RECORDS NOTEBOOK

Containing this issue: 
 
Holes Between Pavement Stones by Alan Beaumont
White Pipistrelle Bat by Steve Piotrowski
White Admirals Spreading in Bentley? by Colin & Ann Hawes
A Further Note on the Irish Archer by Colin Hawes

HOLES BETWEEN PAVEMENT STONES

    It is not unusual in mid summer to see a number of holes in the gaps between paving stones in pavements. These holes are caused by emerging ants, mainly Lasius niger, but the ones, over 30 in number, in Gunton St Peters Avenue in Lowestoft looked different. These were not all of sand, brought up by the ants from beneath the paving stone, as is characteristic of ants’ emerging holes. They were circular in section and contained a lot of subsoil. The holes were also not touching each other, another characteristic of ant holes, but were at least a centimetre apart. They were probably not made by emerging ants.

While I was looking at one of the holes, an insect with a black and yellow abdomen landed nearby. It was carrying a non-moving insect that looked very much like the hoverfly Syrphus rebesii. The black and yellow-abdomen-insect quickly took its probably paralysed prey into one of the holes. Consulting Michael Chinery’s book told me the holes were probably produced by digger wasps, which are not easy to identify, but could be Crabro cribrarius or one similar. Digger wasps make their nests in sandy areas and provision them with paralysed flies for their grubs. Is it unusual for the females to make their nests in gaps in pavements in a fairly busy urban street?

	Holes made by digger wasps in the gaps between the paving stones in Gunton St Peters Avenue in Lowestoft.
Excavated soil from some holes had been stepped on. The ‘fresh’ hole was close a garden wall.

The paving stones are 90 by 60 cm in size and the gaps between them are 1-2cm wide. Could this be a case of another species becoming ‘urbanised’ in Lowestoft like the kittiwakes? That the wasps detected the narrow gaps in a pavement regularly walked by the residents is a little surprising. Many of the spoil heaps had been stepped on while others, especially near the garden wall and therefore not trampled, contained soil and sand and were at least 1 cm high.

Reference
Chinery, M. (2005). Complete British Insects. HarperCollins. Alan Beaumont 52 Squires WaNovember 19, 2011 9:03>,
52 Squires Walk Lowestoft

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WHITE PIPISTRELLE BAT

On the evening of 18th August, my wife Kathy called me into the garden to point out a white bat flying around the shrubberies and over our lawn. I immediately located the bat, which was feeding with up to four Pipistrelles. Initially, I thought it was slightly bigger than the Pips, but on closer examination the following night, I concluded it was indeed the same size. We watched the bat on every night that we were at home until 27th August. It emerged most evenings between 20.20 and 20.40 hr and several friends and neighbours visited our garden to watch the spectacular display.

Although its body and wings were brilliant white, we were unable to determine by its eye colour whether it was a pure albino. John Goldsmith arrived with his bat detecting equipment one evening and was able to determine its identification. He said that he was happy that it was a Common Pipistrelle (45 kHz) and, from his brief view, suspect that it was an “erythristic” rather than an albino. JG believes that observations of white bats are extremely rare, something like 1 in 500,000 or more, although he may not want to be quoted on this figure. It is likely to be a young bat from this season and like many other Pips has now moved away from its maternity roost. It will be interesting to see if it shows up again next year?

Steve Piotrowski

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WHITE ADMIRALS SPREADING IN BENTLEY?

For the fifth consecutive year White Admiral butterflies (Ladoga camilla L.) have been observed in Old Hall Wood, Bentley. Each year sightings have been made along the same woodland ride, which is a haven for many species of butterfly. Food plants for nectaring, such as bramble, abound, as does honeysuckle, the food plant of White Admiral larvae. In June 2008, White Admirals were flying here on the 26th (3), 27th (2) and 28th (4) of the month (the only days that we were able to visit).

In addition, Jonathan Oldham, Assistant Head at the Field Studies Council, Flatford Mill Field Centre, who contacted the SBRC, reported ‘For the first time in over twenty years, I have seen a White Admiral butterfly in Great Martin’s Hill Wood, Bentley. [At] TM 099364 single butterfly flying along a ride beside nine and six year-old chestnut coppice stands on 29/6/08, c.13: 00 and 15/7/08, c. 16:00 (there is abundant honeysuckle in ten year-old sweet chestnut coppice close-by, and abundant bramble throughout the wood)’.

Perhaps we are seeing the first signs that this spectacular butterfly is spreading in Bentley.

Colin & Ann Hawes

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A FURTHER NOTE ON THE IRISH ARCHER
(Anthurus archeri)

Sheila Francis has written in response to my article in White Admiral 66 (p.19, Spring 2007) on Anthurus archeri. She observed this fungus ‘in a garden in Wenhaston in September 2007. It was on wood chips used as mulch. The chips had come from New Zealand via the Wyvale Garden Centre, Woodbridge’. An article about this fungus, written by Sheila, was published in Wenhaston Word (Village Newsletter Series 2, Issue 7, October 2007; see also http://www.wenhastonword.co.uk/). Alternatively known as the Devil’s Fingers, A. archeri, as Sheila rightly points out, is now known by the generic name Clathrus (Check List of British Basidiomycota 2005, Kew Bulletin 1980). Sheila’s article also informs us that ‘the first British record for Clathrus archeri was in Penzance in November 1945 and the earliest record for Europe was in 1914 in central France’. First described from Tasmania in 1860, this strange fungus has travelled far afield and is now usually associated with wood chips.

In 2007, fruiting bodies of C. archeri (A. archeri) appeared again in Bob and Christine Feltwell’s garden in Bentley (White Admiral 59 and 66), this time at a different location, growing on wood chips produced from trimmed oaks bordering their property. The fruiting bodies emerged in June, much earlier than in 2004 and 2006.

Once again I am grateful to Bob and Christine for contacting me when the fungus fruiting bodies appeared in their garden.

Colin Hawes

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