Mayday! Mayday! - Keith Fowler

The latest instalment of “Hunt the Shieldbug” took place on Mayday (Wednesday, 1st May). Eight of us gathered outside the Seven Stars inn, Beckbury for a stroll along the banks of the River Worfe.

Resisting the temptation of the Inn we strolled down the road to find the footpath. On the way we passed a gentleman tinkering with his white car, and when I say white, it was WHITE. He must wash it in 1% detergent and 99% optical brighteners. If you have seen my car you will understand why I could never own a car like that.

The footpath started at a rather unpromising style (at least there was a FP sign and style) and took us initially along the side of a steep slope and through a Blackthorn thicket. Trying to keep upright whilst wielding a sweep net and avoiding the thorns was extremely tricky. We soldiered on and espied several Gorse bushes in full flower. The problem was getting to them. They were at the bottom of the 50% slope. A couple of brave folk descended to the bushes and searched and searched but found no Gorse shieldbugs. We moved on.

The path eventually descended to the side of the river passing a small conifer plantation where we found a longhorn beetle Pogonocherus hispidus and a couple of micro-moths 6 Eriocrania subpurpurella and 345 Phyllonorycter rajella. A refreshments break was in order.

After drinks we moved on about 200 yds and had lunch.

That 200 yards had brought us to a sheltered area of grassy vegetation with the river on one side and trees on the other with a small sandstone rock-face thrown in. Despite there being few obvious nectar sources the area was a-buzz with activity. We spent a long time exploring before lunching.

It was here that a shield bug found us. A Bronze shieldbug Troilus luridus landed on one of the group’s hand. Needless to say it was admired and photographed before being  returned (with reluctance on its part) to the vegetation. It was the only shieldbug we saw all day.

As we were about to move on another longhorn beetle was spotted sunning itself on a fallen tree trunk – Rhagium mordax.

We continued to follow the river until we found a path that returned us to our starting point.

This turned out to be a delightful meander after the rather unpromising start and is worthy of a revisit later in the year. Its sheltered areas provided us with plenty of entertainment. We made about 80 records, many of which will be first records for the two tetrads we traversed.

Thank you to all who came.




Keith Fowler




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