LETTERS, NOTES AND QUERIES

Containing this month: 
Landguard library by Nigel Odin
Blood Sucking Insect by Barry Mitchell
Aggressive gulls by Richard Fisk
Research in the garden? by Michael Kirby
New Fungus Group by Neil Mahler

One of the rooms at Landguard Bird Observatory has been converted into a small library. Its primary function is to provide a dry environment for the data archives collected by the bird observatory. There is also enough space to archive books and journals of relevance to Suffolk that might be useful to researchers; books on a wide range of natural history subjects have been donated by Ipswich School and a number of private individuals.

I am on the scrounge for copies of White Admiral numbers 1 to 19, Suffolk Natural History numbers 1 to 22 and copies of Suffolk Bird Reports pre-1978, volumes 48 to 51, 53 and 55 onwards. Any books about Suffolk’s natural history that you think we might not have would also be useful. We have copies of most of the books produced by SNS (except Richard Stewart’s excellent Millennium Atlas). If you possess any of the above and are keen to make some room on your bookshelves please get in touch. The library will be made available to members of SNS and SOG who are interested in researching any aspect of Suffolk’s natural history.


Nigel Odin
Landguard Bird Observatory, View Point Road, Felixstowe, Suffolk, IP11 3TW
Email: landguardbo AT yahoo.co.uk

Blood Sucking Insect

Can anyone direct me to a list, with photographs if possible, of all known Suffolk blood sucking insects? I would like to identify a particularly painful pest. In the first instance to satisfy my curiosity and second to assure me that it is not a carrier of any known disease. I am plagued by this creature in my own garden in Ipswich. Neighbours do not appear to have the same problem, therefore it is very locally known as “Mitchells Vampire”. I have never seen this creature before, or experienced a bite like it, either in this country or elsewhere.

It does not look like a midge or a mosquito, and when landed it looks more like a 0.5 to 0.75 cm shiny oval beetle. It leaves an open holed wound wherever it bites, followed by a very large lump on the skin that remains very painful for approximately three days.

Known habits:
    Emerges at dusk
    Inhabits my Garden
    Has flight ability
    Lands on victim and compacts itself into a black shiny oval shape while it sucks blood.

Any information would be appreciated.

Barry Mitchell
Ipswich

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Aggressive gulls

In my note ‘Going to town’ in White Admiral 59 I commented on the Lesser Blackback gull colony in Beccles. At that time they resided on the roof of a disused plastics factory. That building was demolished last year but the gulls did not go away, some nested on the piles of rubble left behind and others moved onto neighbouring rooftops. One pair nested in the angle between the roof and chimney on my house. This year they became something of a nuisance. The (presumed) male discovered that it could see it reflection in one of my bedroom windows, from a perch on a neighbour’s bathroom extension, from where it began launching attacks on the ‘intruder’. The only solution was to paint this window with white greenhouse shading to eliminate the reflections. Whilst the chick (only one apparently) was small the bird that was ‘on watch’ sounded an alarm call whenever I went into my garden and dive-bombed me. Other birds attracted by the alarm came flying round in circles ‘screaming’ support. Unfortunately mine is a very tall house, so getting onto the roof to provide some deterrent before next season is not practical and no doubt I will have the same problem again.

Richard Fisk

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Research in the garden?

What is your idea of natural history? Is it chasing new arrivals or rarities in faraway places with strange sounding names? There is, of course, a satisfaction in seeing something new or rare and adding a dot to the distribution map. The primary mission of the SNS with its large body of recorders is to document and report the distribution of plants and animals, the rarer the better, but beauty, details of life cycle or ecology are often not mentioned or followed up.

There is another way, championed by the late Dr W.B. Turrill who worked at Kew and was author of several books and articles including the New Naturalist ‘British Plant Life’. In the preface he wrote that he

“is himself convinced that much energy is wasted by field naturalists in the study of British plants through undue emphasis being placed upon rarities and ‘new records’. There are so many problems awaiting solution that could be investigated, and many of them solved, by careful thought-out experiments and patient observations on our common plants that it seems a great pity not to direct attention to the fascinating fields for research provided by ‘buttercups and daisies’ ”.

There is still much to find out about common plants and animals by the ‘back garden’ naturalist who inspects the garden daily, walks the local footpaths or takes the dog for a routine walk.

Perhaps the SNS might encourage ‘study’, an important element of its constitution, as well as recording. Perhaps it could find a ‘back garden advisor’ similar to a recorder, but helping with journal sources, relevant equipment and other aspects of ‘careful thought-out experiments and patient observations’.

Michael Kirby

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New Fungus Group

Sunday September 21st saw the new Suffolk Fungus Group have its first foray which was held at Captain’s Wood. Eight of us turned out for the event which was a welcome start for the group and the omens are looking good for the rest of the ‘season’. Unfortunately the rains did not come until after the foray but good numbers of fungi were still found and luckily the best find, Scytinostroma portentosum the Mothball Crust, was still smelling strongly of naphthalene, and I took great delight in getting the group down on their knees to have a good whiff! This is the only site in Suffolk where it has been found so far. It is known in only three other counties. The Suffolk Wildlife Trust did well to purchase Captain’s Wood. We all look forward to our next foray to be held at Brandon country park.

Neil Mahler

A photograph, sent in by one of the new group is shown below.



From left: Phil Sweet, Tig Sweet, David Chittock, Audrey Barker, Neil Mahler, Brian Fountain, unnamed local enthusiast. John Garrett was behind the camera.

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