RXwildlife Sightings

At the beginning of this week Pete Akers and I commenced the first of three sets of timed walks over the Dungeness NNR to monitor bumblebee numbers. After the weather-induced disasterous showing last year it was interesting to see if numbers would be low this spring. In fact they were not so bad, just slightly less than last May (when numbers were high following an unusually warm April).

Slightly worryingly no moss carder bees Bombus muscorum were found. This species has declined each year for the past 4 years, from 47 insects found in 2003 to only 4 last year. It is thought that this northern bee could be suffering from a run of warm years, although it would be ironic if the cold wet conditions experienced last year pushed it closer to the edge. Numbers of its more southern relative the brown banded carder bee Bombus humilis were only slightly lower than last year, an encouraging sign for this Biodiversity Action Plan Species (thanks to Mike Edwards for the photo below).

The red tailed bumblebee, Bombus lapidarius, was represented by only 1 queen, compared to 17 insects last year. This species is more normally found later in the summer, so this is not too worrying, although numbers of this species were unusually low last summer.

Finally numbers of the normally common buff-tailed and white tailed bumblebee Bombus terrestris/ B. lucorum were almost as high in this years first walk (16) as in all of the three walks combined last year (19), another sign of how bad last summer was, perhaps this year is going to be better for these two species.

Further monitoring sessions will be undertaken in July and August.

Posted in Insects, RSPB Dungeness Nature Reserve | by Brian Banks