The Essex Naturalist
41
and all records are from sites in the East Thames Corridor region. The only
place where the species has been found in numbers is at West Thurrock PFA
lagoons in 1996.
Another elusive species, the Nationally Scarce (Na) Alysson lunicornis was
taken by the author recently at Rainham Marshes silt lagoons and Adrian
Knowles has apparently collected the species at the new EWT reserve at Blue
House Farm (pers. comm.).
On the 3rd July 1998 the author collected several specimens of a small
sphecid wasp which was swarming in hundreds around entrance holes in a large
rotten tree trunk at Hoddens Wood near Brentwood. These specimens were
subsequently found to be the RDBK Stigmus pendulus, a small sphecid wasp
which provisions its cells with aphids.
A single female Nitela has recently been collected in the author's garden in
Grays. There are apparently three species that have been found in Britain but
their taxonomy is still unresolved and existing keys are of little use. Whichever
species is involved this will be another New County Record. Small black
sphecid wasps all tend to look the same from a distance (although Nitela does
have a different build to the Crossocerus commonly found in gardens) and the
wasp may well have been overlooked in the past.
Mining bees and Yellow-faced bees (Family Colletidae)
Males and females of the Nationally Scarce (Na) Colletes halophilus have been
found to be present in numbers at Sea aster in the silt lagoons at Rainham
Marshes. In the same way as the silt lagoons at East Tilbury a Saltmarsh flora
initially develops which becomes replaced by sand dune and ruderal vegetation
as the silt dries out.
The first record of the Nationally Scarce (Na) Hylaeus pictipes since Harwood
(1884) was recorded by Jerry Bowdrey in 1996 (Harvey 1997). This year there
are two new records of the species, a male and female collected by the author at
the edge of the public footpath near Hall Farm north Ockendon on the 30th
June 1998 and a female collected by Adrian Knowles at Wat Tyler Country Park
on the 12th August 1998.
Mining bees (Family Andrenidae)
Adrian Knowles has collected a female Andrena angustior at Watley Park Golf
Club this year on the 11th May 1998. Although nationally widespread and not
uncommon, this is the first recent record for Essex. Adrian also collected
Andrena barbilabris on the same occasion and again on the 15th May 1998 at
Walton Naze. Although another widespread bee in England, this species is not
common in the county. Adrian collected the Nationally Scarce (Nb) A.
bimaculata at Middlewick Ranges, the first recent records for North Essex, a male
on the 25th April and a female on the 2nd May 1998 and then a further male at
Fingringhoe Wick on the 5th May 1998.