Notes and Observations 13 Part 1

NOTES A N D

OBSERVATIONS

SEROTINE BATS AT MARLESFORD. On a number of evenings in June and July I watched a small number of Serotines (Eptesicus serotinus) on the Park at Mariesford Hall. They spent most of the time feeding near trees, Aying right in amongst the branches to catch their prey. Serotines fly when it is still quite light and from underneath the bats it was possible to identify the insects they were taking if they were seen against the sky. Under those conditions Amphimallus and medium sized moths were seen to be taken, but frequently the bats flew right in amongst the branches presumably to seize insects sitting on them. On a number of occasions bats doing that lost Aying speed completely, falling six feet or so vertically below the branch before regaining control.

CRANBROOK, G t . G l e m h a m .

NOCTULE BATS (Nyctalus noctiilä).

A woodman brought me one male and Ave female noctules captured in a hollow ash tree at Little Glemham lOth September, 1964 : three others, one of which was ringed, escaped. The one male captured was also ringed as an adult by H. G. Barrett and myself at Gt. Glemham 2nd October, 1961. It was recaptured at Gt. Glemham, 6th July and 3rd September, 1962. The females were all adult and had probably bred in 1964, but were no longer lactating.

CRANBROOK, G t . G l e m h a m .

BARBASTELLE BAT (Barbastella barbastellus).

At about midnight on 3Ist August, 1964, while driving along the Earl Soham— AshAeld road I hit a male Barbastelle bat. Weight 8-5 gms., forearm 36-5 mm.

H . G . BARRETT, W i n s t o n .

FURTHER NOTES ON A STOAT (Mustela nivalis).

At the beginning of June I heard a great commotion among the birds in the garden, and on going out to investigate I saw a stoat running along the top of a six foot wall towards a climbing rose in which I knew there were two nests. I frightened the stoat away but within ten minutes it was back in the garden again. We saw it six different times that day, and on one of these occasions it was being chased by a blackbird Aying only a couple of feet above it as it crossed the lawn. It was the larger of the two stoats and was in splendid condition with a bright, glossy chestnut coat.

In order to try and save the young birds I tried putting down a quantity of meat scraps, Ash skins, bacon rinds, lumps of fat and anything meaty I could get hold of, close to a run leading into a stone pile where I suspected the stoat was living for the time. I

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS

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covered the food with a box without sides to that no bird would be tempted, and although it never emerged while I watched for it the food was usually all gone within half an hour. On some occasions as much as three or four ounces was taken at a time—twice a day and sometimes three times. This went on for about ten days, and then suddenly no more food was touched. Düring this time I never heard the birds' alarm calls.

Düring the first week of July I heard them on three successive days, and they followed, in a small flock, from the tops of the trees, the route the stoat was taking across an orchard to where I knew there was a nest of young rabbits. Although I could not see it, the birds presently followed its movements back again across the orchard. M y farmer neighbour has since told me that twice recently he has seen the stoat carrying a rabbit away from the direction of this nest, and that on removing an old pile of wood just beyond the orchard he found a quantity of rabbit bones and the shells of two moorhen's eggs.

MRS. HARRISON, Snape Hall.

(See Trans. Suffolk Nat.

Soc. 12 : 453, 1964, Ed.)

S T O \ T S W I M M I N G THE DEBEN. In mid July, 1 9 6 4 , just off a rather crowded beach known locally as " T h e Rocks " at Ramsholt, a small animal was observed to be swimming across the river against a strong rising tide. At this point, I suppose there must have been a quarter of a mile of water clear yet this small beast had obviously braved all this distance.

When it emerged dripping and exhausted it was readily identifiable as a füll grown stoat—it paused on the shore for perhaps a minute to recover its strength, apparently quite oblivious to our presence, trotted up the beach and into the reeds. I have never seen a stoat swimming before although I understand they do indulge occasionally ; I am more surprised that this one chose to cross such a wide Stretch of salt water.

ALFRED WALLER,

Waldringfield.

YELLOW NECKED M O U S E IN A M O L E T R A P .

T h e r e has for long been a colony of yellow necked mice (Apodemus flavicollis) here : they have been caught in the house, in the woodshed and in the immediately surrounding woodland (see Distribution of the Yellow necked mouse in Woods at Gt. Glemham, N. Chandler and A. Heffer Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 9 :313, 1956). Recently one was caught in a mole trap set in a mole run in the garden.

MRS. PATERNOSTER, T h e Lodge, Gt. Glemham.

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W A T E R V O L E (Arvicola terrestris).

Two water voles were killed 3rd September, 1964, by a ditch in which water runs throughout the winter but which was dry when they were found, the nearest water along the bottom of the Valley in which the ditch runs being about three quarters of a mile away. The male, weighing 250 gms. was very dark almost black. The female was lactating, weighed 280 gms. and was of the normal dark brown colour.

CRANBROOK, G t .

Glemham.

T A P E W O R M OF D U C K .

M . Beverley-Burton (Cestoda of British freshwater birds. Proc. Zool. Soc. Lon. 142 : 307-346, 1964) adds Diorchis stefanskii, Czaplinski 1956, found in mallard, wigeon, teal, and pintail from Nacton Decoy, to those recorded in Trans Suffolk Nat. Soc. 11 : 29-43, 1958.

POLYPORUS SQUAMOSUS. Mr. Bettridge brought this along in the boot of his car to the Fungus Foray on lOthOctober, of this year. He had found it a few days before at Sudbury near the bank of the Stour. " It appeared to be growing on the ground but was actaully on a buried piece of Black Poplar When first seen it was about 5" broad and this grew to 13ÂŁ" when it was cut off since it was feared it might be destroyed being conspicuous near a footpath. The stem when cut was 2\" in diameter and the cut fungus weighed 2\ lbs."

