Very rare bees found on new Cornish Bartinney Nature Reserve

Two very rare species of bee have been discovered on the new Bartinney Nature Reserve near Sennen in west Penwith, reports the Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

The tormentil nomad bee (Nomada robertjeotiana) is so rare that it is only currently known at one other site in the south west, near Davidstow.

This species uses the nests of another rare bee, the tormentil mining bee (Andrena tarsata), known to only three UK sites and also discovered at Bartinney. Both are moorland species that have undergone a dramatic decline since the 1970s.

Paddy Saunders, the invertebrate expert who discovered both species of bee during a survey for Natural England said: “The tormentil mining bee needs lots and lots of flowering tormentil very near to nest sites, from which to collect pollen to feed their larvae that live in small chambers slightly underground.

“It is unusual to find such big colonies of tormentil mining bee and the Trust’s Bartinney Nature Reserve, with its big drifts of flowering tormentil, is clearly an important site for them.

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Badger stew dish of the day for British roadkill fan

DAVIDSTOW (United Kingdom) (AFP) - Take one dead badger, head and all, dust with flour and herbs, season and braise for five hours -- that's the recipe for a perfect stew, according to British roadkill eater Arthur Boyt.

From dogs and cats to polecats and mice, Boyt insists there is nothing tastier than scooping up a dead animal from the roadside and taking it back to his remote home in Cornwall, southwest England, to skin, gut and cook.

Boyt, 74, a nature obsessive whose house is dotted with animal skulls and taxidermy, has been eating roadkill since the 1960s and thinks more people should do the same.

"People say 'oooh, do you really?' when I say I'm having roadkill. I say 'well, if you tried it, you would probably enjoy it'," Boyt tells AFP as a batch of badger stew bubbles away in his kitchen.

"It's not in the taste of the food, it's in the head.

"It's a threshold you have to step over if you're going to eat this kind of stuff. You say 'OK, this is just meat.'"

The retired researcher's favourite dish is dog -- he has eaten two lurchers and a labrador which were hit by cars. He insists he tried to find the owners before eating them.

Boyt compares the "smooth, round, sweet" flavour of dog meat to lamb, adding: "I'd drink a red wine with it -- possibly a Chianti."

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