04 July 2008, Friday
Leafcutter bees
I was pleased today to see the large and attractive leafcutter bee Megachile willughbiella visiting the flowers of Broom at White Rock. Broom is a member of the pea family and the flowers are 'tripped' by a visiting pollinator of sufficient size. I noticed a female willughbiella slowly flying from flower to flower and triggering the mechanism which could actually be seen to fire out a long narrow spurt of yellow pollen, easily visible to the naked eye. The leafcutter bee has pollen - collecting hairs on the underside of the abdomen (or gaster)- not on the legs which the honeybee does.
The Broom plants around Summerfields and White Rock gardens are vital for this population of bees which are nesting somewhere nearby.
Filed Under: Plants, Insects & Spiders
Posted by: Andrew Grace @ 16:47
04 July 2008, Friday
Solitary Wasps at White Rock Gardens
Last year while carrying out a survey of the solitary wasps nesting in the crumbling sandstone walls at White Rock Gardens I recorded a species previously unrecorded from Hastings, Nysson trimaculatus. Last week I recorded another species previously unrecorded from Hastings from the same area, Trypoxylon medium.
Trypoxylon wasps are small slender black wasps that usually nest in holes in fence posts, dead wood or the end of broken bramble stems. This particular wasp was nesting in an existing crevice in the soil above one of the walls and was returrning to the nest with an immature Lepthyphantes sp. spider. Small immature spiders are the main prey of these small solitary wasps.
The crumbling sandstone walls are very good for solitary wasps and bees and many species can be watched nesting in the walls and the bare ground above the walls. Some of these species are scarce with restricted distributions in Britain including the Nysson trimaculatus which is a nationally scarce cleptoparasite of Gorytes quadrifasciatus another solitary wasp that was also recorded as new to Hastings last year.
Other digger wasps on the wing at the moment in White Rock Gardens are Astata boops, Crossocerus quadrimaculatus, Lindenius albilabris, Pemphredon lethifer, Diodontus minutus, Cerceris arenaria and Cerceris rybyensis.
Astata boops with shield bug nymph prey at White Rock.
Filed Under: Insects & Spiders
Posted by: Andy Phillips @ 22:26
02 July 2008, Wednesday
Aculeates (Bees, Wasps & Ants) of Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve
The sandstone & clay cliffs, flowery undercliff, cliff-top heathland, semi-natural grassland and scrubby woodland edge of Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve are outstanding for Hymenoptera Aculeata, a group of insects that includes the bees, ants and wasps. The sandy ground and legume rich grasslands of the nature reserve produce an abundance of nesting habitat and a rich pollen and nectar resource for these insects. So far 204 species of aculeate have been recorded for the nature reserve and a checklist of the Hymenoptera Aculeata has been produced that lists all the species so far recorded.
The checklist is a taxonomic checklist listing species according to currently accepted phylogenetic relationships and lists all the superfamilies, families, subfamilies, genera, subgenera and species recorded within Hastings Country Park Nature Reserve. Synonyms are also listed so this list can be compared with older lists produced for the Hastings area.
Currently on the wing at the moment is one of the most charismatic of British bees the long-horned bee, Eucera longicornis. This is a nationally scarce species and a priority species for conservation in the UK. The females nest in clay banks on the undercliff and specialise in collecting pollen from members of the pea family such as bird's-foot trefoil, kidney vetch, meadow vetchling and grass vetchling. The males with their very long antennae are a conspicious feature along the undercliff defending territory and nectaring from bramble flowers.
More pictures of aculeates in Hastings here.
Filed Under: Insects & Spiders
Posted by: Andy Phillips @ 12:45
25 June 2008, Wednesday
Little Stint
A nice bright breeding plumaged adult had appeared at the roadside Pett Pool pool this evening when it should have been in the high Arctic.
Filed Under: Birds
Posted by: Mike Grace @ 03:09
23 June 2008, Monday
A first for me!
Monday afternoon. Hastings Country Park between bollard 13 and the Barn Pond. I watched a skylark rising into the clear, blue, cloudless, sky and then plummet to the ground. I waited a few minutes and was rewarded by a second opportunity to watch it; it repeated the performance except that instead of disappearing into the long grass it landed on some briars and remained there. I watched many skylarks in the 50's in Gloucestershire and in April I saw several on the golf course at Romney Warren, but in 30 plus years of walking the HCP I do not recall seeing a skylark before.
Filed Under: Birds
Posted by: Alan Hooper @ 16:00
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