Hello everyone, this is my last blog as I am finishing up my apprenticeship this week to start as Project Officer for Buglife in Scotland – woooooooo!!!
The last year has completely flown by! Can’t believe how busy I have been, all the learning I have done, the places I have been and people I have met. It feels like a tremendous privilege. I am very lucky in that I will be staying on with Buglife to continue some of the work I have been doing promoting the amazing biodiversity at brownfield sites as well as working on other projects across Scotland.
During the last couple of months I have been really busy. I ran an urban wildlife workshop in Ayr which was an amazing experience and although it was raining the whole day, I think everyone enjoyed it and went away being enthusiastic about bugs. I attended Buglife’s pseudoscorpion workshop that Gerald Legg took. It was great to learn more about these understudied invertebrates although I haven’t had the chance to go looking for them-yet!
I helped Buglife at Gardening Scotland event which is always an interesting experience as I spoke to many people about the importance of bugs and how they can make bug homes for their garden.
I recently went to the Buglife staff outing in the south-west of England which was really nice as I got to meet new members of staff and I had never been that far south in Britain before. The weather was really warm on a couple of days and it was so nice to see lots of bugs! At Arne RSPB Nature Reserve I saw a Lesser stag beetle, Rose chafer, Emperor dragonfly, Large and Small red damselflies, Azure damselfly, Four spotted chaser and loads more! We went to the rare Ladybird spider release site where the reintroduction program has been increasing their numbers. One of the days was spent at Wembury beach were we went rock pooling. I got badly burnt that day but it was worth it to see all the shore invertebrates. During our time in the south west we stayed at a huge old house near Exmoor for 2 nights. On the second night we set a moth trap and when it was checked the following morning we had 3 Elephant hawkmoths, Eyed hawkmoth and Poplar hawkmoth as well as a Lobster moth and loads of other moths I had never seen before. I was absolutely shattered after the staff outing but really enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to working alongside the other members of Buglife staff.
Lesser stag beetle at Arne RSPB Nature reserve
Female Emperor dragonfly laying her eggs at Arne RSPB Nature reserve
Eyed hawkmoth at the house near Exmoor where we stayed during the Buglife Staff outing
As well as being busy with workshops and staff outings I have been continuing my field work at a couple of brownfields in Falkirk. I have been putting out pitfalls and pan traps at a couple of sites that I sampled last year. It’s been great sorting out the traps, although I do wish slugs would stop falling in as they don’t smell or look very nice when their dead- yuck!! I have now taken in all my traps and will miss the sites now that I have finished my apprenticeship. My last visit to Forge Dam as an apprentice was really special as there was a large area of Vipers Bugloss that was completely covered by Bumblebees and there were Blue tailed damselflies as well.
I am currently writing a paper on my research for the Forth Naturalist and Historian Journal which will hopefully be published in November. It is almost finished and I just have to add the final touches. Luckily David Pryce has finished looking at my Hemiptera that I collected, so I can now add these results to the paper. I can’t believe that I collected 71 species of Hemiptera!! Most of which haven’t been collected in Falkirk before- amazing!! Thank you so much David!!
Wow, can’t believe my apprenticeship is over but it really has helped me move onto better things and I’m really looking forward to the next few months. I would like to thank everyone for their help over the last year. Especially John McFarlane and my boss Craig Macadam and also all the entomologists that have helped teach me identification skills and spent time looking at my specimens for me.
Good luck to all the current apprentices with their work, I will miss you all and hopefully we can keep in touch.
Suzie