Stag Beetle Stop Press

People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES), an organisation that conducts Stag Beetle surveys as part of the UK’s Biodiversity Action Plan, is encouraging authorities, wildlife trusts and voluntary groups to assist in its work. This time it is launching a new project called ‘Bury Buckets 4 Beetles’, which consists of setting up artificial breeding sites for these impressive insects. This involves making holes in a bucket, filling it with a mixture of woodchip and soil (three parts to one, respectively) and burying it in the garden, allotment or school wildlife area to encourage females to breed. The idea is to create safe places where the females can lay their eggs and where the resulting larvae can remain safe for three to five years while they develop into adult beetles. As the mixture in the bucket will rot down, you need to keep an eye on it and top it up as necessary. If you feel that you might not have the tools for drilling the 30 mm holes in the bucket (as many as you can fit in your bucket, leaving 50 mm space between them) you can purchase special buckets from B&Q stores nationwide, as they are actively supporting the project. The buckets will be dug up in Spring 2007.

Further information and registration forms for the scheme are available from either the PTES website www.ptes.org or http://www.stagbeetlehelpline.co.uk/.

The PTES also produces a concise leaflet: ‘Stag Beetle Friendly Gardening’ that includes facts about the morphology, biology, distribution and habitat of the species and other important wood insects, and also log-pile ideas for your garden. You can obtain this by writing to their address at: 15 Cloisters House, 8 Battersea Park Road, London SW8 4BG (Tel.: 0207 498 4533). Surrey is a Stag Beetle hot spot so let’s hope we can add lots of sightings in the near future.

Begoña Aguirre-Hudson