FSC/SBIS Bursary review

Transcription

1 FSC/SBIS Bursary review For just over a year now, I ve had a very keen interest in solitary bees and wasps. Thankfully, county recorder Adrian Knowles has been assisting me with my interest by supplying me with a substantial reference collection and confirming the identifications I had made of my specimens that I had collected. Often, about 50% of the time, my identifications were wrong, even though I was aided by the first field guide to bees in 80 years. The problem was I had no one on hand to point out certain features and where I was going wrong. I was informed by a fellow member of BWARS (Bees Wasps & Ants Recording Society) that there was a 6 day course on solitary bees at Flatford Mill and in the same week whilst in conversation with our Ben Heather at the SNS conference, discovered that there was a bursary between the SBIS and FSC for certain courses and it turned out this course was covered by this bursary. Requirements for the bursary were quite simple: Be over 25. Not in full time education or full time employment if the employers pay the course fee. For the full bursary for the full amount of the residential fee, the applicant must submit a given number (40 for this particular course) of records within three months of the course end. The records had to be from a diverse range of taxa and a range of sites from within Suffolk and be submitted to irecord via a SBIS account. I was lucky enough to get on the course as it became fully booked quite quickly apparently and when July came I checked in to my room in Willy Lott s house at Flatford. Ian Cheeseborough and his assistant Bex Cartwright from BWARS were tutoring the course and there were 8 attendees. This was the first time that this course was being run, so we were guinea pigs really, but happy guinea pigs to say the least. The weather was set to be hot that week with the mercury set to reach up to 30ºC at times. But this was never a problem as Ian had also brought along a sizeable reference collection too in case the weather was not good enough to go hunting bees. The course agenda run along the same lines as the newly published bee guide by Steven Falk mentioned earlier and was quite enlightening to say the least. It was good to get first hand experience from an expert who could point out the many subtle differences of the features between the many different species of solitary bee that reside in the Suffolk countryside. On our days out, whether it was around Flatford Mill, Minsmere or Fingringhoe Wick, we got to see various species in their environment, either collecting pollen, nesting or in the case of cuckoo bees, looking for a nest to cleptoparasitise. Yours truly also found a nesting aggregation of Heriades truncorum, a small and rare resin bee, provisioning beetle exit holes in the exterior of one of Flatford s meeting room buildings. I also came across my very first Anthidium manicatum, a Wool Carder bee whose male of the species actually patrols an area of plants to guard them aggressively from any other pollinator, bee, hoverfly or butterfly, so that the female has the sole access to the pollen she requires for the nest she is building.

2 A patrolling male Anthidium manicatum The balance between indoor microscope work and out in the field trips worked well and we were all learning so much that we couldn t possibly learn from the book alone. My own skills seemed to improve greatly as my previous ID skills of 50% increased to around 95% with Ian and Bex confirming my identifications as I made them. By the end of the course a week later there were many sad faces as we wished the course was longer, always a sign of a good course and something that is run of the mill at Flatford. There were many highlights during the course including finding a nesting aggregation of Anthophora bimaculata and although not a bee, I came across a spider hunting wasp, which had just paralysed its prey and watched it drag the poor spider over 8 metres of rough terrain.

3 Female Anthophora bimaculata comes into land at her nest entrance in the bottom left corner. Pompilidae sp with paralysed prey.

4 Male Heriades truncorum chills on ragwort flower head. Now the course was over and I now had to fulfil my requirements of 40 records to receive the full bursary. I collected specimens from several areas around the Suffolk countryside including Lackford Lakes, Flixton pits (with permission), Purdis Heath, Westleton Heath and around my home village of Horham. The specimens were carefully and diligently pinned (I do not enjoy taking specimens, but understand that it is required to confirm their existence in particular areas and also some are so small, an ID cannot be made from a live specimen. So when I take a specimen, I make sure it is pinned in such a way that every amazing detail of the creature can be observed and admired, I owe the insect that much for taking its life). Then, as soon as my wife tuned into Eastenders on the TV, I was out of the room and into my office to identify my pinned specimens caught earlier. I can say that I feel much more confident now with the skills I have learnt from this course and I hope that when Adrian returns my specimens, my success rate will have showed marked improvement. It took me just over a month to obtain my 40 records and instead of entering each one separately as they came, I waited until all 40 had been collected. I then spent 30 mins easily submitting my records via the SBIS recording page through the websites ability to enter a list of records for a particular site made on a set date and this links directly to irecord. Although I have yet to have my latest records determined by Adrian, I know that if there are any errors, I can go back and re-edit that particular record as and when is needed without any hassle whatsoever. The FSC are running several courses on this bursary covering several species and is aimed at getting more people out there recording. I fully recommend that you grab this chance whilst you can, the FSC has some great tutors and facilities and the skills

5 you will learn will not only benefit yourself in becoming better in your field, but will better our countryside and that which dwells within it, as more of us record what is out there we get more of an idea what is out there and in the process of discovering the odd rarity, we can then help to protect the habitats in which they live. Bee Class of L to R: Andrew Green, Charlie Bell, Dave Goddard, Glenn?, Janice Vincett, Ian Cheeseborough, Clare Boyes, Bex Cartwright, Tom David, Hawk Honey. Bex Cartwright.