Sphinctus serotinus at Rampart ’ s Field
Alan Thornhill
In September 2019, whilst carrying out a spider survey at Rampart ’s Field, part of West Stow Country Park, I noticed an unusual insect flying around a small oak tree that was somewhat isolated from the nearby woodland. Although the insect was very active and didn ’t stop flying for more than a few seconds I managed to take one picture that I hoped would allow it to be identified. After 10 minutes it flew elsewhere.
I wasn’t even sure which order of insects it belonged to but it looked rather ‘wasp like’ so I posted my picture on the UK Bees, Wasps and Ants Facebook group on the Internet. It was identified by experts on there (and later confirmed on iRecord) as Sphinctus serotinus (family Ichneumonidae), a species not recorded in the UK for over a hundred years. Claude Morley, the founder of the Suffolk Naturalists, listed it as having been found in the 19th century (Morley, 1911) but there had been no records since
and it was considered ‘probably extinct’ in the UK (Broad, 2016). It has a widespread distribution in Europe but isn’t common anywhere. S. serotinus parasitises caterpillars of the festoon moth, Apoda limacodes, which feeds on oak and beech. The ichneumon lays its eggs on the caterpillars when they are almost fully grown. After the caterpillar has spun its silken cocoon the Sphinctus larva hatches and grows within it (Shaw et al, 2016).
References:
Broad, G. (2016). Checklist of British and Irish Hymenoptera – Ichneumonidae. Biodiversity Data Journal. 4: e9042. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.4.e9042
Morley, C. (1911). Ichneumonologia Britannica, iv. The ichneumons of Great Britain. Tryphoninae. London, 344 pp.
Shaw, M.R., Voogd, J. (2016). Illustrated notes on the biology of Sphinctus serotinus Gravenhorst (Hymenoptera, Tryphoninae, Sphinctini). Journal of Hymenopetra Research, 49: 81 - 93.
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A Geo - panel for Westleton
Last summer GeoSuffolk (Bob and Caroline Markham and Howard Mottram) created a new explanatory panel about Norwich Crag gravels and positioned it on Westleton Common, type site of the ‘Westleton Sands and Shingle’ as named by Joseph Prestwich of Oxford University in 1871.
We are much indebted to the Suffolk Naturalists’ Society for help with the funding of this project, which has been well-received by Westleton Parish Council (which manages the common) and reported on by local people and visiting walkers. The latest kind comment was from two Westleton residents encountered by chance at Ness Point in Lowestoft.
Aware of the long history of study of the geology of Westleton, GeoSuffolk designated it a County Geodiversity
Site in 2011 and cleared the exposures with help from a Suffolk Coast & Heaths AONB Work Party in 2015. We wanted the panel to appeal to a wide variety of users, and the visual and tactile appeal of the large, rounded flint pebbles which characterise the Norwich Crag gravels here provided the starting point. Life-sized photos on the panel encourage the viewer (even if they are too young to read the text) to pick one/some up for further study. There is a photograph of one of the exposures on the Common, showing that the pebbles in the thick gravel beds touch and support one another (clast supported) with very little finergrained material present - a type of deposit with high energy requirements. Explanations for this have evolved over the course of the
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Caroline Markham - Geo Suffolk
150 years since Prestwich brought the village of Westleton to the world of geology and we have reviewed some of these at the base of the panel, including the interpretation by SNS member Howard Mottram. There are also photos of two further public access sites where the gravels can be seen – Westleton Heath and Dunwich/ Minsmere Cliffs.
We wanted the panel to be noticeable but relatively unobtrusive in the heathland environment of this disused quarry, so we chose back printed perspex with no frame. Barry Hall and Peter Brinkley of GeoSuffolk created the wooden stand, painting it pale blue. Positioning a geology panel
should be easy because rocks stay put (unlike animals), so the ideal place is in front of the exposure it refers to. However, at Westleton this part of the quarry is seldom visited, so we took the advice of the warden, David Rouse and on a beautiful day in July GeoSuffolk members dug it in beside a well-used footpath in a central location (it does of course have a map showing the location of the main exposures).
You can see the panel on GeoSuffolk’s web site at http://geosuffolk.co.uk/ images/GeologySites/westletonpanelsmall.pdf or better still go to Westleton Common and take a look!
Fissures at Newbourne Great Pit
Caroline Markham - Geo Suffolk
The Red Crag exposure in the Great Pit at Newbourne Springs shows several near-vertical fissures (linear cracks/ hollows) which appear to be partially infilled with greyish-white calcite. Most of these linear features run into the face at 320°/325°, but with two trending almost due north. There is no evidence of displacement along any of the fissures. On February 25th this year we took the opportunity to investigate these structures in 3-dimensions and cleared an area of ground in front of the talus at the foot of the exposure. The Red Crag was only about 10cm
below the floor of the pit here and we exposed a 2m2 horizontal section. The fissures were represented by paler yellow sandy stripes in the darker orange/brown Red Crag with no clear structural or lithological distinctions. Most of them were running towards the face of the pit at an angle of 325°. The link between the horizontal and vertical manifestations of the features and the differing appearance of their infill is seen in photograph 1. Once we had exposed the whole of our 2m2 horizontal section (see photograph 2) a further yellow stripe was revealed
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which was not straight like the others. It zigzags, but trends between 390° and 20° for most of its length and may be linked to the extreme right-hand fissure in the pit face – one of those which tends due north.
