WORCESTERSHIRE RECORDER'S RECORDING DAYS

Three Recording Days were arranged in 2002:

Saturday 1st June: High Clere woods, Tunnel Hill Woods and Dukes Orchard, Wood Norton, near Evesham.
Saturday 6th June Ashmoor Common, near Kempsey.
Saturday 10th August Castle Morton Common, Malvern.

The results for these dates are given in the following tables. There will be further records to add. Lichen records for two sites are on their way to us and some water beetles have yet to be identified.

In the tables note that
"Status" refers to national status when known.
"No.*" refers to the number of records on the WBRC computerised database. Computerisation of all available records is not complete. For birds we know that many of the species are very common but the decision on how to handle bird records has not been reached and few have therefore been computerised. We also have many more records for Lichens and these are in the process of being transferred either from paper or another database to WBRC database. For Bryophytes many new records are being computerised but work has barely started on transferring the old records from paper to computer. Most invertebrate records have been computerised

Acknowledgements
We are most grateful for permission to visit these sites. In the High Clere/Tunnel Hill area: High Clere and woods (Ann Albright), , the BBC Woodlands (Roger Carter), Worcestershire Wildlife Trust (Tunnel Hill Meadow) and Mr Hughes (Dukes Orchard) were most helpful. All this land is in private ownership and not often surveyed. Kempsey Parish Council (Mrs Halford Clerk to the Council) allowed us to visit Ashmoor Common, and the Malvern Hills Conservators (Ian Rowitt, David Whitehorn) gave us every encouragement to record at Castle Morton Common.

All these sites are of outstanding importance for wildlife and hold many species not seen elsewhere. Our visits have barely scratched the surface for invertebrates and we hope we can return again at a later date. The success of a recording day depends on both the weather and experts available on the day. The weather was not ideal for any of these visits - rather cool at Tunnel Hill and somewhat cool at Castle Morton! Lower temperatures make insects less easy to find but at least they don't move so fast!


One of the aims of these Recording Days is to concentrate on poorly recorded groups, depending on the expertise available. We have obtained many new records of insects, mosses and lichens, many common, some rare. All the sites have been fairly well covered for flowering plants and ferns by the Worcestershire Flora Project so lists for these groups are not included in the tables. Bert Reid did obtain some useful plant records from the Tunnel Hill area.

Records of note
A good many local or notable species appear in the lists.

Ashmoor Common
Conocephalus dorsalis Short-winged Conehead: a species which is spreading from SE England. Previous records in Worcestershire only from Ipsley Alders, Redditch.
Xanthandrus comtus a hoverfly which was scarce and seems to be becoming commoner. Also recorded in Tiddesley Wood, Pershore, 4th August 2002.
Anasimyia lineata Local but widespread hoverfly.

Tunnel Hill
Myopa extricata RDB 3 This is a rare and interesting Conopid fly was found on a patch of buttercup flowers within the woodland. It is a reddish brown fly usually recorded on chalk grassland near the coast. Larvae of this family are parasitoids of solitary bees, though the host is unknown for M extricata. The nearby field as High Clere is close-cut limestone (Rhaetic) grassland and much of the area was once sheep grazed.

It was also interesting to find the hoverfly Rhingia rostrata, previous found at four Worcestershire woods - the larval stages may be associated with badger latrines.

Castle Morton Common
One of the most interesting records was the Floating Club rush Eleogiton fluitans found in a pond and reported elsewhere in this issue.

For the lists please click here: