Well, all that is changing.
Within weeks you will see the changes resulting from the computer’s invasion of our printer.
And, with luck, not long after that we will have in our very own editorial offices an electronic excuse for the mistakes that occasionally slide into these pages. But more of that when it happens.
As they say elsewhere…watch this space.
THE MOST NEGLECTED WILDLIFE HABITAT OF ALL
Jenny Owen
You may live within a few metres of many if not most of the plant and animal species ever recorded in Britain, and perhaps a few that are new to science. Seek and ye shall find
Leicestershire, in the very middle of England, away from coasts and mountains, beyond the northernmost limits of continental influences and the fauna, denuded of ancient woodland and intensively farmed, is generally thought impoverished and rather uninteresting for a biologist.
Yet I have discovered, within the Leicester city limits, a small but fertile patch of land that supports an astonishing abundance and diversity of plants and animals.
Tall trees and dense shrubs accommodate nesting birds, abundant flowers provide food for bees, butterflies and hoverflies, heavy crops of fruit and seed support birds and insects, good ground cover shelters predatory beetles, centipedes and spiders, and accumulations of dead and rotting vegetation serve as feeding and breeding sites for slugs, woodlice and insects of many sorts.
For 11 years I have been investigating the flora and fauna of this 700 sq.m site.
I have not had the time or sometimes the knowledge to identify all the organisms I found, but the species list to date (Tables I and 2) totals 1731.
The list includes more than a quarter of the noctuid moths and ichneumonid wasps on the British list, a third or more of the hoverflies (Syrphidae), butterflies and bumblebees, more than half the Serphidae (also wasps), and six cf the seven social wasps (Vespidae).
Many of the records of insects represent an extension of the known range of the particular species: three species of bees, five of aculeate wasps and 20 of hoverflies are among many new records for Leicestershire; the cuckoo wasp,Vespula austriaca , is new to central England; there is the most southerly record of a calliphorid fly, which is common in Scotland; at least eight species of Ichneumonidae and five of Serphidae are new to Britain; and two ichneumonids are probably new to science.
On the basis of its fauna and the area in question might qualify for protection as a nature reserve, if not for designation as a site of special scientific interest.
Focus 17u geldgeschenke zur hochzeit
