and previous nearest records were from Scotland and the south coast of Yorkshire and Kent. This immense England. The closest records to jellyfish is also known as the Suffolk are from Scarborough to dustbin lid or frilly mouthed the north and Margate and jellyfish and is a favourite food of Folkestone in Kent to the south. the leatherback turtle. The distribution of this species is the northeast Atlantic, the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas and the southern Atlantic Ocean off South Africa. The barrel jellyfish is the largest jellyfish found in British waters. It can grow to an enormous size, with a thick dome shaped bell up to 90 cm in diameter and weighing up to 35 kilos, although it is more commonly seen at half that size and weight. Small barrel Jellyfish photographed by Jerry The jellyfish is variable in Bowdrey on Sizewell Beach January 2016. colour from pale whitish On 12th January, an Aldeburgh or yellow to shades of green, blue fisherman (Alby Clements) pulled pink or brown. The species is a barrel jellyfish in with his nets 2 unlike other jellyfish as it has only miles directly east of Aldeburgh. the eight thick arms underneath Then, later the same month, on and no trailing tentacles. The arms 29th, the naturalist Jerry Bowdrey are covered in frilly tissue where found the remains of 3 or 4 badly they meet the body, hence the damaged barrel jellyfish on the name ‘frilly mouthed jellyfish’. The beach near Sizewell power station. frills are actually small dense White Admiral 94 3 Barrel Jellyfish in action off Mudeford, Dorset. Credit: Stephen Hodder National Biodiversity Network map showing British Beaches”! However, despite current records for the Barrel Jellyfish their dustbin lid size and Rhizostoma pulmo mainly to the west and south appearance, they feed only on tiny of the British Isles plankton and their sting is tentacles which are used to catch extremely mild to humans. They prey and pass them into the usually drift in deep ocean waters, hundreds of small mouths which but sometimes come inshore to they surround. The species is feed on plankton blooms. identifiable from the large size, The full grown living jellyfish looks four pairs of very large oral arms magnificent swimming in the sea on the under-surface and the lack as can be seen from Stephen of marginal tentacles. Hodder’s fantastic underwater Barrel jellyfish have usually made photograph off the Dorset coast. the news when they have stranded on Welsh or south west beaches, Gen Broad - Marine County for example in the Daily Mail Recorder online in June 2015, with the headline “Alien Invaders Hit References: Sabatini, M. 2004. Rhizostoma pulmo Dustbin-lid jellyfish. In Tyler-Walters H. and Hiscock K. (eds) Marine Life Information Network: Biology and Sensitivity Key Information Reviews, [on-line]. Plymouth: Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. Available from: http://www.marlin.ac.uk/species/detail/2027 4 White Admiral 94 Clockwise from top left: Bryozoan fossil and shell; Sponge and attached egg cases; hag stones, sea glass and flints; sea mat of bryozoan on seaweed; Brittle star and handful other bits from Felixstowe beachcomb; hornwrack. Kate Osborne has launched Beach Bonkers to carry on the beachcombing work she started when working as Project Officer for the HLF project ‘Touching the Tide’. Throughout the 2016 summer holidays she will be leading beachcombing walks in Felixstowe and Southwold as well as taking the beach to summer carnivals and festivals. If you can’t get to the beach why not contact her and she’ll bring the beach to you! All events can be found at www.beachbonkers.org.uk White Admiral 94 5 B ee - ginners luck On 16th June last year, I I emailed the Suffolk aculeate incidentally netted two bees at recorder, Adrian Knowles, about Captains Wood whilst setting out the records and he replied saying some bottle traps for beetles. that he had caught a specimen of Previously, I had often found bees A. florea on the 18th June 2015 very difficult to identify but the from the Shotley peninsula. He new book by Steven Falk, “Field also confirmed that the most Guide to the Bees of Great Britain northerly published record until and Ireland”, has changed that. last summer was just north of Using the book the bees quickly Southend. keyed out to Lasioglossum sexnotatum and Andrena florea. So far so good! However, checking the distribution of these species led to some doubts creeping in. Lasioglossum is a seriously rare bee although it does appear to be present in south-east Suffolk. Andrena florea, whilst also a scarce species did not appear to be found north of the Thames estu- ary. Oh dear, obviously mis-identifications by an inexperienced observer. I decided to take the bees to an identification workshop run by Steven Falk and was surprised to find the original identifica- tions were instantly confirmed. The Andrena specimen in particular caused a good deal of excitement amongst the bee aficionados. 6 White Admiral 94 So this is another species that the Field Guide will lead to more appears to be moving northward enthusiasts starting to record bees over the last few years. The bee as their mobility should lead to collects pollen exclusively from some more interesting discoveries White Bryony Bryonia dioica – rather like dragonflies. which is plentiful in Suffolk so it is And as my two captures show you interesting to postulate where the certainly don’t need to know what bee may end up.