This afternoon of investigation posed more questions than it answered. Yes, it is possible to look at the fissures in the Red Crag here in 3-dimensions and we uncovered two similar trends, one at about 320° and one almost due north, in both the pit face and floor. However, although some of the fissures show signs of anastomosing (meeting/joining in a seemingly random fashion) in the pit face, we uncovered no junctions or crosscutting on the pit floor on this occasion. The different appearance of the infill in the pit face and floor also needs to be investigated further. Much of this can be attributed to
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2
1
Image
Image
weathering of the pit face since it was refreshed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust in 2014, but what is important is that these linear features do not have the
Thank you to the SWT for giving us permission to clear a section in this publicly accessible pit.
Great crested newts: early season breeding
In mid-January this year (15 January, 2020), during a period of mild weather, we surveyed a garden pond in Wenhaston for great crested newts. The pond is relatively large (for a garden) measuring 5.5m x 3m, 0.6m deep. The survey was carried out after dark, by torch light. We counted 46 great crested newts (38 male, 8 female), including four courting pairs
(males displaying to females). There were also eggs present on vegetation. This early season sighting is not unusual at this pond. One of us, Mark Jones, has made early-season sightings of great crested newts here since 2009 (18 adults seen on 23 February), with observations since then as early as 24 January (2014) and eggs seen as early as 28 January (2016). This year’s survey
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John Baker (Amphibian Recorder) and Mark Jones
A great crested newt with a fully developed crest in midJanuary 2020 (out of water the crest has folded over).
has however yielded the earliest observations. Early breeding here may be partly due to Wenhaston’s proximity to the coast, protecting it from weather extremes. The sandy soil of the area may also create slightly warmer habitat than within the clay further to the west, where many of Suffolk’s great crested newt populations are found.
Seasonal residence of ponds by great crested newts can vary between sites. Typically great crested newts migrate to ponds to breed in the spring and return to land during the summer or early autumn (Beebee & Griffiths, 2000). Nevertheless, Malcolm Smith (1951) noted that in some ponds they remained in the water all year round and Verrell and Halliday (1985) studied a pond where some great crested newts migrated to water in the autumn, spending the winter there. What is notable about the newts in the Wenhaston garden pond was that not only were they present in relatively large numbers, but the males already had fully developed crests and breeding activity was underway, evidenced by males displaying to females and the presence of eggs on vegetation. Great crested newts normally breed later in
References
the year, with their first eggs appearing in March or, in mild winters, as early as February (Beebee & Griffiths, 2000).
Progressively milder winters have shifted the onset of breeding by all three native newt species to earlier in the year (Beebee, 1995). Mark Jones operates a wildlife pond business, and so carries out maintenance work in garden ponds throughout the year. When this business started in 1985 it was unusual to find newts in ponds during the winter months, whereas within the last ten years it has become a common occurrence. It seems likely that newt breeding behaviour in Suffolk may start earlier than it did in past decades.
Surveying great crested newt ponds by torchlight after dark during periods of mild weather in January or February may uncover early breeding newts elsewhere in Suffolk. It would be interesting to see whether early breeding also occurs in the more typical clayland ponds further inland on the East Anglian Plain. Certainly, the limited vegetation growth early in the year makes finding newts by torchlight relatively easy.
Beebee, T.J.C. (1995). Amphibian breeding and climate. Nature 374, 219 -220.
Beebee, T.J.C. and Griffiths, R.A. (2000). Amphibians and Reptiles. A Natural History of the British Herpetofauna. The New Naturalist, HarperCollins, London.
Smith, M. (1951). The British Amphibians and Reptiles. Collins, London.
Verrell, P.A. and Halliday, T.R. (1985). Autumnal migration and aquatic overwintering in the common frog, Rana temporaria (short note). British Journal of Herpetology 6(12), 433 - 434.
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You Took Your Time Getting Here
Two Moth Species Long Overdue!
Nigel Odin, Landguard Bird Observatory
Moth traps have been run nightly from March to November at Landguard Bird Observatory since 1991. A fantasy of mine has always been that one day a Fischer’s Estuarine Moth Gortyna borelii would hop across the estuary from Essex and find one of our traps. This species only occurs in the UK at the Walton-on-the Naze backwaters plus in a restricted area of North Kent. It is one of only a handful of moths given legal protection under Schedule 5 of the Wildlife & Countryside Act. Its rarity is down to the fact that its larval food plant is the rare Hog’s Fennel
Peucedanum officinale that is present in very few locations. In Suffolk a small amount is known only from Southwold Town Marshes and nowhere else (Sanford 2010). Landguard is in the square TM23 with the closest record of this moth also in TM23 so it has been recorded as close as 8 Km away. Finally opening the trap following an absolutely dreadful windy night on the morning of 11th October 2019 there it was. I am not one to get over excited but my first reaction was “I know what you are ”. Calm down dear! Finish the traps, make a cup of tea for those “vis
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Agonopterix putridella
Gortyna borelii
miging” the birds going over the observatory watch point and show the “vis-migers ” the beastie. Needless to say I was feeling a tad smug as I had always promised myself one, had no intention of going into Essex to twitch it and knew I just had to live long enough for one to eventually turn up. Boy ‘o boy what a pristine representative of the species it was. This exquisite female, that obviously had no intention of coming into Suffolk, had made the mistake of emerging on a filthy night and get the species recorded in the county for the first time ever.
