The Lyons Share

I have literally only just managed to enter all the records from the 1000 species challenge. I have been chipping away at them for weeks. I have already reported that we had three species new to the reserve network (never recorded on any SWT reserve before). These were; the Welsh Oak Longhorn Beetle (shown above), the mite Aceria origani (a gall forming mite on Wild Marjoram) and...Walnut. Yes there is a naturalised Walnut tree that's grown up in the last few years and that's a new record for the site and any reserve. Although it turns out there is one at Ditchling too.

What about the species new to just the specific reserve they have been recorded on? Well, of the 1033 (this has dropped by two since pulling this together, I doubled counted Great Tit and deleted Oyster Mushroom), 177 (17.1%) were recorded between the reserves leaving 856 (82.9%) record on the reserves. Of these, 114 (13.3%) had never been recorded on that particular reserve before. Levin had the most new species with 24 out of 93 (24.7%). This is surprising as I surveyed the invertebrates there in 2016! 

Here is the breakdown of the species we recorded by reserve. We wanted to break the back of it at Ebernoe early on without moving too much which I think was a good tactic.

This just goes to show that was partly a bit of fun and also partly a fund-raising and promotional event turned out to have a real tangible recording element. I think part of this is down to being on sites at unusual times using methods you perhaps wouldn't normally use. The other big factor is going to parts of reserves you wouldn't usually go to. You tend to survey at the best bits of reserves but if you want to get a huge list you need to start sweeping as soon as you walk through the gate. The rank grass at the bottom of the hill at Levin that is a long way from being good quality chalk-grassland, produced a lot of site firsts!

Some of the site firsts were indeed quite surprising. That is how recording goes though. Here they all are in the order they were recorded. Just bare in mind that this is the first record that's been made, it might not be the first time it's been seen there. Also, the sites with multiple ownership (Burton and Amberley) this is just referring to SWT's portion of the site. So, Bombus pascuorum is new to SWT's portion of the site, it may well have been recorded elsewhere on Amberley Wildbrooks.

Taxa	Species	No.		Reserve
Spiders	Metellina merianae	88		Ebernoe
Plants	Slender Rush	106		Ebernoe
Bugs	Velia caprai	150		Ebernoe
Moths	Psyche catsta	217		Ebernoe
Plants	Hairy Bitter-cress	245		Ebernoe
Moths	Hedya pruniana	283		Ebernoe
Moths	Argyresthia conjugella	302		Ebernoe
Beetles	Welsh Oak Longhorn Beetle	326		Ebernoe & network
Bryophytes	Polytrichum juniperinum	334		Ebernoe
Spiders	Robertus lividus	342		Ebernoe
Spiders	Philodromus albidus	407		Ebernoe
Beetles	Conopalpus testaceus	430		Ebernoe
Springtails	Orchesella cincta	433		Ebernoe
Spiders	Ballus chalybeius	450		Ebernoe
Lichens	Ramalina fastigiata	458		Ebernoe
Plants	Wilson's Honeysuckle	463		Ebernoe
Moths	Depressia daucella	469		Ebernoe
Bugs	Polymerus nigra	481		Ebernoe
Molluscs	Planorbis carinatus	588		Amberley
Bugs	Capsus ater	589		Amberley
Fish	Three-spined Stickleback	590		Amberley
Aculeates	Bombus pascuroum	595		Amberley
Aculeates	Bombus lapidarius	598		Amberley
Beetles	Kidney-spot Ladybird	599		Amberley
Spiders	Lariniodes cornutus	600		Amberley
Bugs	Cymus claviculus	601		Amberley
Beetles	Tychius picirostris	603		Amberley
Moths	Water Ermine	608		Amberley
Molluscs	Derocerus reticulatum	610		Amberley
Moths	Small China-mark	622		Amberley
Flies	Rhagio scolopaceus	623		Amberley
Crickets	Slender Groundhopper	624		Amberley
Aculeates	Lasius niger	629		Amberley
Spiders	Misumena vatia	637		Amberley
Crickets	Meadow Grasshopper	638		Amberley
Moths	Brown China-mark	640		Amberley
Plants	True Fox Sedge	641		Amberley
Flies	Helophilus pendulus	644		Amberley
Flies	Leucozona lucorum	645		Amberley
Spiders	Agelena labyrinthica	671		Waltham
Beetles	Cionus tuberculosus	686		Waltham
Beetles	Dorcus parallelipipidus	692		Waltham
Crustaceans	Platyarthrus hoffmannseggii	693		Waltham
Plants	Rosebay Willowherb	694		Waltham
Beetles	Phyllobrotica quadrimaculata	698		Waltham
Bugs	Teratocoris antennatus	700		Waltham
Beetles	Pterostichus diligens	701		Waltham
Flies	Chrysotoxum festivum	704		Waltham
Cockroach	Dusky Cockroach	709		Waltham
Bugs	Pithanus maerkelii	710		Waltham
Flies	Tropidia scita	739		Waltham
Flies	Platycheirus rosarum	740		Waltham
Plants	Procumbent Pearlwort	747		Graffham
Spiders	Araneus angulatus	750		Graffham
Beetles	Aphodius fossor	756		Graffham
Crickets	Dark Bush-cricket	757		Graffham
Moths	Red Sword-grass	780		Graffham
Spiders	Salticus scenicus	785		Graffham
Spiders	Micaria pulicaria	786		Graffham
Moths	Pempelia palumbella	796		Graffham
Plants	Yellow-rattle	807		Graffham
Plants	Groundsel	809		Graffham
Moths	Oak Eggar	824		Graffham
Birds	Mistle Thrush	828		Graffham
Flies	Mesembrina meridiana	834		Graffham
Moths	Pine Beauty	836		Graffham
Bugs	Gorse Shieldbug	840		Graffham
Bugs	Blue Shieldbug	841		Graffham
Plants	Carnation Sedge	846		Graffham
Beetles	Cionus alauda	853		Graffham
Moths	Ancylis uncella	854		Graffham
Spiders	Tibellus maritimus	856		Graffham
Spiders	Dipoena tristis	857		Graffham
Beetles	Ontholestes murinus	866		Graffham
Flies	Jaapiella veronicae	890		Levin
Bugs	Stenocranus minutus	905		Levin
Ticks & mites	Aceria origani	909		Levin & network
Beetles	Cordylepherus viridis	915		Levin
Molluscs	Pomatias elegans	921		Levin
Beetles	Cryptocephalus aureolus	924		Levin
Spiders	Neoscona adianta	927		Levin
Bugs	Stenodema laevigata	935		Levin
Bugs	Deraeocoris lutescens	937		Levin
Flies	Bacha elongata	941		Levin
Plants	Walnut	944		Levin & network
Moths	Cinnabar	948		Levin
Beetles	Variable Longhorn Beetle	951		Levin
Beetles	Vine Weevil	955		Levin
Millipedes	Tachypodoiulus niger	967		Levin
Spiders	Neottiura bimaculata	975		Levin
Millipedes	Proteroiulus fuscus	977		Levin
Moths	Brown Plume	978		Levin
Moths	Helcystogramma rufescens	980		Levin
Beetles	Caladromius spilotus	981		Levin
Plants	Cotoneaster horizontalis	986		Levin
Scorpion fly	Panorpa germanica	993		Levin
Moths	Pseudargyrotoza conwagana	994		Levin
Moths	Nettle-tap	998		Levin
Moths	Gold Swift	1016		Burton
Moths	Small Elephant Hawk-moth	1019		Burton
Moths	Rustic Shoulder-knot	1021		Burton
Beetles	Byrrhus pilula	1024		Burton
Beetles	Silpha atrata	1025		Burton
Beetles	Brown Chafer	1027		Burton
Moths	Donacaula mucronella	1031		Burton
Molluscs	Oxyloma elegans	1033		Burton
Beetles	Cockchafer	1035		Burton
Moths	Water Veneer	1038		Burton
Moths	Lobster Moth	1039		Burton
Moths	Pale Prominent	1041		Burton
Moths	White Ermine	1042		Burton
Moths	Small Seraphim	1043		Burton
Moths	Eidophasia messingiella	1044		Burton
Bugs	Closterotomus fulvomaculatus	1046		Graffham

