Ragwort: what a fantastic plant for bees

Ragwort was in the news again earlier this year. I got interviewed on local radio about its value for moths (not a very rewarding experience, since the presenter seemed unable to get past his amusement at the idea of anyone actually being interested in moths). And environment minister Richard Benyon attracted a bit of attention with some ill-conceived Facebook comments about his hatred of Ragwort. Shortly after that episode, I happened upon this clump of Ragwort in full flower in the middle of one of my local SSSIs:

How many bees can you see on the flowers?

There were at least 50, which I've carefully highlighted in the second version of this photo, and they were having a fine old time necking nectar and perusing pollen:

On this occasion I didn't capture any to check the species; there were several involved, but I'm pretty sure that many of them were the solitary ground-nesting bee Lasioglossum calceatum (this one, with its long antennae, looks like a male): 

Now, Ragwort can cause problems, being toxic to grazing mammals when consumed in large quantities, and where it poses a genuine risk to these animals it needs to be controlled. But in areas where grazing animals aren't an issue, Ragwort provides a valuable resource for many, many insects, including at least 30 insects and 14 fungi that are entirely dependent on the plant, plus the huge numbers of insects that visit the flowers for pollen and nectar, as shown above.

The controversy over the rights and wrongs of ragwort has raged for years now, and the claims for its harmful effects have often been widely exaggerated. There's plenty of good information about Ragwort available nowadays, not least in DEFRA's own Code of Conduct, so there's not really any excuse for continuing to demonise the plant. Like most entomologists, I remain pleased to see Ragwort in all non-grazing-mammal contexts, and hope to see many more plants covered in the buzzing of contented bees, flies, beetles and butterflies - the sheer exuberance of the bees in the photos above were one of my year's wildlife highlights.

Good sense on Ragwort is available from:

• Buglife
• Ragwort Facts website
• Butterfly Conservation (Scotland) factsheet (pdf download)
• Ragwort hysteria blog
• DEFRA Code of Conduct (pdf download)

synonymy

This blog used to be called "sweepnet", a title I was never happy with. Having had a good long break from even attempting to be a blogger, I'm going for a fresh start using another title that I'm not entirely happy with, but irregardless of that am giving it a try. Let's have a prolonged intake of breath for ...

pooter

Various hilarious puns on the subject of sucking suggest themselves, but we're all going to resist, aren't we.

Putting wildlife on the map

Last week I had the pleasure of teaching my first course for the fantastic Field Studies Council, at their Epping Forest centre. The day seemed to go well, and for me it was great to be out talking about wildlife-watching among the venerable old trees of the Forest.

I've added some of the materials from the course to a new biological recording section of my website, including information on recording, tips for photography and using keys, suggested surveys to try out, links to further resources and some field exercise sheets (downloadable). As ever, feedback welcome to improve what's there and fill in any gaps I've missed.

While reading up for the course I went back to the late Oliver Gilbert's very enjoyable book The Lichen Hunters. Despite not being any sort of lichenologist myself I loved reading about the exploits of Dr Gilbert and his colleagues in tracking down unusual lichens in a range of habitats, from pristine rocks high in the Cairngorms to the 'ancient tarmac' of abandoned WWII airfields. Finding lichens in mountainous habitats requires impressive feats of physical endurance - anyone want to start a campaign for lichen-hunting as an olympic sport?

The book contains one of my favourite biological recording quotes, capturing some of the emotions that come from close contact with wildlife and wild places:

“You go to look for lichens and find in addition familiarity, beauty, companionship, laughter and the warmth of friends.”

New MapMate guidance

Running the MapMate biological recording database on Windows Vista and Windows 7 caused quite a few problems at first. Things seem to have been sorted out now, and if you run the latest version of MapMate (currently 2.4.0) on Windows 7 you should not encounter any difficulty.

However, problems can still arise with older versions, and depending on the route you've taken to upgrade. I've just posted a new downloadable document on my website that summarises these issues and offers some guidance on resolving the problems and keeping MapMate running happily.

Please let me have any feedback you may have from using the new document - does it make sense to you? Do the recommendations match what has worked for you?