Another extremely rare moth that had not been recorded previously in Suffolk that also lives on Hog ’s Fennel
Reference
is Agonopterix putridella. This species has very few Essex records but has also been noted in TM23 no more than 8 Km away. Following an absolutely filthy night of squalls, violent lightening, thunderstorms and torrential downpours on the morning of 26th July 2019 one was hiding in the bottom of one of the traps at Landguard Bird Observatory. It seems that Hog’s Fennel is not a good place to hang out when the weather turns naughty. The moral of these stories is that don ’t think you will give your moth traps a night off because the weather is evil but persevere as one never knows who may pay you visit that had no intention of coming your way.
Sanford, M. 2010 A Flora of Suffolk. D.K. & M.N. Sanford, Ipswich
Motus In Suffolk
Nigel Odin, Landguard Bird Observatory
Motus is Latin for movement/motion and is the name chosen for an “Automated Radio Telemetry ” network to track the movements and migration of small flying bats, birds and large insects fitted with tiny “nanotags ” that send out encoded radio signals several times a minute. The system is truly international, starting in North America, and being
taken up by various countries on an international scale largely driven by Birds Canada. During April 2019 receiving stations were erected at Landguard Bird Observatory, Cefas in Lowestoft & just outside the county boundary at Caister Lifeboat Station. Another receiver was put up in August at Dunwich. These stations were made possible by the generosity of
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Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands who are investigating the migration of Nathusius’s Pipistrelle across the North Sea. Towards the end of 2019 further receivers were erected at Spurn in Yorkshire, Dungeness in Kent with a further one in early 2020 at Sandwich Bay in Kent. Hopefully more will follow in the UK to add to the 875 receiver stations spread across 28 countries. Essential further reading on Motus is on http://motus.org/ with a list of projects and receiver stations demonstrating the collaborative approach to research across continents.
Spurn Bird Observatory has been instrumental in getting The University of Hull to play a significant part in developing the project in the UK with the university employing a Postdoctoral Research Assistant to coordinate re-
search & development. Early days but the receivers are already realising results. Early morning on 21st October it was noticed that the Landguard receiver had detected a tagged Robin flying over the site not long after midnight. Great excitement ensued when it was realised that this Robin had been detected by a receiver on the Dutch coast at 20:00 hrs the previous evening meaning that it had taken less than 4.5 hrs to cross the North Sea. This Robin had been originally tagged at the end of September at Helgoland, Germany and had also been detected by receivers as it came down the Dutch coast before crossing the North Sea. A German Dunlin & two more Robins have also been detected in the autumn of 2019 with one of the Robins being detected by two receivers as it moved along the Suffolk coast. When
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Robin tracking map
one considers that in 120 years of bird ringing only 31 German Robins have been detected in the UK and in one autumn, from just four receivers active, there were four radio “hits” on the towers. A wide range of projects are active across Europe so, no doubt, more results will follow.
The Cranbrook Bursary, administered by Suffolk Naturalists Society, have kindly provided £150 per year to Landguard Bird Observatory for the next three years which will be used as a contribution to internet connectivity costs for the Landguard tower. A list of contributors and funders of Motus is on their website. A receiver costs £4 –5 k with the Suffolk ones provided and
Nature ’ s Law
Rasik Bhadresa
We have a number of mixed seed and peanut feeders hanging from suitable branches in the front and back of the garden. Small birds, tits and sparrows mainly, have come to ‘depend’ on them. Occasionally, we also get a great spotted woodpecker. Seeds and bits of peanuts inevitably dropping onto the grass also attract robins, hedge sparrows, blackbirds, collared doves, wood pigeons and even pheasants! However, not long ago when we were casually watching from our front window, a pigeon pecking away under
run by Wageningen Marine Research. Norfolk Bat Group have provided logistical support for the towers with both the Essex & Suffolk Bat groups becoming involved with Nathusius ’s Bat research by visiting Landguard in late October and catching three Nathusius’s Bats. The Bird Observatories Council & BTO are keen to expand the receiver network and with the input of Hull University then this wildlife tracking system looks set to grow. I am personally pleased that Suffolk Naturalist’s Society are getting involved in this project that will not only improve our knowledge of bird and bat migration in Suffolk but will help fellow researchers internationally.
the feeders (happy in its endeavour), there was immense drama! All of a sudden, a large and fast bird with a longish tail swooped down from over the hedge on our right and landed on the ‘happy’ pigeon, locking its claws onto its back. Then, this bird with its hooked beak, keen yellow eyes and grey-brown barred chest, decisively, with its sharp beak, started to stab at the pigeon ’s neck in rapid succession. The pigeon struggled but was quite unable to move, pinned as it was to the ground, and in no more than a
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minute, it suddenly went limp and collapsed, lifeless. At this point, the female sparrowhawk, adeptly and speedily, started to pluck at its feathers. We were dumbstruck. I got the camera out and started to snap, safe behind the glass. After about five minutes, having created a large pool of feathers (see photo 2), it dragged the now ‘red and dead’ pigeon into the undergrowth of the hedge behind. The new position provided it with a vantage point and much needed cover to start tearing the pigeon apart and relishing it, a bit at a time (see photo 1). We watched in amazement. Nature was at work right in front of our eyes.
A good ten minutes went by while the sparrowhawk tucked into its well-deserved kill.
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Photo 1
There was some movement on the lane behind the hedge and as a bicycle went by, the sparrowhawk picked up the carcass (she wasn ’t going to leave
behind her well-earned prize), and swiftly flew over the hedge. ‘Bonne chance et au revoir’, we called out.
