Due to the aforementioned cold period, my next excursion was on 6th April to the area around Gellionen Chapel, partly to get a few records in a square (SN705055) where SEWBREC (in their newsletter) say there are no records recently. Bit early for much but I saw Andrena scotica there:
and found Andrena clarkella next to the chapel:
I decided many years ago, when time permitted, to look for good patches of Bilberry hoping to find Andrena lapponica, a bilberry specialist I never found on the Gower. I also saw a tweet from Liam Olds about having found it at Blackmill near Bridgend. A visit to Cwm Clydach RSPB reserve, on 10th, turned up Andrena praecox, a bee I never found on the Gower during my 5 years looking there, surprising as it is a Willow feeder.
Wandering the roads by car looking for Bilberry not grazed to within an inch of its life eventually brought me to a female Andrena lapponica at the roadside near Rhyd-y-fro:
A dim memory from many years ago took me to woods above Glais (marked Graig Ola on the map) on 13th and I found a superb oakwood/moorland covered in mature and ungrazed bilberry. I found one more Andrena lapponica there and Andrena fulva females (hooray a mining bee it is easy to identify for sure!) also visiting Bilberry along with several Bombus spp. A few other mining bees were on the go, prettiest of which was Andrena ovatula, a species it is absolutely not easy to identify because there is another very similar, wilkella and, of course, Halictus rubicundus also looks very similar:
Looks like a place worth revisiting as the year progresses, (does an NRW sign on a fence mean it is a reserve); it will certainly have a good heather moor community at the end of the summer. I'd be very interested in knowing of any other good sites for a lot of mature Bilberry inland in the far west of Glamorgan (say Swansea valley or westwards) and even on the Gower. Remember maps? This area is a nuisance to work as it lies on the corners of 3 OS maps but I paid for them and am determined to use them!
