SNIPPETS

          Jellyfish have recently attracted more attention than usual. In addition to the sighting at Southwold of Chrysaora isosceles, a photo of which featured on the cover of the spring edition of White Admiral (see edition 69: Letters p. 30) billions of Mauve Stingers, Pelagia noctiluca have destroyed the only salmon farm in Northern Ireland. The jellyfish covered an area of 10 square miles off the coast of County Antrim. The species normally inhabits warmer waters and was blown off course.

          SNS is to award its official recorders a £50 annual bursary on receipt of an appropriate annual report.

          The population of the fen raft spider at Redgrave and Lopham Fen remains vulnerable and a cause for concern. The species occupies only a small part of the fen and has extended its territory by about 75 metres in recent years but seems unable to colonise other apparently suitable areas of Redgrave and Lopham. Experts from the Natural England Species Recovery Programme are considering the possibility of intervening by ‘translocating’ colonies to other parts of the fen as well as further down the River Waveney.

          Wildlife on the Stour and Orwell estuaries is increasingly disturbed by leisure activities according to research carried out for the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB Unit. Research, co-ordinated by the SWT and carried out by volunteers over the three winters from 2004 to 2007, showed that whilst the most frequent forms of disturbance were by boats and dog walkers, more unusual occurrences such as gunshots and low-flying aircraft disturbed the greatest number of birds. Although the Orwell is four times as busy as the Stour, birds on the latter were more sensitive to activity and more prone to leave the site. The report is downloadable as a pdf from www.suffolkcoastsandheaths.org.

          A Spectacled Warbler was recorded at Westleton Heath on 10th May. There have been only four previous sightings of this rarity in the U.K., the previous being on the Isles of Scilly in 2000.

          Polecat populations in Britain continue to recover. The species is now reestablished across Wales, the Midlands and central southern England. A recent population estimate co-ordinated by the Vincent Wildlife Trust puts numbers at almost 47,000. More information can be found at www.vwt.org.uk

          Reading through the ‘Flies’ section of Wildlife Reports in the June ‘08 copy of British Wildlife I was struck by the generous provision of journals available to dipterists. Dipterists Digest (containing 24 papers), Entomologist’s Gazette (several papers on flies), Bulletin of the Dipterists Forum, The Malloch Society, Cranefly Recording Scheme Newsletter, Hoverfly Newsletter, Larger Brachysera Recording Scheme Newsletter are all mentioned in the space of one page! What a lot of reading (and writing). Might this explain why the SNS cannot recruit a Diptera Recorder?

          The fecundity of the Collared Dove takes some beating. After crossing the North Sea the first pair bred Britain in Cromer in 1955; by 2000 there were 284,000 breeding territories. Nine broods have been recorded in one season.