Book Review - Rebirding by Benedict Macdonald
Richard Stewart
This comes hard on the heels of ‘Wilding’ which won the 2018 Richard Jefferies award. This book though covers a much wider spectrum rather than a single estate, with many other parts of the world included, especially European countries. Almost all of these reflect a positive and radical land management programme to foster biodiversity, something the author argues is currently lacking in much of Britain. The actual text runs to 226 pages without the additional notes and though the text is well written there are inevitably many facts and statistics. However the reading is assisted by the fourteen chapters being divided into shorter sections, some less than a page in length.
Initially there is a history of how we have progressively diminished our wildlife, the author arguing that the dense woodland supposedly once covering our land would in reality have been managed into vast areas of scrub by large animals ‘whose numbers, size and majesty we have entirely forgotten today’. This review progresses
through the enclosure acts through the eyes of the poet John Clare, the establishment and subsequent removal of many hedgerows , the way in which the newly established Forestry Commission helped to destroy existing ancient woodlands and the new fertilisers and chemicals replacing a crop rotation that had been in synchronisation with farmland birds for thousands of years. Figures are given for bird losses, often the result of diminished insect food, and there is also more positive coverage of the three most important invertebrate tree hosts, namely oak, willow and birch. This is a much broader study than the title suggests with many references to ‘rewilding’ abroad, linked to thirty one colour plates, mainly of landscapes. One is different, comparing the same Hampshire house in 1914 and then with a second photo taken in 2017, with the surrounds of the house ‘now cleansed as a result of ecological tidiness disorder ’.
The author stresses that tiny pockets of protected land are not a long term
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conservation answer, there being a need for a ‘critical mass’ of land to allow flexible movements, especially if disasters occur. He cites the powerful RSPB as being one of those organisations needing to spend at least fifty per cent of its income on land purchases though there is praise for such imaginative large scale developments as Wallasea Island in Essex, creating new habitats with the spoil excavated by Crossrail. Citing the United Kingdom as being 189th in a list of the world’s countries for preserving ‘biodiversity intactness ’ he then looks closely and critically at Welsh sheep farming, the current management of our National Parks and grouse moors in Scotland, each capable of being radically ‘rewilded’ which would produce more jobs, increased local employment and more spending by
tourists attracted to see such species as boar, beavers, cattle, elk and horses. The ‘big six’ he criticises at present are grouse, deer, sheep, forestry, dairy and arable farms. He rather pessimistically states that chaos, dereliction and decay are ‘the last words you ’ll hear in British conservation’ and points out areas, already successfully increasing their species counts, that could be even more wildlife welcoming given the necessary expansion of land, e.g. the Somerset Levels.
I have only covered a few of the topics in this comprehensive landmark book but for those wanting a more comprehensive summary there are five pages devoted to it in the Winter 2019 edition of the RSPB ’s ‘Nature’s Home ’ magazine.
Toad migration and other observations
Trevor Goodfellow
The weather in the Spring of 2020 was unusual and despite mild days, night temperatures failed to reach double figures till well into May.
This year I took on the post of ToadWatch Patrol Manager from the Barbara Norris in the village and enlisted some volunteers by posting a request on the ‘Next-door’ website for the Thurston area. We then waited for
the weather to support the usual mass migration, but it never came.
I suspect that the 2020 spring toad migration was affected by the dry cold nights as the usual 400 – 500 toad count was reduced to a meagre 55 on 10th March. Had the perpetual dry nights been wet, I am sure the count would have increased.
The spawning was slightly delayed by
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13 April.
I hope that the rest of the toads had not perished, but instead, they will wait till next spring to breed.
I did not see any frog spawn this year compared to the 12 – 20 clumps in the pond margins of other years.
Despite only 55 toads counted, thousands of toadlets were seen migrating from the pond on June the 6th and after nearly two weeks, they had dispersed in all directions up to 200m from the water’s edge, some crossing the road where they will be returning in a couple of years no doubt, and others appearing elsewhere around the property. At the road crossing I noticed most were crossing in the direction away from the pond although a few seemed to be hopping in the opposite direction, perhaps migrating from other ponds nearby.
Corvids, Moorhen, Heron, and rats certainly predated many toads and toadlets.
The pond is about an acre and has well vegetated margins. Otter visit to steal fish in the winter, Grass snakes, Red Fox, and Badger are possibly guilty of the raided moorhen nests and badgers have eaten all the Hedgehogs and dug up at least 5 bees’ nests. On a positive note, Hairy Dragonfly were recorded here for the first time, making a total of 19 species of Odonata. Great Crested newts have had little success in recent years through dry weather but they have done well this year although the ditch they breed in still has water in June for a change, at the
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Toadlet
Toad King
White Toad Tadpoles
time of writing (19/6/20) the efts still have their gills. They are vulnerable to predation and warming up as the water level drops, which is usually very quickly.
I keep annual records of toad numbers, spawning dates, and other natural events (see below) to compare with previous years although I have not yet found any significant trends.
Trevor Goodfellow s Nature Signs & Phenology Chart
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annual rainfall 620mm 429mm 632mm 568mm 487mm 550mm 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 first newt 18/2/09 17/3/10 14/6/11 24/2/12 5/3/13 18/2/14 25/2/15 4/1/16 14/2/17 5/3/18 22/2/19 22/1/20 last 3/11/09 14/11/10 21/12/11 4/10/12 10/10/13 1/12/14 15/12/15 11/12/16 27/11/17 26/12/18 15/11/19 first frog 14/3/09 24/3/10 14/2/11 3/3/12 9/4/13 11/3/14 5/4/15 29/3/16 21/2/17 4/4/18 27/2/19 10/3/20 last x x 24/11/11 25/10/12 13/10/13 20/11/14 20/11/15 22/10/16 22/12/17 30/9/18 1/10/19 first toad 23/2/09 18/3/10 10/2/11 10/3/12 6/3/13 18/2/14 8/3/15 24/1/16 20/2/17 5/3/18 14/3/19 10/3/20 spawn 31/3/09 23/3/10 22/3/11 16/3/12 9/4/13 18/3/14 5/4/15 29/3/16 18/3/17 5/4/18 23/3/19 12/3/20 toad count 135 500 260 200 410 660 250 250 500 260 143 55 fish spawning 9/5/09 16/5/10 1/5/11 24/5/12 5/6/13 16/5/14 23/5/15 8/5/16 10/5/17 5/5/18 13/5/19 24/4/20 2nd x x 15/6/14 x x 1/6/14 26/6/15 x 23/5/17 26/5/18 2/6/19 19/5/20 first swallow 9/3/09 17/4/10 27/3/11 14/4/12 13/4/13 9/4/14 8/4/15 9/4/16 6/4/17 8/4/18 1/4/19 6/4/20 last x 10/9/10 x 4/10/12 22/9/13 16/9/14 25/9/15 14/9/16 22/9/17 5/10/18 20/9/19 first martin x 4/6/10 x x 5/6/13 25/6/14 22/4/15 10/4/16 3/5/17 25/5/18 8/5/19 14/5/20 last x 4/9/10 x x 18/9/13 23/9/14 19/9/15 14/9/16 17/9/17 26/9/18 20/9/19 bee 9/2/09 23/3/10 22/2/11 8/3/12 17/2/13 16/2/14 10/3/15 20/1/16 19/2/17 4/3/18 8/2/19 7/2/20 crocus x 8/3/10 7/2/11 18/2/12 2/3/13 16/2/14 19/2/15 15/2/16 23/2/17 14/2/18 7/2/19 5/2/20 daffodil x x 10/3/11 8/3/12 6/4/13 4/3/14 13/3/15 5/2/16 2/3/17 19/3/18 19/2/19 22/2/20 may x 18/5/10 20/4/11 11/5/12 1/6/13 23/4/14 10/5/15 8/5/16 28/4/17 10/5/18 3/5/19 25/4/20 catkins x x 10/2/11 10/1/12 16/2/13 20/1/14 12/2/15 20/1/16 14/2/17 26/2/18 25/1/19 20/2/20 pussy willow x 8/3/10 25/2/11 1/3/12 22/2/13 9/2/14 24/2/15 12/2/16 14/2/17 7/2/18 18/2/19 23/2/20 cuckoo x 4/5/10 21/4/11 27/4/12 10/4/13 17/4/14 24/04/15 18/4/16 27/4/17 22/4/18 16/4/19 29/4/20
A Victorian Suffolk amateur naturalist and polymath: The Reverend Professor Edward Byles Cowell (1826 - 1903)
Patrick Armstrong
A note in the White Admiral (No. 103, Summer/Autumn 2019, p. 25) on the Ipswich Museum Herbarium Scanner attracted my attention. The piece listed some of the collections in the Ipswich Museum that awaited scanning for placement on the Herbaria at Home website. The second largest collection listed was that of the Reverend Edward Cowell, containing 1511 sheets. This number was nearly three times that listed for the Reverend John Henslow (17961861), Rector of Hitcham, friend and mentor of Charles Darwin, and Professor of Botany at Cambridge, and only exceeded by that other noted
Suffolk clerical Botanist, the Reverend William Marden Hind (1815 – 1894). (Of course, many of the specimens collected by the latter two are held elsewhere.)
Edward Cowell was East Suffolk born and bred, attending Ipswich Grammar School. He came from a liberal-minded merchant and maltster family. While still at school he encountered a ‘Persian Grammar’ in the local public library, and with the assistance of a retired Indian Army officer, immersed himself in Asian languages. At the age of fourteen he was teaching himself Sanskrit, and publishing translations of Persian verses in the Asiatic Journal. On the death of his father, at only sixteen, Edward left schools and began to be trained for the management of the family business. Over the next eight years, as the Dictionary of National Biography put it: ‘While engaged in commerce, he read in his spare hours with extraordinary zeal and variety’ particularly in Spanish and Oriental literature. He married Elizabeth, the daughter of the Reverend John Charlesworth, Rector of Flowden, near Ipswich in 1845.
In 1850, another brother being of an age to take over the Ipswich business,
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Portrait of Edward Byles Cowell, by Charles Edmund Brock, 1895. Original in the possession of Christ s College, Cambridge.
Edward Cowell matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, going with his wife into lodgings, studying literae Humaniores (Classics) and mathematics, as well as establishing himself as a Sanskrit scholar. He published a translation of the Sanskrit writer Kalidiasa ’s Vikramorvasi while a student. Over the next two years he catalogued Persian and other Middle Eastern manuscripts in the Bodlean Library, publishing extensively in Persian literature.
In June 1856, he accepted the position of Professor of History at Presidency College in Calcutta, adding to his responsibilities by becoming principal of the Sanskrit College two years later. He became fluent in several Indian languages, continuing his research into Persian language and literature.
In 1864 a deterioration in health demanded that he take a period of furlough (home leave in England); he fully intended returning to India, but he never did. In 1867, his knowledge of eastern languages enormously enriched by his residence in India, he accepted the newly instituted Professorship of Sanskrit at Cambridge, whereat he remained until his death, continuing to research, teach and publish in a variety of Middle Eastern, Indian (and other) languages, achieving a large number of high academic awards.