I have looked up Swanton's " Fungi " (1909) to see if this is of record size. Mr. Bettridge must not be disappointed. If he could have left it to grow with any hope of its escaping destruction it might by now be very much bigger. Swanton says, " My esteemed friend Dr. Hooker relates an instance of one that measured 7 ' 5" in circumference and weighed 34 lbs. It was only four weeks in attaining that size."

Ramsbottom in " Mushrooms and Toadstools " (1953) quotes old records of an even bigger one " growing on a piece of the trank of an Elm in a damp cellar in the Haymarket in 1744." He says of this species that it smells of uncooked tripe. If we had sniffed we might have learned what that smells like.

Still we do congratulate Mr. Bettridge on a very fine perfect specimen of Dryad's Saddle.

J.

C.

N.

WILLIS,

Ipswich.

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47

Solanum triflorum. Mrs. Stephenson found this plant recently at Iken and Mr. Simpson teils me he too has seen it about Foxhall.

In both places it is probably a casual, but Mrs. Southwell, our authority for Breckland plants saw it as long ago as 1948 on Icklingham Plains " where there were at least twenty plants in disturbed sand near rabbit holes. About forty plants appeared in 1949. In 1950, the heath was ploughed, but several plants germinated and appeared on sandy patches of heath nearby. " They were still there in 1954, but there was no sign of them in 1957 or 1958 and I have not looked for them since," she says.

I regret that when I began the compiling of the Suffolk records in 1955, I did not know that this on Mrs. Southwell's first record card was " New to Suffolk " and should have received special notice. Only now, prompted by Mrs. Stephenson's find have I asked Mrs. Southwell for information.

Unless you have McClintock's Supplement (1957) to the " Pocket Guide to Wild Flowers" or the Second Edition of C.T.W's. " British Flora " you will not have seen a description of the plant.

Mr. McClintock teils me it was introduced from America and is found in other places besides Suffolk. It belongs to the Solanum nigrum group of low shrubby plants. It bears three small white flowers in a cyme followed by three large green globular berries about | inch diameter with small pinnately lobed leaves. In these leaves it differs from another Solanum of the group, S. chenopodioides, which Mr. Rutterford found at Lakenheath some years ago. This also has large globular berries, but of a darker green.

J. C. N. WILLIS, Ipswich.

A TAME CUCKOO. Every day between 24th August and lOth September, a remarkably tame young cuckoo visited our garden here. From the vantage point of a fork handle it made repeated raids on a nasturtium bed only ten yards from the windows in Order to feed on the larvae of the Small White butterfly {Pieris rapae, Linn.). q üarret,. WinstQn H MORE NEST-BOX BREEDING RESULTS. Eighty-ntne nest boxes, out of a total of one hundred, which I have now erected in Great Finborough Park, were occupied during 1964 by the following species : Eggs Young 23 boxes occupied by ,, ,, 14 ,, 5 ,, 1 ,, „ „ ,,

10

Great tits Blue tits T r e e sparrow Starlings Jackdaws T a w n y owl Stock dove Red Squirrel Wasps

laid 158 153 83 67

21

2+

4

hatched 114 142 63 46 3 4

Reared 112 131 49 29 4

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Nests were also built in six other boxes by starlings, jackdaws, spotted flycatcher, tawny owl, and great tit, but no eggs were laid.

T h e tawny owl's eggs were probably destroyed by jackdaws which were seen at the nest box on a number of occasions and had built in April in the box in which the owl subsequently laid her eggs.

A great tit built a nest between 2nd and 8th May and sat eggless until 8th June.

J COPPING, Stowmarket.

R BUTTERFLIES MIGRATING. On 27th August, I was on Walberswick beach from lOa.m. until 12noon. As there were nobirds about I found myself counting the Red Admirals which flew south. In the two hours twenty-two passed me, of which only one alighted.

I followed the others with my binoculars until lost to sight.

Three went due south rising Over the sea to a considerable height, and five between south and south-west also rising high. T h e remainder followed the line of the sandhills. There was a light breeze, mainly north-east. I supposed this was a migratory movement.

I saw two Clouded Yellows, one at Blythburgh on 26th August and one at Benacre on 28th August.

G . B. G . BENSON, S o u t h w o l d .

Arcyria incarnata. In her Playford garden, Jennifer Green found little, bright red, egg-shaped bodies, growing upon decayed wood. Each " egg " is about a tenth of an inch long, borne on a shallow cup on a stalk of about the same length. I identified this organism as the sporangial stage of Arcyria incarnata, one of the Mycetozoa or Myxomycetes, usually known as " Slime Fungi " .

These lie on the borderland between the animal and the vegetable kingdoms. The swimming gametes fuse in pairs to produce an amoeba-like Zygote. DĂźring nuclear division, this does not divide, so the product is a multinucleate, protoplasmic mass which flows over the substratum, engulfing micro organisms, and feeding like a very simple animal. This brightly-coloured plasmodium is commonly found on decaying vegetable matter and the plasmodium of the fairly common Physarum polycephalum can convert into a slimy mess a large mushroom in a single day. Later, the plasmodium will form globular spores which are either sessile or elevated on stalks, as in Arcyria, in which the sporangial capillitium, formed from a basketwork of red threads, assists in dispersal by expanding when moist. T h e spores can absorb water, liberating amoeboid masses which divide into uninucleate swarm cells. These can move in an amoeboid way, or behave as swimming gametes, to repeat the life cycle.

Over 500 species of Slime-fungi are known, showing wide behavioural variations. It is a pity that these fascinating little organisms are not better known.

F. R. PAULSEN, PH.D., F.R.I.C.