Worcestershire Record No. 4 May 1998 p.3

HUNT THE LAND CADDIS

In the April 1997 issue of Worcestershire Record I drew attention to the "Worcestershire Land Caddis situation" according to the information I had at the time. Since then land caddis have been found at several Wyre Forest sites by Mike Taylor of English Nature and at Horsehill Wood near Ribbesford by Nicola Flemwell and myself. Furthermore, as we go to Press, Will Watson has confirmed their presence in Nunnery Wood and has found them in Perry Wood, Wardon Wood and Tolladine Wood, all near Worcester.

Also, somewhat to my embarrassment, I have been reminded that Dr David Harding from University of Wolverhampton has studied Land Caddis for many years. I have now spoken and corresponded with him and, although he has recently retired, he is still very interested in land caddis. Indeed he appealed for information on their distribution in the magazine Antenna in 1995 and had no response.

Following our discussions we would like you to all go out and look for land caddis as soon as possible! It is high time we knew where this strange insect lives in Worcestershire and across the borders into Herefordshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire. As it is such a rare insect in Britain it should figure in any relevant Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP), and the first of these are now being prepared for a county consortium by Bronwen Bruce based at the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust. To prepare a useful BAP we need to more information on their distribution.

When you receive this it will be a bit late in the year for finding large active land caddis larvae although empty cases can still be found so its still worth looking.

To help you in your search a slightly modified reprint of David Harding's article from Antenna follows this note.

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