He expressed an interest in botany while in India, but not altogether
unsurprisingly, felt he did not have time to develop it. While in Cambridge he became a close friend of Charles Cardale Babington (1808-1895) Professor of Botany, Cambridge contemporary of Charles Darwin, as well as author of Manual of British Botany (1843), and the two went on many botanical walks in the Eastern counties, especially Cowell’s native Suffolk, and neighbouring Cambridgeshire, of which county Cowell made ‘a complete plant collection’. ‘ Holidays were made invigorating and refreshing in the ardent search for rare plants’, his brother noted.
Cowell’s interest in botany led to an acquaintance with soils and thence to geology. Letters that he wrote suggest a clear understanding of the layered nature of the rocks underlying East Anglia, and their fossils, and seem to imply an acceptance of the notion of the evolutionary succession of life.
I have been amusing myself lately in my spare time with reading books about Geology, so that I have been quite busy in a way, Fossil Botany seems to be very interesting. They seem to trace a gradual series from age to age, - first ferns, and gigantic Lycopodiums and Equisetums, and Conifers, which in fact constitute our Coal which seems to have arisen from huge swamps of tropical rank forest vegetation, in the huge deltas of Mississippi-like rivers, which were gradually submerged under
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successive deposits of clay or sand from rivers, or chalk and lime from the sea with its shells. The Conifers (gymnosperms) last on when the gigantic ferns, &c., of the Coal period cease and these lead on to the later Dicotyledons with seed vessels (angiosperms) which do not come till the Chalk period. (Letter to his sister, 21 Aug 1881, George Cowell, Life and Letters of Edward Byles Cowell, 1904, p 274.)
Listening Walks
Meg Amsden
Extracts from the diary I wrote for two of the eight “Listening Walks ” that I led for Snape Maltings Proms season in August 2019.
The walks were about 90 mins long. After explaining that we were going to walk silently, stopping occasionally to share experiences, we set off from the Quay, crossing Snape Bridge, then headed east along the river wall to the wood. In the afternoons we went anticlockwise, turning right through the wood along the marshy meadow, crossing the Warren, and then back through the wood to the river path. In the evenings we turned left and followed the same route clockwise, in the opposite direction, walking back towards the sunset.
He was also a not inconsequential poet, his verse often inspired by the wildflowers of the East Anglian countryside. And he shared with Babington an interest in archaeology and architecture. Many parson-naturalists of the Victorian era were polymaths, but few were as academically distinguished, and displayed such an extraordinarily wide range of leaning as Edward Byles Cowell.
Saturday 24th 4pm
Fourteen walkers turn up including a family with a girl 7 or 8 years old. It is very warm with a light wind from the east barely moving the reeds. The tide is on its way up. Some mud is still visible south of the river where we see a small flock of godwits and the occasional curlew. A heron flies across the grazing marsh. Listening sharpens the senses, they say. They notice the abrupt change of sound as we leave the reedbed and enter the wood. The oak wood sounds completely different. Two small trees at the entrance are like portals. The ground is soft and boomy after the crunch of the river path. Sound is muffled like entering a room. In the wood, birdsongchaffinch, long-tailed tits, wood pigeon
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and collared dove. Beside the path along the marsh meadow are many marsh-mallow plants and I tell them how sweets were originally made from the sap and coloured pink like the flowers, with cochineal. The ling on the Warren is still in full bloom, bell heather going over, and many bees and hoverflies etc... feeding. The French mother of the child asks “What is Warren?”. The walkers notice that the bare patch of heath is very warmcooler in the wood, where we find many small bees crawling over the path. Have they just hatched, and what are they doing? (Possibly identified later as Dasypoda altercatorcoastal in Britain, nesting in sandy soil.) They hum quietly. ...A robin sings its silvery song in the garden of the cottage north of the bridge.
Saturday 24th 7pm.
An exquisite evening at full tide. Mick Hart is taking the last boat down the river to Aldeburgh. Three women come to walk. Cows munch noisily on the edge of the dyke. Many twittering swallows fly high up above the reedbed. The wind has completely dropped and there are flying ants everywhere, and in our hair. Two herons sit on posts above the mud bank at the point, possibly a parent and juvenile. Many other birds hang about waiting for the tide to turn. It’s quieter in the wood and one walker says it feels warmer. It was cooler in
the afternoon due to the breeze. They say they are aware of their other senses, temperature and smell. The bees in the wood have vanished but there are still bumblebees on the ling. The sunset light is gorgeous. We stop often, not talking but gazing and listening - drinking it in. The sound of the swallows above us gets louder and louder. There are hundreds of them high up in the sky above the grazing marshes. As we come out of the wood the sound intensifies as groups of swallows pour down into a patch of reeds. It’s like a starling murmuration without the weird masses up in the sky. More and more swallows dive down till they are all in bed. No more sky twittering, but much chatting in the reeds. It’s really loud! The sun has set behind grey and red-tinged clouds. Mist rises on the meadows and the cows slip in and out of sight, appearing and disappearing. Greylag geese fly in in groups and we hear their feet hitting the water. But now there ’s also a lot of noise from some people down stream at Iken waterskiing. Can there be enough light to see? They don’t have lights and the sound is metallic and grating. The robin still sings by the bridge. The walking listeners have enjoyed the walk, noting how their senses have been sharpened. We are all aware of what a remarkable evening it has been.
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Sunday 25th August 7pm.
