The Lyons Share

This small, hairy and well marked crab spider handed itself in today. I found it crawling around on my net at Chailey Warren, one of the only spiders I saw there. At first, I struggled with the ID, thinking it was a Philodromus but I soon realised it had to be Thanatus striatus (species 3872). As a way of getting to grips with and understanding whole groups, I may try a new feature called something like: 'Where I'm at with...spiders' for example. Looking closely at what proportion of the fauna I have seen, what areas I am struggling with, highlights and species I'd like to see etc. I wonder if this would be useful for other people? It certainly would for me.

I went to Chailey Warren briefly on Tuesday. I went there to carry out an NVC survey. In winter you ask? In the snow? Well, yes. It's a small site and I had already mentally assigned the vegetation there to a very small number of communities so it was simply a matter of rolling up with an aerial and drawing on the handful of polygons. In the centre of the site, there is an area of under grazed Molinia mire (NVC community M25). The tussocks of this deciduous grass can be seen more clearly in the snow. It's been under grazed due to a lack of access to the site. Things have changed now though and the reserves team are currently putting a new fence line in so we can graze and add some structure as well as help slow down the encroachment of birch and bramble. This management should help the Marsh Gentian which was still present on the site during a visit in 2011.

I did get a new moss for me, a very common species that I am amazed I have not seen before being the Common Pincushion Dicranoweisia cirrata. That puts me on 3753 species.