Notes from the Editor

Thankfully, it's all good news. First, the eagle-eyed amongst our readers will have noted, on the back cover of the last issue, a change of address for our President Howard Mendel. He is now at the Natural History Museum in London, in charge of no less than 12« million specimens. This is a considerable personal achievement but thankfully Howard remains locally active as he is still living in Suffolk. We wish him every success in this new and demanding position.

Millennium Survey

Unlike a number of larger, well-established Branches who are struggling to complete their coverage by the end of 1999, the good news is that we have joined Cheshire, Surrey and Warwickshire in achieving 100% coverage. This is largely the result of hard and determined work by many hundreds of recorders who range from single sightings and one-site observers to a small band who have repeatedly sacrificed the joys of visiting good ~ices to explore the less-enticing 'empty tetrads' in under recorded parts of the County. Often the most difficult task was actually finding out which small chunk of border tetrad was acrually in Suffolk and, secondly, how it could be reached. In one instance records came from 'across the river in Essex', the two observers having to use the easiest access and then identify species on the Suffolk side! However, there is still much to do-many tetrads are still under-recorded and a few species are still below the range recorded in the mid-eighties survey. This final year needs to be one of well-planned and sustained effort to maximise our recording result and make the forthcoming new County atlas as comprehensive as possible. All recorders will get information well before the new season starts.

Butterfly Garden

This was officially opened on 11 th. August at Alexandra Park in Ipswich and covered briefly in the 'Evening Star', with a photo of Chairman James Mann and Fiona, the Park Ranger most closely involved in the project. Can I add my thanks to the other BC representatives present, that is Stella Wolfe and Jean and Ken Garrod. So far the site has been visited by at least eight species but additional records will be welcomed.

Articles for the Suffolk Argus

If any members have articles for future editions of the Suffolk Argus could they please send them to Paul Gilson at 18, Cheltenham Avenue, Ipswich IP1 4LN. Myself and Richard Stewart will be overseeing the production of the newsletter until a new Editor is found.