we will become part of an anonymous region in north-west Europe. Building 478,000
houses in the east of England will bring in a million residents possibly few will have any
connection with the area or know (or care) anything of the area's rich history, a sort of
socially engineered cultural amnesia. This may not bode well for the future of our wildlife,
if you thought we were poor custodians of veteran trees in the UK don't look to mainland
Europe for inspiration. In the EERA east of England plan although habitat creation of
various types is mentioned, it is done in terms of the opportunity to do so and not as a
firm commitment and is anyway linked to economic and social benefits. I would like to
see a firm commitment to creating large scale wildlife habitats in Essex - how about a
2,500 acre park with European Bison, Wild Boar and Wild Cattle; a 500 acre inland
reedbed (perhaps created to help filter the processed waste products of the inhabitants
of the 123,000 new houses); a 1000 acre brownfield site (to go some way to replacing
the lost Essex heaths) and a commitment to re-establish thousands of acres of Saltmarsh
(which rising sea-levels are imposing on us anyway).
I suspect that as usual, wildlife and conservation will take a back seat and become a
subsidiary issue in the pursuit of economic growth.
Blue Tit migration after frost kill of aphids?
David Bloomfield Hortons, Mascalls Lanc, Brentwood, Essex CM14 5LJ
I grow Norway Spruce for Christmas trees. A major concern is monitoring for aphids,
which can be a considerable threat in some years. Monitoring takes place up to weekly
in early summer, less often in the winter. Over the years I have grown to understand
more about the life histories of my two aphid species.
I was made aware a few years ago, at a walk in Epping Forest led by Jeremy Dagley,
how the success of young birds fed on aphids would be low when a sharp late frost
decimated the aphid population. Aphids do not seem a frost-resistant insect and it is
easy to imagine such a population drop.
My two aphids overwinter on small trees while slowly multiplying. They are very
vulnerable to frost if they are wet, although this seldom happens. We had such a
combination in January 2005. Aphids were absent for many weeks. The aphid that peaks
in May will be of no importance this year. The other will probably take a long time to
become a threat.
A notable feature of working among the trees after Christmas is the ever present call of
Blue Tits. This was present in January, but shortly after, until May, the time of writing, it
is totally absent. Other sites locally still have what seems to be a normal share of Blue
Tits calling. I can only assume the entire population has moved away because of lack of
suitable food. The Epping Forest population mentioned earlier had no choice because
they were by then based on their nest sites.
4 Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 48, September 2005