We are not the Staffordshire Invertebrate Group by Keith Fowler

Loamhole Dingle, Wednesday 22 April 2015

A few weeks ago I was invited to attend Staffordshire Invertebrate Group’s search for Oil Beetles at Three Shires Head. Why not? I thought. It would do me good to get out of the county. 

First I drove to Leek via Penkridge to attend the SIG’s (yes it is confusing as the Shropshire Invertebrate Group is also SIG – perhaps the Staffordshire group should be StIG) Annual General Meeting. In Leek I was treated to an Eccles Cake, a great weakness of mine, which I wisely saved for later, attended the meeting, visited “the” bookshop then drove to Derbyshire, which, apparently was the nearest place to park for the group.

I took no part in the decision where to park so was unaware of what lay ahead.

We set off across the moor. I could not believe the pace that was being set. There was no time to stop and look at anything. We tramped on, and on, and on and ... well you get the idea. Well over an hour later we arrived at Three Shires Head where the counties of Staffordshire, Cheshire and Derbyshire meet. We came from Derbyshire; stepped this way and we were in Staffordshire; stepped that way and we were in Cheshire.

We actually paused and did some looking. I found a fly Sepsis violaceus (in Cheshire) and a Staphylinid beetle which I gave to a member of the group to identify. After 30 minutes or so we moved on – were we going back; so soon? We were, but not directly. Someone pointed out a Lesser bloody-nosed beetle sunbathing on a wall. 

The group suddenly huddled. A Violet oil beetle had been found. This was photographed many times. Great rejoicing, the target species for the day had been found – unfortunately not in Staffordshire as we were in Cheshire. We marched on.

I think I have a reasonable sense of direction (my wife may mention a certain forest in the Lake District at this point) and we seemed to be heading back towards the cars. But then we did a U-turn from one side of the valley to the other and walked in the opposite direction. Some time later the path down to Three Shires Head we had used came into view. We continued, on and on and ....

I got back to the car at the time we normally prepare the evening meal, so I rang home and gave my apologies and suggested we eat about 2 hours later. Do you remember that Eccles Cake? Fortunately I did, and ate it. Very nutritious! Remarkably from where we had parked you could see the Wrekin. The problem was that it was an hour and three quarter’s drive away.

What has this to do with our visit to Loamhole Dingle? I hope that will become clear later.

It was a beautiful day. We started by looking for invertebrates around the pool and found three species of shieldbug – Green, Hawthorn (pictured) and Dock bug. There was a good stand of Forget-me-not but no Forget-me-not shieldbugs were found.

A couple of early captures required the identification committee to take a seat whilst they came to a decision.

From the pool we followed the stream up the dingle. There were a few newly emerged craneflies about and these pristine Tipula vittata were wasting no time.

Coffee was taken where the path crossed over the stream. On the opposite bank there was a swathe of Ramsons, not yet in full bloom, that was attracting a large number of hoverflies, so time was spent pursuing them.

After coffee we continued along the path to join the Rope Walk. The Rope Walk ends as you enter Lydebrook Dingle. Here we branched off the main path to cross a small fenced woodland with the intention of getting to the waterfall marked on the Ordnance Survey map.

We paused for lunch after exiting the woodland and it was here that one of the party alluded to the recent trip to Three Shires Head and suggested that I had been infected by a desire to travel great distances on our walks. I was stung. The distance we walk (usually less than three miles in a day) is of nothing compared to the Staffordshire trip (between 7 and 9 miles, depending on how you measure it, in half a day). True, on this occasion I had set off with a goal to reach the waterfall but Three Shires Head was in a different league.

It was a very, very short walk from lunch to the waterfall. The falls were a bit of a disappointment but, perhaps, we did not get the best view and the water levels were low. 

So no picture of the feature but here are five of the group taking their final steps down to the waterfall.

From the waterfall we made our way slowly back to the cars and returned home after another excellent day.

Keith Fowler