Today (19th January 2016) I saw my first female Podalonia hirsuta basking on a sunny exposure. It's not unprecedented to see them in January - they have been recorded in every month of the year in Dorset - but this is my earliest record by four days.
This was a female making an early excursion from hibernation (males don't hibernate and won't appear until the summer) and she was taking full advantage of warm sunshine and a south-facing exposure. This was despite it having been the coldest night of the winter so far and there being frost all around and a thin layer of ice on the… Read more
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Submitted by Nigel Jones on
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Submitted by Stuart Roberts on
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The Bumblebee Conservation Trust announces an intermediate course to look at all the identification of all the UK bumblebee species, and a detailed description of their ecology, life cycle and anatomy. Attendees will be assumed to be able to identify competently the "Big Seven"
The course costs £10 per head (includes tea and coffee) and run from 10.30 - 15.00
To book your place contact Dr. Nikki Gammans on nikki.gammans@bumblebeeconservation or telephone
RSPB Dungeness on 01797 320588
Booking essential to guarantee a place
All… Read more
Submitted by Stuart Roberts on
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The Bumblebee Conservation Trust announces a beginners course to introduce you to the world of bumblebees and their ecology, lifecycle and conservation.
The course costs £10 per head (includes tea and coffee) and run from 10.30 - 15.00
To book your place contact Dr. Nikki Gammans on nikki.gammans@bumblebeeconservation or telephone RSPB Dungeness on 01797 320588
Booking essential to guarantee a place
All proceeds to the short-haired bumblebee project
Submitted by Nigel Jones on
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A superbly illustrated key to the Chrysididae of the Nordic and Baltic countries (in English) is available as a free download. It should provide a very useful aid to identifying wasps in the family Chrysididae. The key includes all the British mainland species apart from Chrysis rutiliventris* . It can be downloaded here
* C. vanlithi - treated as a subspecies of C. rutiliventris by some authors - is included in the key.
Submitted by Nigel Jones on
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The NBN are running a short project seeking to classify recorder motivations, and understand what support different recorders prefer. They're using both questionnaires and interviews, and need as wide a range of responses as possible to cover the diversity of circumstances and perspectives. If you collect data from the environment and would like to be included, further details are here:
http://www.nbn.org.uk/News/Latest-news/Recorder-motivation-internship-we-re-… Read more
Submitted by Nigel Jones on
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A significant leap north west for Colletes hederae is apparent, with the discovery of a well established population around Llandudno in North Wales, on 8 October. A large nest aggregation was found on Little Orme as well as individuals at ivy and nesting in a roadside verge in nearby Llandudno. The latest map includes these new records.
Latest Map
Submitted by Nigel Jones on
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This note from John vanBreda relates to an issue whereby a single image of a Bombus (see screengrab below) was displaying in the species gallery outside the taxonomic hierarchy:
That had me confused for a while as well. Here’s how I found it. If you click on Content management > Taxonomy > List, this shows you the “taxonomies” that are loaded into Drupal. These are taxonomies in the linguistic sense not biological – i.e. hierarchies of terms, but in our case we of course use one to drive the hierarchy of the Species gallery tool.
Click on “list terms… Read more