Editorial

By Harry Green

There is, of course (!) a lot of good stuff in this number of Worcestershire Record! All articles and notes are useful and interesting but this time I think there are two outstanding papers. One is John Day’s first attempt to define Worcestershire’s Natural Areas based on many criteria, but primarily using flowering plants. John is breaking new ground - I do not know of any other attempt to describe a county’s biodiversity at such a fine grain. His system needs refining but nevertheless the framework he presents at monad level is a very useful guide to biological recording. We need to record from each Natural Area, especially for groups other than plants, because the main "biology" is his system is plants and we know very little about other groups, especially invertebrates, which may help define the areas even more precisely. Another interesting aspect of his article is the insight it gives into the wide variety and biodiversity of the Worcestershire landscape.

The second outstanding contribution is Peter Stewart’s summary of many year’s study of the gulls which winter in the county. Thousands of gulls have been caught for ringing and release at refuse tips and the results will probably surprise the non-ornithologists amongst you! Thanks also to him for setting out the article as his maps are too much for my computer system.