The Lyons Share

Had a great day out spidering with me old mate Adrian Holloway today. We started in torrential rain at the Cuckmere looking for Pseudeuophrys obseleta. We didn't find it but did find an adult male Sitticus inexpectus but that was already on my list from the other side of the river this year. I did however get a couple of really nice linys that I had never seen before. Typhochrestus digitatus at its only Sussex site and loads of the very cool Pelecopsis nemoralioides. Both nationally scarce and both species new to me. The latter was the first East Sussex record since 1961. Also new for the year was a long overdue Dysdera erythrina. Here is the male Sitticus inexpectus.

And the Pelecopsis nemoralioides.

A quick dash over to the Pevesney Levels to look for one of my favourite wolf spiders. The impressive and scarce Pirata piscatorius, this being the only known East Sussex site. So big and bad ass they often get mistaken for Dolomedes! Much darker and bigger than any of the others in the genus, they usually have a strong white stripe down the side of the cephalothorax but this one didn't.

And then a quick dash over to my favourite bit of abused and abandoned shingle, the Crumbles. There we picked up Typhocrestus digitatus again, at which is now its second Sussex site. The weevil Ethelcus verrucatus and this new assassin bug, Empicoris rubromaculatus. New to East Sussex after it was spotted near Henfield only last month.

And no trip to the Crumbles is complete without a Myrmarachne formicaria. Here is a little video to show how ant-like they really are. So FOUR new ones for the year leaves me on 326 species of spider for 2019.

Jumping spiders are awesome, So awesome in fact that this article can only be read by listening to Van Halen. All jumping spiders permanently have this on on their headphones.

There is however one massive problem with jumping spiders: there are not enough of them. If you count the three accidental species, there are 42 on the list, if not it's just 39. I have been lucky enough to see 28 of these 42 species so far, I'm running out of them!

I have 455 records of jumping spiders in my database. Here they are starting with the species with the most records...

1) Marpissa muscosa (nationally scarce) - 49 records

Our biggest jumper is pretty easy to pick up from casual observations on gate posts, so that's probably why it's my most recorded jumper (despite being scarce it's common in the south east). It's also easy to find when looking for deadwood beetles.

2) Neon reticulatus - 43 records

I don't have a photo of this diminutive species but it seems to be ubiquitous in moss and is really easy to find with the suction sampler.

3) Salticus scenicus - also 43 records

The familiar synathropic species doesn't turn up that much on surveys on nature reserves but does well for casual recording around towns and semi-urban sites.

4) Euophrys frontalis - 41 records

This little jumper is actually a member of the magic circle, having two magic wands grafted on to where it's front legs should be. Looking at its eyes it also has severe hay fever. Very common, especially in litter piles etc.

5) Evarcha arcuata (nationally scarce) - 37 records

This mainly heathland specialist is clearly well represented in my records for all the surveys I have done on heathlands. This is a stonking jumper, the adult males look like miniature Gorillas with added war paint. And legs. Female above, male below.

6)  Heliophanus flavipes - 36 records

OK, I know this will make me unpopular but if we have our favourites, we should also have our least favourites. I don't really like Heliophanus. We have two mega common species that are not always easy to do in the field. Neither is scarce and neither really tells me anything about the habitat. And I have no photos of either. The fluorescent yellow palps in the female are purchased from Cyberdog. There are two other rare and restricted species I am yet to see.

7) Evarcha falcata - 29 records

Phwoar!!! This on the other hand, is a smart spider. I am a sucker for a contrastingly tri-coloured invertebrate. The proportions are so pleasing too. Imagine having one of these the size of a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. You'd get some looks going to the shops! I don't see this as much as arcuata despite that having cons status and this not.

8) Ballus chalybeius (nationally scarce) - 28 records

This species is pretty easy to find by beating foliage of trees and bushes in the summer. I tend to record the female more than the male. Here is the only shot I could find of an adult male. It looks like Sibianor aurocinctus but I have only ever found that in grassland. That one is coming. I love this guy's front legs and 'upholstered' abdomen.

9) Heliophanus cupreus - 24 records.

Meh. The other species in the genus.

