DERC Newsletter

No. 66 Autumn / Winter 2011

In this issue:

• Living Record
• A mystery in our midst
• The Ivy Bee (Colletes hederae)

Living Record

This year DERC has embarked on a project to encourage online recording for Dorset wildlife records. With financial support from the Patsy Wood Trust we have enlisted Adrian Bicker to extend his Dorset dragonfly recording system to other groups. It now covers mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, vascular plants and several invertebrate groups. The system is set up on the DERC website (look for Living Record in the top bar) and people can join and begin to build up their own set of records.

Adrian first showed us Living Record last year and we were so impressed we wanted to see it used more widely. There are several features that I think recorders will particularly enjoy. Using background maps or aerial photos to plot locations avoids the sometimes tedious task of assigning grid references to records. Adrian has created drop-down species lists and species search lists to speed up data entry and reduce the number of errors. Individual recorders can download their records to an Excel compatible file. Recording groups can see a distribution map showing, for example, all of the dragonfly records since January 2010. They can also see distribution maps for individual species. We hope this will help recording groups target new areas.

All DERC’s records are checked, usually Dorset County Recorders (DCRs). The vast majority are accepted, but DCRs can eliminate or query spurious and unlikely records. We hope Living Record will make this easier as DCRs will be able to check records as they are added during the season. Twice a year we will ask the DCRs to download all verified records for us to import onto the main database. You will still be able to see your own records, but if you need to change a record after it has been locked you will need to contact DERC or the county recorder directly.

If you have already registered with Living Record you will realise that it is not limited to Dorset. In some counties the DCRs are already familiar with Living Record and will be downloading your data in due course. If your records are not being checked, you can download them to Excel file and submit them to the Local Records Centre or recording group for that area.

t seems likely that Living Record will gradually be taken up more widely and become one of the standard recording systems. When I last asked Adrian for an update there were 7000 dragonfly records entered across the country and already 35 active recorders in Dorset.

We hope that many of you will start using Living Record this year, perhaps when you transfer records from your field notebooks. It is very different from using our standard Excel spreadsheets – in Living Record you use Google maps to plot your location and then add your records. But I think it is also a more interesting way to add and review your data.

You will need to be able to access the internet to be able to use Living Record, and I know that is not possible for everyone. If you are not ready for online recording you are welcome to submit your records as usual, either to a recording group or to DERC. Any records received by the end of January 2012 will be processed for next year’s species updates to recording groups, Dorset Wildlife Trust and local authorities.

And finally, if you have problems or can’t get started please contact the DERC office and we will be happy to help.

Carolyn Steele (Record Centre Manager)

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A mystery in our midst

Adult moth Stathmopoda sp Photo: © Phil Sterling

Larval tube Calicotis sp Photo: © Phil Sterling

At the end of April I was sitting having lunch with my brother at Abbotsbury Sub-tropical Gardens, and I became aware that every now and then, a tiny pale moth would fly over the tables and disappear on the breeze. After seeing a few fly past I couldn't resist a swipe at the next, and when this one landed in front of me, I noticed how its hind legs were held out from the body and wings. This is a characteristic of just one family of micromoths the world over, the Stathmopodidae. As it was April, and the only British species to hold its legs in the same way is on the wing in July, we were clearly looking at a species new to our shores. Within an hour we had seen a dozen or more flying in the cafe area, and later that afternoon, with the permission of the Head Gardener organised through Mark Parsons at Butterfly Conservation, we were in the gardens inspecting the vegetation. We didn't have to go far. There were countless thousands of them, fluttering gently amongst the plants, mainly it seemed around low growing ferns. Whatever this species was, it was well established. Since then we have found that the larvae feed on the sporangia of ferns, mainly Soft Shield-fern, Polystichum setifera, but also other Polystichum and a few Dryopteris species. The larvae are also similarly abundant and on some fronds have stripped this year's spore production completely. Each larva makes a number of delicate silk tubes covered in chewed sporangia in which it lives as it grows.

As to which species this moth is, we still have no answer. It is very likely to have been imported to the Gardens at some point in the past, but as no ferns have been directly imported there for over a decade (other than Tree Ferns, Dicksonia species, which are fumigated and wrapped before being exported from Australia), this cannot have happened recently. My entomological contact in the New Zealand Landcare Research Institute, Dr Robert Hoare, who knows the fauna of ferns in Australasia very well, says that the moth belongs to the genus Calicotis in the Stathmopodidae, but has no idea which species it is. He thinks its origin is likely to be from his part of the world or Japan, where this genus of moths seems to occur, but these moths are poorly researched. There is just a possibility that this species is undescribed!

This is not the first occurrence of the moth in Britain, though. In 2005 a few examples of what appears to be the same species were found in a formal garden in Camarthenshire, Wales, but these were never identified. The owners of the garden there were apparently not as helpful as at Abbotsbury, and no-one has managed to follow up whether they are still there.

If you are a fan of ferns and visit formal gardens regularly in the spring (mid April to mid May), please keep your eyes open for this tiny straw-coloured moth, and let DERC or me know if you see any. It seems likely it will be present in many more gardens with fern collections than one in Dorset and one in Camarthenshire. We will let you know what the species is in due course.

Phil Sterling

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The Ivy Bee (Colletes hederae)

Ivy bee Colletes hederae Photo: © Nico Vereecken

Ivy bee Colletes hederae Photo: © Nico Vereecken

Between September and November here is another species to look out for. The first British record for the Ivy Bee was from the Dorset coast at Worth Matravers in 2001. Since then it has been found more widely. It is very distinctive and BWARS (The Bees Wasps & Ants Recording Society) are keen to have more records. BWARS would welcome new records via DERC or through Living Record (choose Survey: Ivy Bees under Options). If you would like to know more about this lovely animal, you can logon to the BWARS website (www.bwars.com) and download the information sheet.

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