...The swallows are noisy while we are in the wood but we are a few minutes later and the sunset is fractionally earlier than yesterday. Geese fly noisily in as we come round the wood from the marsh, but the swallows have already dived down into the reeds. A walker says this must be the origin of
Links to Recordings made during the listening walks:
the myth that swallows spent the winter burrowed in the mud. (The first swallows I saw this year were at Hen Reedbed.) There’s a huge noise of swallows chattering, and a strange gurgling croak - possibly a heron, though we don ’t see one, so we stand and listen for several minutes...
• Sat 24th August - Swallows massing and diving: https://vimeo.com/371140676
• Sun 25th - Swallows chatting loudly in the reedbed: https://vimeo.com/371151908
• Sat 24th - Geese flying in, honking & smacking their feet on the water: https://vimeo.com/371138366
The Fifth anniversary of Felixstowe ’ s Community Nature Reserve
Dr Adrian Cooper
Earlier this year (11th May), Felixstowe’s Community Nature Reserve celebrated its fifth anniversary. This article picks out some of the big lessons which we’ve learned, so they might help and encourage other communitybased conservation groups.
Felixstowe ’s Community Nature Reserve began life in May 2015 when it became clear to a small group of friends in our town that mainstream national and local politicians were not taking the decline in British wildlife as seriously as they should. In Felixstowe, we decided that “something should be done ”. But what, exactly? Lots of good
ideas were discussed as our circle of interested local people grew. The first lesson I can offer you, from those early months, is that most everyday people would love to have the opportunity to take part in conservation work. However, it has to be at their pace, and on their terms. The second lesson is that when developing a ‘community ’ project, it is a very good idea to spend as much time as possible just listening and talking with as many people as possible about what they want to see happening. Listen first. Take action later.
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By October 2015, we realised that with no money, it was impossible to have any kind of urban nature reserve like the city of Bristol pioneered in 1985. So we decided that instead of having a single nature reserve, we would build a networked nature reserve, composed of small pieces of local people’s back gardens, allotments and window boxes. So that became the founding concept of what was to become Felixstowe’s Community Nature Reserve. Also in October 2015, we started our Facebook page, and began to publish all sorts of ideas which people could adapt for the wildlife-friendly sections of their ‘green areas ’. We asked people to try and devote at least 3 square yards of their garden, but to fill that area with any kind of wildlifefriendly feature which they wished. So that included many kinds of pollinatorfriendly plants as well as hedgehog homes, insect lodges, wildlife ponds, bird feeders etc...
By the end of 2015, we extended our publicity through home-made posters which we posted on just about every community board in town. We had members interviewed on Felixstowe Radio and TV. So, another lesson I can offer to other community-based conservation groups is that every kind of media should be used to share your message. Never place too much emphasis on social media because many people, particularly the elderly, do not use it.
Another big lesson – and a major key to our success – is that our growing numbers have mostly been developed through neighbours encouraging and helping each other. That is, through conversations over the garden fence, or round the kitchen table, people tell their family, friends, and neighbours about the work we are doing, and why we are doing it. The message was therefore shared right across the Felixstowe area: that participation is open to just about anyone; and there are no strict requirements requiring conformity to any master plan. Just a celebration of everything that a richly diverse, community nature reserve can be.
Today, we have over 1600 active members. Their average allocation is 3.65 square yards. That means that if you added together all the new green spaces which have been created since the start of our work, we have an area equivalent in size to a full-sized football pitch – and we’re growing just about every month of the year!
We have always believed that a true ‘community ’ nature reserve should reflect the full richness of the Felixstowe community. So, it was a total joy when several local artists shared paintings which had been inspired by our work. Naturally, we were delighted to put that work onto our Facebook page.
Then photographers began to share their responses to our work. Again,
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their creativity was also shared on Facebook. Local musicians have also composed and recorded original music to accompany our films.
By the early months of 2017, our Facebook content began to attract recognition from people in six continents. So, it was always a joy to share examples of Felixstowe music, painting and photography with our growing international audience. Many of those people were very encouraging in their feedback concerning our work in general, and our art in particular. We also wanted to encourage local young people to respond to our work in their way.
We therefore appointed Luke Smout as our Youth Representative. His remit was to talk to other local young people and engage their active participation in our work in any way they liked. One of the most enjoyable to those youth-led projects was when a group of Digital Media Production students from the University of Suffolk made us a brilliant documentary about our aims. You can see the results of that work for yourself if you look on YouTube, and search for Nature and Community: Felixstowe ’s Community Nature Reserve.
By the early months of 2018, we were growing in an encouraging way. We had lots of anecdotal feedback from members telling us how they were seeing a growth in biodiversity in their
gardens. But we needed to be able to express that growth in numbers, maps and diagrams. Consequently, in April 2018, we started the Felixstowe Citizen Science Group. Their aim was simply to collect and analyse data about the work of the Community Nature Reserve. Right from the start, we encouraged the Citizen Science Group to develop their own questions and projects. And they’ve never disappointed!
In their first project, they used QGIS software to create a map featuring sightings of hedgehogs in the Felixstowe area as far north as Kirton. Other projects have included the use of R software to produce raster block heat maps of areas in local gardens which attract the most bird sightings across single or multiple days. In other words, a lot of information is crunched down into a single heat map – making it very clear where individual gardeners are particularly successful at attracting local birds. To see more examples of this citizen science, please visit the Facebook page of the Felixstowe Citizen Science Group. It has always been a great pleasure to receive reports when a new community nature reserve is established elsewhere, but which is modelled on the pioneering work in Felixstowe. In April for example, we learned that Pontos + Vida in Portugal has been inspired by our work and is
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now encouraging its members to use their terraces and balcony spaces to grow wildlife-friendly plants in pots. In the previous month, we were excited to learn that we inspired the Brightlingsea Nature Network.