10) Sibianor aurocinctus - (nationally scarce) - 22 records 

I can't believe that this has made it into the top ten. I only recorded my first one in May 2016 at Levin Down. I could blame this on the purchase of my suction sampler but I think it's going through a genuine increase as most of my records are from the sweep net. Although most have been on chalk, I have picked them up on neutral and slightly acid grassland and sometimes not even particularity good grassland. If you think Ballus's legs are cool, you ain't seen nothing yet. Get a load of this.

8. Rock-pooling at the Pound near Eastbourne produced my first live Lobster (which promptly nipped me) and not only my first species of sea slug but three species of them, I've still not seen them anywhere else! It's the best place I know for rock-pooling in Sussex. Thanks to Oli Froom for the photo.

7. Wildlife in Portugal was AMAZING. I had ten new birds which were all unforgettable but the highlight has to be Mediterranean Chameleon just for how much effort we put into tracking one down and its sudden appearance at the final hour.

6. Controversial as it might be, mopping up loads of rare bugs on Jersey and adding them to my PSL list was a blast. This Graphosoma lineatum says it all really.

5. After walking the beach in Hove for weeks looking for a Portuguese Man o' War, I finally struck gold after a tip off from work that they'd arrived.

4. Invertebrate survey at Butcherlands, Ebernoe Common. I still haven't identified all the specimens yet but the spiders alone were amazing. The large population of Pardosa paludicola was a real surprise to everyone. Thanks to Evan Jones for the photo.

3. The invertebrate survey at Graffham Common was even more surprising, the spiders were also out of this world there but it was perhaps this Sundew Plume, that hadn't been seen in Sussex for 20 years that was most surprising.

2. 1000 species in a day. Probably the most fun you can have in 24 hours of non-stop biological recording. Read more about this here. Photo by Alice Parfitt.

1. Pan-species Listing ALL of Sussex Wildlife Trust's 32 reserves. When I first did this last year we were on around 9770. I have six reserves left to analyse and I will have updated the list for the year. Will we have reached 10,000? I will be talking about this at Adastra soon in more detail but I can't express enough how useful an exercise this has been and will continue to be if regularly updated. I use the spreadsheet every day now and can't imagine doing my job without it.

Well, in less than 24 hours, my last post on the Osprey has already become my third most viewed post. Anyway, before I saw that I was having a look at the vegetated shingle at the mouth of the valley and found some really interesting invertebrates. First up was this tiny little dark pyralid that I first mistook for a tortrix (until I saw its massive conk, which I thought looked like a sound boom). This is Platytes cerusella, a local moth found around the coast in dry places. The males are much darker than the females.

I also found the first record of the scarce jumping spider Sitticus inexpectus there since 1990.

Other highlights included the tiny myrmecophile ladybird Platynapsis luteorubra, the even smaller ladybird Nephus redtenbacheri, the tiny ant Ponera testacea and walking back a carabid tick, Zabrus tenebrioides. With an Osprey on the end of this lot, it wasn't a bad day!

For the record, I HATE the use of BOOM! in birding and natural history, I'm only using it here in an attempt to be funny.

Giant sea creature? Meteorite? Crashed UFO? Drowning dog? Poorly-flown drone? Massive fish-eating bird? This is the exact moment a large foreign object landed in the meanders at Cuckmere Haven today. It was of course a massive fish-eating bird or Osprey and after all these years, it's the first time I have seen one fishing, let alone the first time I have seen one catch a fish. Before this sequence I watched it dive twice and catch a huge fish on the 2nd dive. However, it had the fish dangling down by its tail and it was flapping around like mad, so I think it dropped it, as it wasn't holding it minutes later.

Anyway very soon after that it came round again much closer to me so I attempted some rubbish photos (my camera isn't the best for birds) which are heavily cropped. I love these fantastic raptors. Always a huge pleasure to see and it's been years since my last one. I love this first shot for showing just how long winged they are.

Tail up ready for impact. It's hard to imagine it could look more like a plane at this point.

Here it is the moment it leaves the water! Looks pretty odd here.

And it was off. What an awesome experience that was. Don't leave it seven years next time hey?