White Admiral 61 - Red Lodge Heath, Suffolk

RED LODGE HEATH

Red Lodge Heath has a long history as part of the old warren lands of Freckenham Manor. In 1248 Henry the Third granted Richard de Wendover, Bishop of Rochester the right of Free Warren in Freckenham which meant that he could hunt pheasant, partridge, hare and rabbits. In 1815 it was a rabbit farm, with a warren bank enclosing the warren and producing rabbits for meat and fur.

In 1794 the warren covered 450 acres and by 1918 there were only 133 acres. In 1926 much of this was sold for the building of the village of Red Lodge which occurred over the next ten years. In the 1980s much more was built on and the last part to be built on was the Millennium Centre. In 2000, developers applied for planning permission to build hundreds of houses, shops and a school.

The developers did an environmental assessment and found that there was an assemblage of invertebrates chiefly associated with dry grassland and wet woodland with ponds, with aculeate Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants) and Coleoptera (beetles) particularly well represented. The assemblage includes a nationally important population of the nationally rare five-banded tailed digger wasp Cerceris quinquefasciata. This is a medium-sized yellow and black solitary digger wasp that catches weevils and stores them in burrows to feed its young. It is found at Red Lodge Heath SSSI nesting in bare sand along a path in the north of the site, and on sparsely vegetated slopes in the west of the heath. Adults are found flying throughout the dry grasslands. It requires open sandy soils for nesting, and abundant weevil prey in flower-rich sandy grasslands, as each nest needs up to 500 weevils. This requires a large area of flower-rich grassland per wasp, so that there is sufficient area to supply the required number of weevils to feed the young when they emerge.

Red Lodge Heath has the Red Data Book plants Breckland thyme Thymus serpyllum, and smooth rupturewort Herniaria glabra and the nationally scarce plant bearded fescue Vulpia ciliata ambigua.

Red Lodge Heath is a mosaic of dry acid grassland, chalk grassland, lichen heath and wet woodland with ponds. Disturbed, bare soil within open habitats provides the conditions for early-successional plants as well as a wide range of invertebrates. The dry grassland invertebrates at Red Lodge Heath, like those of other heaths, depend very much on patches of bare ground within the grasslands.

