News

On June 30th the Welsh Government formerly declared a nature emergency.

Click here to see how the decision was made.

We’ve recently been getting interesting records of two unusual garden spiders coming in to Cofnod.

Misumena vatia is a large crab spider which sits on flowers and captures bees and butterflies. If the female spider is sitting on a white flower her colour remains white, however she can change to bright yellow if she moves on to a yellow flower!

Nigma puella, the Bleeding Heart Spider was recorded for the first time in North Wales, but there must be more out there! This is a small (3 mm) white spider with pink and green markings that sits on garden foliage.

Please submit your records of these two species, with photographs, to Cofnod using the ORS or the LERC Wales App and help us map their distributions.

Earlier in June we provided another very informative online course in our "How to Record" series. This one was about Butterflies and was presented by the local expert, Jan Miller.

Click here to watch "How to Record" Butterflies

We've recently teamed up with Bumblebee Conservation, through their 'Skills for Bees' Cymru project, to deliver two sessions on Bumblebee identification.

Click here to watch Session 1

Click here to watch Session 2

LERC Wales are working with Bumblebee Conservation Trust to map the rare bumblebees of Wales. For more information about the relevant species and how to submit your records, click below.

BIS (in Brecon) is advertising for a part-time, permanent IT Officer.

The post is 0.4 FTE (2 days/week), with opportunity for additional hours and pays £32,032 p.a., pro rata.

Closing date for applications is Thursday, 3rd June 2021 at noon. Interviews will be on Monday, 14th June.

Immerse yourself for 10 months in beautiful North Wales.

Be a valued member of our Countryside and Trees Team.

Closing date: 25th June 2021.

Further details.

Here is the May Bwletin (issue 159), full of the usual wonders!

* The old Aberdaron jetty - when and why?

* Celebrating nests

* The mystery of the fog bow

* What cues drive insects to fly in spring?

* The old red deer on Traeth Mawr - where did it come from?

* Dippers in Britanny - are they making a come- back?

* Clwb a Llygaid Bach: Recognising Birds of the Uplands

Now in its 7th year, data from the scheme has been used to input into the UK Biodiversity Set as part of C7 Plants of the Wider Countryside indicator UK Habitat Condition Indicator. Further work is expected on the indicator and vital habitat information is being explored across the dataset. The partnership project (JNCC, UKCEH, Plantlife, BSBI and DAERA) is the only long-term monitoring scheme of plants and habitats of it’s kind. Approximately 1500 volunteers are currently allocated a 1km square to survey and monitor across 5 plots twice a year every year. The robust methodology and long term monitoring of plants and habitats is already providing essential data on how are plant communities are fairing under increasing pressures and drivers of change. Please head to the website for more information or watch our videos on our YouTube channel . We also have a series of Webinars about the NPMS and habitat training webinars also, registration is here .

Plantlife is partnering with the university of Tartu, Estonia and supporting their European-wide Cowslip Survey which is now live. The survey explores heterostyly in cowslips (people are asked to look at the flower on an individual plant) and record whether the plant is an S-Morph or L-Morph. The ratio of these morphs can help us understand the health of a grassland habitat. I have attached more information about the survey and the link to the page is below, together with a link to a You Tube presentation about the survey.

More Information

YouTube