As of today I am on 1,255 species (20.9%) in the first six weeks of the year (665 of which are inverts). The latest addition being a tiny Pseudeuophrys lanigera that was actually sitting on the edge of the key hole on my front door when I got back from training! Yesterday, we had a look around Swanbourne Lake, part of the Norfolk Estate. I was mainly looking inside old tussocks of Greater Tussock-sedge. They were insanely productive, the highlight being this adult female Donacochara speciosa which was new to West Sussex!
Before that though, I pulled over by a flooded field along the Arun just south of Arundel WWT. There were hundreds of Black-headed Gulls and I was hoping to get Med Gull, which I soon did. I wasn't then expecting to get 80 Cattle Egrets!!! Followed by Gadwall and finally...Greylag (?). That's Little, Great White and Cattle Egrets before I got Greylag Goose. I am out of touch with looking for birds though, here I am trying to get on to some distant swans. My top target on the PSL website for the year is now Pochard.
Other spiders NFY included Rugathodes instabilis, Panamomops sulcifrons, Antistea elegans, Hahnia nava and Gongylidiellum vivum. That's 190 arachnids and 176 spiders for the year. I just love these tussocks. Water-measuers, Drinkers, Glow-worms - they contain multitudes!
I found a couple of these odd looking dung beetles in the tussocks, it's the non-native saproxylic species called Saprosites mendax. I though this was a lifer but remembered catching one by hand in the park by my house a couple of years ago. Turns out Arundel Park is well known for it. Saw-sedge was a surprise too, apparently it has been introduced there for over 150 years.
I did get a couple of lifers in the tussocks though. The NR carabid Badister peltatus and the centipede Strigamia crassipes. I think this is the first time I have seen Rosy Woodlouse in a tussock.
I swear these tussocks move when you're not looking. I always imagine Jim Henson lives on in them.
I beat some Box and immediately got a rather nice moth tick, which I was really not expecting. The big micro Ypsolopha mucronella. But even better than that, Anthocoris butleri new for me and all of Sussex. This species only feeds on Box and as I rarely see it in any abundance, I have never seen the bug before. Four invert lifers, one species new to Sussex and another new to West Sussex was not what I was expecting! It pays to go to sites you don't normally visit. I think I only ever visited here once 12 years ago but remembered the Box and tussocks.
In other news. the garden actinic has been super quiet since a Dark Chestnut in January but earlier this week I had a Southern Green Shieldbug.
And I went bryologising again with the local group in what was at first awful weather (I greeted Brad with "I've gone bryologising by mistake"). It turned out to be a top day, and I got a few lifers. Ben also spotted one of my favourite mosses on the side of a ghyll. Hookeria lucens. I couldn't get any closer with my camera though. Wild Garlic, Opposite-leaved Golden-sax and a Dolichovespula media queen were also NFY.
And that's my first target reached! I was aiming for 100 bryophytes for the year and with a little help, I have got to 107 species. So anything I can gain here I can take off my ridiculously high moth target of 850 species. Here's the totals so far...
Many thank to everyone who has sponsored me so far, please do consider sponsoring me if you can, I am fund raising for Sussex Wildlife Trust's reserves
here.
You can sign up to the pan-species listing website
here, it's totally free (although donations to the team are welcome).
And finally, my book is due to be released on the 26th Feb, two weeks today!!! You can order it
here, directly from Pelagic. Getting some great feedback.
We had a long, much-needed day out yesterday along the Cuckmere and then around to Seaford Head. It was a 'ten-mile day', the sort of day that starts in the dark and ends in the dark (at a Garden Centre for Uloborus plumipes). I added about 100 species to the year list, ending the first month on 1,121 species - that's 18.7% complete. This includes a whopping 593 invertebrates in January alone!
We were joined all day by my friend Alex Worsley and it was great fun. I picked up a few missing birds, like Little Grebe, Redshank, Shelduck, Lesser Black-backed Gull and an Avocet was a nice spot along the meanders. I have still not seen a Greylag?!
Plants like Yellow Horned-poppy and Sea Mayweed were new for the year, and vacuuming big clumps of YHP is really good for shingle inverts. Including 10 Ethelcus verrucatus in one sample!!! This is a really rare weevil that only feeds on YHP, and represents more of them than I have ever seen before. I am up to 165 beetles for the year.
It was pretty cold on the beach, there's a lot of motionless staring into trays looking for stuff to move. We got the three target linys Halorates reprobus, Silometopus ambiguus and Typhocrestus digitatus but the jumpers were not coming out to play. I added about 15 spiders, putting me on 158 species in January, 171 for all arachnids.
One vac of some Viper's-bugloss returned this weevil royalty, Mogulones geographicus. Tubs described it best "Lines and lines and lines and lines."
And I rarely see Gronops lunatus, it was a very beetle-heavy day.
And the scarce coastal woodlouse with bonkers antennae, Halophiloscia couchii.
The new District 9 movie looks a bit rubbish...
Round to Seaford Head and a quick look back up the saltmarsh for known patches of Sea Wormwood, Sea Plantain, Common Sea-lavender and Common Saltmarsh-grass. Stomping past lines of bewildered tourists trying to walk along a REALLY muddy sea wall in their totally unsuitable footwear was hilarious. It was worth it though, as I got a lifer in the form of Saldula pilosella, a scarce coastal shore bug.
In the same area, the only place I know of where you can see Trichosirocalus thalhammeri.
And an unexpected Chrysolina staphylaea was only my sixth ever record.
At Hope Gap, a few easy ticks like Moon Carrot and Helicella itala.
And Alex told me what this Cladonia is, that I have been looking at up there for years as Cladonia foliacea. A lifer.
A bit of vacuuming and I got an adult female Agroeca inopina.
Many thank to everyone who has sponsored me so far, please do consider sponsoring me if you can, I am fund raising for Sussex Wildlife Trust's reserves
here.
You can sign up to the pan-species listing website
here, it's totally free (although donations to the team are welcome).
And finally, my book is due to be released on the 26th Feb, less than a month to go!!! You can order it
here, directly from Pelagic. Also, my copies have arrived!!! People who pre-ordered it, should be getting their copies very soon! It looks amazing, I am so pleased with it.
This week; maybe some night-time rock-pooling, lichens and spiders on heaths. And maybe a bit on some arable too, all depends on the weather.
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