and farming to coexist that does not rely on subsidies depends in large part on how many
people care whether wildlife exists at all, not only farmers and conservationists but the
public at large. Unfortunately, the evidence of wind farms suggests that while many people
are prepared to man the barricades to defend a view, few seem to care much about the
diversity of life, or lack thereof, contained within it.
I am sixty years old and have been walking Essex farmland since I was five years of age,
when, hand in hand with my grandfather. I walked the land where he himself had been a
tenant farmer between the wars. Farms may be there to produce food but man cannot
live by bread alone, or at least this one can not! Thus, anachronism or no, farms like
Handley Barns are important to me. A week or so ago I was sitting on the edge of Box
Wood, overlooking the farm. It was a perfect early spring day. The sun was warm;
whitethorn leaves were beginning to break forth from their buds and there was a suggestion
of bloom on the blackthorn bushes, while bits of down floated slowly earthwards on the
breeze, shed from the fat and fluffy Aspen catkins hanging above the path. A Fallow
Dear doe and her yearling fawn emerged from the wood and began to feed, unaware of
my presence, the dappled sunlight and shade from the overhanging trees playing across
their backs. A scene unchanged in a thousand years (two thousand, had they been Roe).
When the time comes it will be my place of choice to join - courtesy of the four winds -
those who have toiled, played, rested and died in those fields during the past two millennia.
I will be in good company.
Update on the distribution of the Lily Beetle Lilioceris lilii - a
request for 2009 records
Adrian Knowles Essex Wildlife Trust, Abbotts Hall Farm, Gt Wigborough, Essex,
C05 7RZ
This exotic beetle, originally from Eurasia, has become a serious pest of garden lilies in
recent years and it is the subject of a members' survey section on the Field Club web-
site. This survey page provides notes on its identification, arrival and spread in the UK
and also its lifestyle. However, it might be interesting to revise this survey.
I have an early flowering lily (possibly some sort of fritillary) in my garden which has
attracted this beetle in recent years. I have attempted to eradicate it by picking them off
and killing the adults and larvae. This year, the lilies are growing splendidly, seemingly
untouched by the beetle. This may be because my mechanical methods have won a
temporary respite but it also occurred to me that this exotic species might have been hit
hard by the prolonged cold and frosty winter we have just had. It would therefore be
interesting to know whether this lack of lily beetles is more widespread.
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 59, May 2009
17