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Hi Visitor
January 2011 Lepsoc News
Dear fellow Lepsoc Africa members
This is an exciting moment - the first official web version of Lepsoc News. John Paul Niehaus did a sterling job with his PDF newsletters but one of the main design criteria of our new site was that a regular e-newsletter could be generated and sent directly from the site. This will make Lepsoc News keep up to date with what is happening in Lepsoc, and make the job of generating it less onerous.
Yolande Bode has generously volunteered to take on the important task of compiling and sending out Lepsoc News. She and her husband Justin are of the new breed of butterflyer who came to us via SABCA and the Virtual Museum - new blood and talent of the kind we hope and expect to see a lot of in the coming months.
This Lepsoc News comes to you at a time of rapid change. SABCA1, as we are now calling it, is nearing completion and we have to marshal our options for the future. SABCA1, with its super-successful public Virtual Museum, has in the words of Phoebe Barnard, SABAP2 (Bird Atlas) steering committee chair, has 'raised the bar for public participation in science and biodiversity conservation'. 16000 data in four years makes it the most successful live 'VM' to date. The funding that supported this project is, however, coming to an end. We plan to keep the VM running and if possible combine it with our other data collection and information generating activities - but we will need to find funding for this. As I write this the budgeting and planning is taking place, and once we have this in hand, we will make representation to potential funders. We have some organisations in mind but nothing is certain in this world, so if any readers have contacts that might be interested, please contact me!
The future of Lepsoc Africa lies in greater public participation and membership, and a focus on ensuring a future for our butterflies and moths, and our Society. Read more here. Last year's AGM and Conference led the way here and this was a real fun event. We are going to maintain the momentum with a similar event to be held at Kirstenbosch's Sanlam Hall on 23-25 Sept 2011 - for more details contact the conference co-ordinator Andrew Morton on bluebottle@wol.co.za.
Another exciting event is the Workshop on Lepidoptera Research in the Afro-tropical region to be held in Ghana on 18-25 November this year. This has an exciting field trip as well as a workshop, and promises to be well worth attending.
And, to increase public awareness of butterflies, we have adopted a National Butterfly - the Table Mountain Beauty Aeropetes tulbaghia. We have made representation to government and await a response.
Finally, I'd like to remind you all that THIS IS YOUR NEWSLETTER. You can contribute by posting threads on the site's Forum, and making suggestions. It can only succeed if you participate, so in closing I appeal to everyone to keep posting fun and newsworthy threads.
Best regards
Steve Woodhall
President - Lepidopterists' Society of Africa
The Dobsons did it again!
Jeremy and Chris Dobson did it again!
Almost 10 year to the day since Jeremy has found his first Southern Purple, he managed to find another one. Only a few records exists of this butterfly.
The Dobsons Eastern Cape Adventure
Black Beauty
Ian Richardson found something very interesting on one of his visits to Zambia which have caught the attention of a few veteran Lepidopterists.
Black Charaxes
Gauteng Branch News
The members of the Gauteng Butterfly & Moth Club has orginazed a few trips for this season...
The first trip was a trip to the beautiful country Swaziland. It was over the weekend of the 5th to the 7th of November 2010. The weather prediction did not look favourable, and the drive down on the Friday afternoon was in persistent rain. Thankfully the sun made an appearance on the Saturday and a fair number of butterflies were recorded, including Irving's Blue (Lepidopchrysops irvingi), Basuto Skolly (Thestor basutus) and Wolkberg Sandman (Spialia secessus).
The second trip for the season was a trip to the Nibela Peninsula in Zululand to a place called Sohbengu...
The third trip for the season was in middle January to Ezemvelo Nature Reserve near Bronkhorstspruit. Some of the members got together and met up with Duncan MacFayden of Ernest Oppenheimer & Son.
The next get together will be our annual braai at Hermann Staude's farm. You can read more about it under our event column.
KZN Branch News
It has been a busy season for the members of the KZN Butterfly Club with a few outings and trips in the search for some pretty bugs. Our president in particular has been travlling all over the country and visiting all kinds of spots and localities...
1) Vernon Crooke's Nature Reserve
2) Dlinza Forest and Mandawe
3) Nkandhla Forest
4) Woodridge Hill
Keep on the look out for more interesting updates in our next newsletter.
Western Cape Branch News
This is the province with the most difficult task in conserving butterflies in their province. The Western Cape is home to 8 of the 12 critical endangered butterflies.
The Chairperson of the branch, Andrew Morton, is doing a outstanding job by organizing outings in the area and found some interesting localities...
Edible "Tips"
This will be one of our regular features of our newsletter. If you have any nice, easy recipes for outings and trips that you would like to share with fellow members, place your recipes on our forum.
My husband and I enjoy making food when we go out looking for butterflies, or other eliments of nature. Here is a easy recipe for something nice to enjoy with your braai. Bode's braai brood
We hope you have enjoyed our first newsletter. If you have any interesting news that you would like to share, please write us an article and post it on the forum.
Regards,
Newsletter Editor
Yolande Bode
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