Woodbridge has recently started its own community nature reserve. The Ipswich Community Nature Reserve has been established too. I have also had discussions with representatives from other Suffolk towns.
Despite the presence of COVID-19 in all our lives, the growth of Felixstowe’s Community Nature Reserve has been largely unaffected. Our Citizen Science Group completed an analysis on 22 April showing that 72% of interviewees
had not stopped their active participation in our work since the pandemic began. It also showed that 91% continued to encourage their neighbours “over the garden fence ”, while 23% kept their support going by engaging in our plant swap scheme with their neighbours. 8% also took part in our pot swap scheme. When asked why they continued to take part in our work, 65% said they liked being a part of the legacy of good conservation practice which we are establishing in Felixstowe.
Our work therefore continues.
Hopefully, these words will encourage others to establish something similar in their community! On the ‘ Verge ’ Paul Heather
Prior to the impact of the Coronavirus, I was fortunate enough to attend the Suffolk Naturalists’ Society Conference at Wherstead Park at the end of February. Its strap line was ‘On the Verge of Success ’, featuring guest speakers from Plantlife, Buglife, Suffolk County Council, Norfolk County Council, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, Butterfly Conservation and Highways England.
It is estimated that 97% of our meadows have been destroyed since the 1930’s thus making proper manage-
ment of our road verges a vital and important refuge for pollinators and other wildlife. Road verges are however not the only areas that can be managed to provide a safe habitat for flora and fauna, other areas can include sections of our gardens and ‘communal’ areas within our Villages.
One of the most informative and practical presentations was given by Kate Petty from Plantlife and from her I was able to glean the information contained in this article.
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An important aspect of ‘good’ management is the impact of too frequent cutting/mowing and at the wrong time, or indeed allowing land to develop scrub. Cuttings that are left to lie create a barrier that restricts growth and increases soil nutrient levels, this further encourages rapid growth of grasses and other nutrient loving plants. Grasses often out compete wildflowers and typically have extensive root systems.
Low soil fertility (strange though it may sound) is key to enhancing wildlife value whilst high soil fertility with high levels of nitrates and phosphates will support grasses, nettles and cow parsley. It will always be a delicate balancing act!
Timing is key. Wildflowers need help to grow, flower and set seed. Cutting too early and too often quickly eliminates many species, reduces diversity and cutting after flowers have set seed in late summer allows an excellent display of wild flowers that are a rich source of pollen and nectar for pollinators. It can be approximately 68 weeks from flowering to setting seed.
A two-cut cycle can be undertaken Feb/March (late Winter) and Sep/Oct (Autumn) and it is important that cuttings are removed. This timescale allows plants to flower and set seed. If possible, areas of bare soil should be created to allow good contact
between seed and soil and provide habitat for invertebrates (more about this later).
An interesting plant that can be introduced is Yellow rattle ( Rhinanthus minor). This is a semi parasitic plant that if introduced can reduce grass growth by 60-80% and this in turn reduces the frequency of cuts, it also creates space for other wildflowers to establish. There is a set routine to follow for Yellow Rattle to be introduced but for the purposes of this article I will not elaborate. Needless to say, once it has become established, further wildflower seeds may be introduced and preferably from a local source.
Bare ground is important for a wide range of wildlife. Remove the topsoil, clearing out weed seed bank and roots/Rhizomes of competitive grasses thereby desiccating and depleting the existing rank vegetation will create a good basis for seeding. These bare areas can be sown with a meadow mix of suitable grasses/wildflowers. In areas with tussock grasses, create larger areas of scrapes to prevent the surrounding vegetation from shading the developing seedlings.
When seeding it is best to avoid bought seed mixes, these can be costly and may not be suitable and not in keeping with the local wildflower varieties. If seed mixes are purchased, make sure they contain only British
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species. Natural seeding can involve locals working together to collect seeds from nearby nature reserves and farms. Always seek advice (local authority ecologist and/or Local Biological Record Office or indeed Plantlife’s website) and certainly, gain permission if collecting from privately owned land. The internet is always a
great place to investigate and gain knowledge of how to improve grassland areas for the benefit of pollinators and us humans as without the pollinators are food chain would be somewhat broken.
Enjoy creating your own wildflower patch, it may take time, but the benefits will be most rewarding.
Mrs Frances Rivis left Rosehill house and 8 acres of Woodland to the Suffolk Naturalists ’ Society (SNS) when she died in January 1958. The house was sold in 1986 and the woodland in Nov 2014. This has set SNS up very well financially and we are most grateful.
Frances Rivis was a botanist and plants woman and there is a rather beautiful alpine clematis named after her – still available if you search on-line. The current owner of Rosehill house has passed on a copy of a portrait of her by John Gray who lived at Benhall near Saxmundham and painted it in about 1925. It would be most interesting to track this down.
I contacted the East Anglian Traditional Artists Centre, Wickham Market and they confirmed that John
Gray was a member of the Ipswich Art Club from 1926-1936 but have found no record of this painting.
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Portrait of Frances Rivis
Joan Hardingham
The Bardfield Oxlip by Dr Doug Joyce was recently published by Great Bardfield Historical Society.
This well-researched and readable booklet (A5, 48pp) is available for £5 from GBHS, c/o The Gables, Vine St, Great Bardfield, Braintree, Essex CM7 4SR. Contact Jenny Rooney jennyrooney18@gmail.com for any further information.
Contributions to White Admiral
Deadline for copy for the Summer issue is: 1st August
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