The London Freshwater Group, to which I belong, is one of the five specialist groups of the Linnean Society of London. Formed in 1973, it meets 2 or 3 times a year to exchange ideas and stimulate discussion on a range of subjects relating to freshwater science. Apart from the privilege of gathering in the historic and beautiful surroundings of the Linnean Society, for the price of the half time coffee and biscuits members get first rate, up to the minute talks on the latest research in freshwater science. Mainstream natural history interests such as butterflies or birds are well catered for as far as interest groups are concerned but the LFG is the only group of it’s type I have found in southern England.

On Saturday September 12th the LFG met at Blo’ Norton and held their annual field meeting at the Little Ouse Headwaters Project (LOHP). The aim of the visit, aside from being a good chance for a social gathering, was to carry out biological sampling at the various sites to help with recording for the project volunteers. As county recorder it seemed a good chance to get some new records for the county freshwater database as well.

The LOHP is an impressive project and the opportunity to have a guided tour was too good to miss. It is a community conservation initiative, established by local residents in 2002 and has the important aim of restoring and re-uniting the remaining fragments of the valley fen on the Norfolk / Suffolk border. It comprises several parcels of land adjacent to Redgrave Fen and Thelnetham Fen, both owned of course by the SWT and although the project is run entirely by volunteers it has done exceedingly well in a short time. So far the project has raised over £450k of funding for land purchase, restoration, management and improving public access. In 2006 they won the RSPB / CIWEM Living Wetlands Award. LOHP now manages c.45ha of land adjacent to the Little Ouse including SAC/SSSI fens, wet woodland, grazing meadows and some heathland on the valley margins. There are further details including a map of the sites on the LOHP website: www.lohp.org.uk which is also well worth a visit.

So a group of ten spent the day sampling the recently dug scrape at Parkers Piece, the Little Ouse river at Thelnetham Ford and Blo' Norton Fen. This was followed by a barbecue and camping in the evening. Some of us stayed on the following day and joined the LOHP volunteer work party digging out a turf pond. Unfortunately for our recording the weather in late summer and early autumn had been very dry and some other sites in the project were completely dry. However the trip was a great success and we plan to return in June 2010. A more complete list of species found will be reserved for the Transactions report next year but despite the LOHP’s scrape being just a few months old a species count of 29 was obtained. This bodes well for the future fauna and species found included the notable beetle Hydroglyphus geminus as well as Hygrotus impressopunctatus and the whirligig Gyrinus caspius; both listed as local. Amongst the aquatic bugs the two local species Notonecta viridis and Plea minutissima were also present.

The almost dry Blo’ Norton Fen, which is across the river from Thelnetham Fen turned up the notable beetle Cercyon sternalis and an important find in the form of Hebrus ruficeps. With the common name of the Sphagnum Bug H. ruficeps is a minute fen dweller and has been recorded few times in the county. On the NBN website there are a couple of records from coastal Suffolk from the 1980's which need to be checked out. Hebrus was however recorded once by Claude Morley in 1942, and I have examined the specimens still in his collections at Ipswich Museum. Interestingly he found it at Thelnetham Fen, merely a stones throw from this Blo’ Norton record 67 years later! Although this new record is technically in Norfolk by a few metres it is an excellent record and proof that the smallest and most insignificant invertebrates may persist unseen for years even though we fragment their habitat.

The LFG give a very big thank you to two of the LOHP trustees, Jo-Anne Pitt for organising the event and being our guide on the day and to Helen Smith. Helen has worked on the rare Fen Raft Spider at Redgrave for many years and gave us a rare viewing and an interesting talk on the spider, Dolomedes plantarius. Further information on this species can be found at her website: http://www.wavcott.org.uk/dolomedes/index.html. Helen also provided us with the BBQ / Camping grounds and some very tasty home grown tomatoes and apples!

I would recommend any naturalist contemplating a trip to Redgrave to also drop in to see the work going on at Lopham. A great example of what local people can do. Unifying a fascinating series of small fen fragments and producing a truly important wetland habit for Suffolk and Norfolk. Adrian Chalkley County recorder for Freshwater Invertebrates