Caput

Latin dictionary: head

Urban dictionary: done with, over, dead broken, the end of, no more

Last week, Alice and I did a 'mini-bioblitz' at Gillham Wood. One of our smaller sites with no designations (in over seven years of blogging, this is my first post about the site!), it's much lower down the priority list for monitoring. This means we don't do much structured monitoring there, it's simply not going to greatly inform management. It's at sites like this that casual recording is welcome though, so we attempted to see if we could beat the 108 species noted on the spreadsheet. We did, with 145 species in just over two hours. The highlight was this micro moth which I beat from a Hawthorn on the southern edge of the wood. It's Spuleria flavicaput (what an awesome scientific name?) or the Yellow-headed Cosmet. The are only six records in the county so it's quite a goody abd it's new to the whole reserve network.  It's my 1045th moth and 6545th species. It's the 1233rd moth on our reserves and the 9846th species we've recorded on our reserves so far. We also recorded a few nice ancient woodland indicators such as Pignut, Wood Speedwell and Butcher's Broom.

Now for the bad news. My back has gone again and this time it's pretty bad. I had thought that last week's flare up had resolved itself as yesterday I mostly felt fine but this morning the disc has got much worse and my left lats have gone into spasm. It's pretty bad when both happen at once. I have only three weeks left before the 1000 species challenge! Dave has suggested he'll be carrying me around on a stretcher. Maybe we could get some Segways?

This post has been brought to you by the medium of opiate based pain killers and Libby's birthday cake which has more sugar in a slice than I've eaten all year. Now to catch up with entering some records, my 40,000th record is coming up!

A couple of weekends ago, Dave and I had another go at limbering up for the 1000 species challenge (that's the two of us aiming to see and identify 1000 species or more in a 24 hour period on the 10th June). We did 400 species in 4 hours and 16 minutes which I am pretty pleased with. Most of this was from two sites with a bit of Burton Pond tagged on at the end. The highlight for me was this mystery caterpillar that I had to admit defeat on. I ended up going right up to the top of Butterfly Conservation to get a species name. It's none other than a Pale Eggar. This was my bogey moth for a long time. This was beaten from oak in Dennis's Croft in Ebernoe. It's quite a scarce moth that I have only seen once or twice before.

Anyway, four hours was hard work but I reckon we are going to make it on the day, weather permitting! We will have our hands full but are hoping somehow to do social media and photographic updates on the day but this might need the help of some other friends. We have our (top secret) route planned and we think it's a good one but time will tell. So don't forget the 10th June 2017, we certainly won't!

Fund raising for the 1000 species challenge has now started, so please sponsor us what you can here at our Just Giving page.