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27-2-92 Gnats dancingin sunlight, and 3 coltsfoot blossoms beside footpath on Havering si de
of River Rom, Dagenham Chase Nature Reserve. Willow buds beginning to burst.
A sign that spring is nearly here? A magpie thought so, flying around with twigs for its nest.
Ken Hill
A NEW SCALE INSECT FOR ESSEX
Mark Hanson reports that he has found a scale insect new to the county on sycamore in Epping
Forest. The insect has been identified by the Club's Heteroptera Recorder Dr Peter Kirby as
Pulvinaria regalis, a recent arrival in Britain..
Dr Kirby reports that the insect has spread fairly dramatically in the south-east. He writes that it is
polyphagous on trees, with bay laurel, horse chestnut, lime, sycamore and other Acer spp. seemingly
particular favourites. It is largely an urban and suburban species, particularly fond of street and garden
trees. As far as Dr Kirby knows the insect does not usually do the trees any great harm, but it would seem
reasonable to expect some damage by a heavy infestation on a relatively small woody plant like bay laurel
and it could be the vector of disease.
P. Harvey
A NEW SITE FOR THE BEE WOLF (Philanthus triangulum)
I recently discovered a breeding colony of this solitary wasp near Chadwell, S.Essex. The bee wolf colony
has also now been seen at a recent Field Club meeting and by the Hymenoptera expert John Felton.
The locality seems to have quite a good population of females with nesting taking placein at least two
parts of the site. The bee wolf is an impressive sight flying in towards its nest hole with a honey bee slung
beneath its body. Theparalysed bee will be used to provision its nest cells.
The bee wolf is nationally vulnerable with a status of RDB2. It is known to have strong colonies on the Isle
of Wight but the only other recentrecords seem tobefrom S. Hampshire, possibly representing vagrants
from the I.O.W., two sites in Suffolk and Fingringhoe Wick Nature Reserve, N.Essex. Other british
records are very old dating from the last century.
Apparently the bee wolf requires the correct type of sand for its nesting and al so needs a minimum amount
of warm weather during its flight period in order to maintain its population level. Presumably our recent hot
summers have helped in this respect!
A second new site for the bee wolf has just been discovered by Roger Payne at Shoebury Old Ranges, an
Essex Wildlife Trust reserve. Both these sites are turning out to be important localities for invertebrates
generally and give a glimpse of the sort of quality habitat that would have been much more extensive in the
past. Now all too often we can only look at these tiny fragments of former glory.
Peter Harvey