Essex Field Club Exhibition
enthusiasm for and many ideas about repeating the event. Although on this occasion it was mainly
members who were present it is hoped that in the future newcomers will be attracted by an even
broader itinerary. It is to be hoped that the event can get bigger and brighter and become an i mportant
feature of the county's natural history calendar.
The following details of exhibits have been provided by exhibitors and it is hoped this will become
a regular feature of the Naturalist. Many apologies for missing details.
Peter Allen - the Geology Group arrange several field meetings each year, usually in association
with other geology clubs such as the Essex Rock and Mineral Society, the Hertfordshire Geological
Society, the Geological Society of Norfolk. Details can be found in the Programme Card.
The Geology Group is active in other ways, particularly supporting RIGS (Regionally Important
Geological and Geomorphological Sites). Further information about RIGS was displayed in the
form of a map of potential RIGS sites in Essex and pamphlets describing the work of RIGS.
Several members write books and papers on geology in Essex and East Anglia. Some of this work
appears in the Essex Naturalist and national journals such as the Proceedings of the Geologists'
Association. Gerald Lucy has written a very readable and concise geology of Essex - Essex Rock -
published by the Essex Rock and Mineral Society (copies of which were available for purchase).
Peter Allen has contributed to field guides published by the Quaternary Research Association. Field
guides with local relevance to East Anglia and Kent were available for purchase at discount. A
selection of geology maps, books, pamphlets and photographs were available for perusal and
discussion.
David Bloomfield had a table conspicuous for a colour print of white bollace Prunus domestica
ssp. institia var. syriaca. He was keen to find more about the origins and history of this naturalised
sterile cross with Prunus spinosa and some other unknown Prunus species.
Norma Chapman, Kathie and Mick Claydon and Alf Gudgion exhibited Muntjac deer, a skin,
skulls of male and female and a foot; Roe deer, skulls of male and female; Fallow, a poor misformed
antler; Pere David deer, a sample of hair; skulls of wild boar, common seal, coypu, hedgehog and
stoat; a skull of wild rabbit with deformed incisors which had grown almost to a circle, and the skull
of grey squirrel; the dried remains of a complete weasel, a porcupine quill, a harvest mouse nest and
a length of wire flex which had been gnawed through by grey squirrel; Two longworth traps, as used
in small mammal surveys; an Asian elephant tooth and a fossilised mammoth tooth.
Peter Harvey exhibited colour photographs and specimens of the Grey Mining Bee Andrena
cineraria, discovered by Amanda Samuels at Warren Hill, Epping Forest in 1998 and confirmed in
2000 there and at two other sites in the Forest; the Nationally Endangered Odynerus simillimus
discovered by David Scott at Alresford near Colchester, the first record since Harwood at the end of
the 19th century, with a picture of its nest with characteristic short chimney; the Nationally Rare
Ceratina cyanea and a picture of the now destroyed flower-rich habitat at Mill Wood Pit in Thurrock.
There was a photograph and map of the Red Data Book spider Theridion pinastri., showing its
national distribution with an important number of recent Essex records and the species account
published in SRS newsletter; the Nationally Rare money spider Baryphyma duffeyi, a spider with
most of its British populations in tidal Saltmarsh habitat in Essex, with a distribution map of sites in
Essex and north Kent; The 'wasp spider' Argiope bruennichi, with a photograph of the spider in its
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 18 (2001)
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