Table 1 Rare and scarce invertebrates at Red Lodge Heath SSSI

Scientific name	Common name	Ecological assemblage	Status	Date last recorded
Aculeate Hymenoptera
Cerceris quinquefasciata	a digger wasp	dry grassland , open sandy conditions	RDB3	2002a, b
Podalonia affinis	a digger wasp	dry grassland and open sandy situations	RDB3	2002b
Andrena hattorfiana	a mining bee	dry grassland with field scabious	RDB3	2001b
Hedychrum niemelai	a cuckoo-wasp	dry grassland – parasite of Cerceris quinquefasciata	RDB3	2002b
Nomada argentata	a cuckoo-bee	dry calcareous grassland	RDB3	2002b
Colletes marginatus	a mining bee	open sandy heaths and dunes	Na	2002a, b
Andrena tibialis	a mining bee	open habitats on sandy soil	Na	2002b
Dolichovespula media	the large tree wasp	nest is suspended from trees	Na	2002b
Lasioglossum quadrinotatum	a mining bee	heathland and chalk grassland	Na	2002a, b
Sphecodes longulus	a cuckoo bee	dry sandy situations including heathlands	Na	2002a
Sphecodes reticulatus	a mining bee	calcareous grassland and heath	Na	2002b
Oxybelus argentatus	a sphecid wasp	dry grassland	Na	2002a
Andrena marginata	a mining bee	dry calcareous grassland	Na	2002a, b
Andrena minutuloides	a mining bee	calcareous grassland and heath	Na	2002a, b
Hylaeus cornutus	a yellow-faced bee	dry grassland	Na	2002b
Chrysis illigeri (helleni)	a ruby-tailed cuckoo-wasp	dry grassland	Nb	2002a
Hylaeus signatus	a yellow-faced bee	dry grassland	Nb	2002a, b
Nomada flavopicta	a cuckoo-bee	dry grassland	Nb	2001b
Sphecodes crassus	a mining bee	calcareous grassland and heath, disturbed places and coast	Nb	2002b
Dasypoda altercator	a mining bee	dunes, heaths, sandpits	Nb	2001a
Andrena nigriceps	a mining bee	sandy soils with short vegetation	Nb	2002a
Lasioglossum malachurum	a mining bee	coast, heaths and chalk grassland	Nb	2001b
Coleoptera
Mordellistena neuwaldeggiana	a flower beetle	woodland/wood-pasture and flowers	RDBK	■
Mordellistena parvula	tumbling flower beetle	dry grassland – Artemisia sp	RDBK	2002a
Olibrus flavicornis	smut beetle	dry grassland – composite seed	RDBK	2002a
Microptilium palustre	a featherwing beetle	sedge litter	RDBK	o
Microptilium pulchellum	a featherwing beetle	grass tussocks in wetland	RDBK	o
Ptiliolum marginatum	a tiny featherwing beetle	woodland	RDBK	o
Dryophilus anobioides	dead wood beetle	dry grassland – broom	RDB3	2002b
Bruchela rufipes	weevil	dry grassland and disturbed sandy soils - mignonette	RDB3	■
Apion rubiginosum	weevil	dry grassland – sheep’s sorrel	RDB3	2002a
Harpalus pumilus (vernalis)	phytophagus ground beetle	open or disturbed ground on sandy or gravelly soils	Na	o
Longitarsus quadriguttatus	flea beetle	dry grassland – hound's-tongue	Na	2002b
Mantura chrysanthemi	flea beetle	heathland and disturbed ground	Na	o
Cryptolestes spartii	dead wood beetle	dry grassland – broom/gorse	Na	2002b
Ceutorhynchus atomus	weevil	dry grassland – thale cress	Na	2002b
Ceutorhynchus pulvinatus	weevil	disturbed ground with flixweed	Na	■
Cionus longicollis	weevil	dry grassland – mullein	Na	2002a,b
Cercyon bifenestratus	water beetle	decaying vegetation at edge of water	Na	■
Ocypus ophthalmicus	Blue Rove beetle	dry grassland – under stones/leaf rosettes	Na	2002b
Rhynchites longiceps	leaf-rolling weevil	willow and birch	Nb	o
Rhynchites tomentosus	leaf-rolling weevil	willow and poplar	Nb	o
Anthracus consputus	a brown ground beetle	mud at water’s edge	Nb	o
Calathus ambiguus	ground beetle	dry grassland – under stones/leaf rosettes	Nb	1987c
Longitarsus dorsalis	flea beetle	ragwort in dry grassland etc	Nb	o
Longitarsus tabidus	flea beetle	dry grassland – mullein	Nb	2002b
Adonia variegata	Adonis’ ladybird	dry grassland - predator	Nb	2002a
Scymnus limbatus	a small ladybird	fens and wet woodland	Nb	o
Scymnus schmidti	a small ladybird	dry sandy well drained soils	Nb	o
Baris picicornis	a shiny steel-blue weevil	dry grassland and disturbed chalky soils - mignonette	Nb	o
Ceutorhynchus resedae	a weevil	disturbed chalky ground – weld, mignonette	Nb	o
Miarus graminis	a small black weevil	dry grassland on Campanula	Nb	■
Mogulones geographicus	weevil	dry grassland – viper’s bugloss	Nb	2002a,b
Otiorhynchus raucus	weevil	dry grassland - plant roots	Nb	1987c
Trichosirocalus barnevillei	a small weevil	disturbed ground and grassland - yarrow	Nb	o
Scarodytes halensis	a yellow and black water beetle	slow flowing and still water with abundant vegetation	Nb	o
Cardiophorus asellus	a click beetle	open sandy grassland	Nb	o
Cercyon convexiusculus	small black water beetle	reed or sedge litter or other wet thick vegetation	Nb	o
Cercyon sternalis	small water beetle	vegetation and litter at edge of water	Nb	■
Olibrus millefolii	small black beetle	heathland, grassland - yarrow	Nb	■
Olibrus pygmaeus	small beetle	marshland, grassland, disturbed ground - cudweed	Nb	■
Carpelimus obesus	a rove beetle	wet mud	Nb	o
Datomicra zosterae	a rove beetle	decaying vegetation	Nb	o
Dochmonota clancula	tiny black rove beetle	wetland and ponds	Nb	o
Philhygra(Atheta) hygrobia	a rove beetle	wetland and ponds	Nb	o
Other dry grassland insects
Lithostege griseata	Grey Carpet moth	dry grassland – flixweed/treacle mustard	RDB3	2002a
Pherbellia knutsoni	snail-killing fly	dry grassland – parasite of snails	RDB3	2002a
Graptopeltus lynceus	groundbug	dry grassland – viper’s bugloss/forget-me-not	Nb	2002a
Macrosteles quadripunctulatus	hopper	dry grassland – grasses	N	2002a
Scleroracus decumanus	hopper	dry grassland – unknown food plant	N	2002a

Key

RDB3 – nationally rare. RDBK – insufficiently known. Na/Nb/N – nationally scarce. Nationally scarce means that the species is present in 100 or less of the 10 km squares of the national grid. Na means that the species is in 40 or less of these grid squares, and Nb means it is in 41 – 100 of these squares. N means that there is no differentiation between Na and Nb but the species is in 100 or less of the squares.

Data sources:

a – Epcad, 2002; b – Knowles, 2002; c – Key, 2003. o – recorded 1980 – 1989 (Harvey 2004). ■ – recorded 1990 onwards (Harvey 2004).