This is Pissodes pini, a beetle that I collected during a survey at Old Lodge last year in April, it wasn't until this week that I was informed it was actually a first for Sussex! I very nearly over looked it in among the larger Pine Weevils Hylopbius abietis. Like the Pine Weevil, it's found on dead and decaying pines but is usually more of a northern species. That's not the only county first I have had confirmed this week though.
This is Acidota crenata. A staph that I found on one of the turf-stripped areas at Iping Common in September.
Again this is thought of as a more northern and possibly even alpine species. So why was it found on bare ground on one of the hottest heathlands in the south?!
I have had a third species new to Sussex confirmed this week in the form of a small snail called
Balea heydeni I found under Elder bark at Seaford Head back in October, if you look at
this post too you will realise just how fortunate it was for me to be in the wrong place at the right time. I didn't get a photo of that one though. So with
Stenus palustris new to Sussex from Filsham Reedbed, where it is abundant and the naturalised ground bug
Nysius hutoni we found at the Crumbles in vast numbers in July means I had
five species new to Sussex in 2013. Four of these on sites managed by the Trust!
Now a thing I realised the other day about firsts for Sussex is that they are more significant than most county firsts because we have TWO counties!
After an hour and a half of sieving clumps of moss at Ditchling Beacon today I managed to find eight new species, including a few really unusual species but that will have to wait for another day...
I've been looking back at my pan-species listing efforts recently and given the time of year, it's got me thinking of another goal. Now, I AM going to hit 5000 easily this year so that's not really something to aim for. Pan-species listing is a new phenomena and it won't be until people have been doing it for many decades that the bar will be set for future generations to aim for. That got me thinking. Short term goals are not the way forward. We have to think in terms of the 'long haul'. Immediately my challenge sprung into my mind whilst I was in the bath wrestling the inevitable NYE hang over.
I am going to attempt to see 10,000 species in the UK before I am 40.
So, is this actually achievable? There are 1566 days (don't panic, I've counted the leap year in 2016) left until I am 40. I need to see 5277 species in that time. This works out at 3.37 species per day, every day. That is tough going. I have added five species today from a sample in May but is that effort sustainable?
Here is the first post I did about pan-species listing back on the 1st August 2010 when there were very few people doing it and it still didn't have a name! Since then I have added 1975 species! But that is three years and five months which works out at only 1.58 species per day. I have had long periods where I have lost interest in it over the years and have struggled to get one new species in a month!
Why bother though? What has pan-species listing done for me? I'll tell you what:
- I've gone from an experienced naturalist to a competent entomologist in three years, capable of carrying out invertebrate surveys which supplement the bird and botanical surveys I already do as part of my work.
- Through blogging about it, I have encouraged lots of other people to get involved and have developed a strong reputation that benefits both my career and the Trust.
- It encouraged me to digitise my records and some 10 months after going down that route, I now have 17,662 records entered.
- I've watched a lively and thriving community develop around this movement and have made some good friends in the process.
These are just the benefits to me, so imagine what the benefits are to conservation and natural history from the movement as a whole. I'd like pan-species listing to get a little more recognition than it does to be honest.
In the dark old days, when birding dominated my natural history efforts and I wasted years of my life year-listing, maybe a dozen times a year I would experience seeing something new for the first time. Now it happens most days, often several times a day and I have to say, it's something I expect I will do until the day I die (which makes me think I wonder what my last ever tick will be). Am I addicted? Yes. But there are worse things to be addicted to!
I don't think for a second I will get to 10,000 in that time, the last time I attempted a 1000 in a year, things went a little awry but Tony Davis has managed a 1000 in a year and it's got me thinking about having another go. I've got a much better set up with my study, data base and new system of keeping track of 'ticks' so maybe they will all help.
I'm already ahead of schedule with five new species today including the cuckoo bee Nomada ruficornis above as well as Nomada marshamella, Neoascia meticulosa (a fly), Gongylidium rufipes (a money spider) and Perapion hydrolapathi (a beetle).
I suppose I'm gonna have to get into flies.
Had a hectic few days entomology at work whilst the weather has been more usable. Today at Old Lodge I caught up with Carabus arvensis, a big impressive carabid that I found under a stone of the scrape. Another highlight was the impressive Staphylinus erythropterus under a tin sheet.
However, it was a spider that stole the show again. Micrommata virescens showed up on the survey as a single female last month. This time however, we recorded five males (I had heard the males were much harder to find than the females - not so at Old Lodge!). It was nice to see such huge invertebrates that, thanks to the over cast conditions, were easy to photograph.
Yesterday was a much better recording day and I recorded a number of interesting species at Filsham including Nigma puella and Philodromus albidus, both Nb spiders. Plenty of Silis ruficollis too, a nationally scarce soldier beetle, probably the most abundant soldier beetle there.
I can't believe it's been nearly a year since I did this last. A recent resurgence in activity has spurred me on to pull this all together, as have a few comments from friends that I'm no longer listing. How wrong they are. So between 1st June 2012 and the 27th April 2013 I have added 223 species putting me on 4222 species. It would seem I have been ousted
out of the top ten into 11th place. Anyway, lots going with surveys at Filsham and Old Lodge this year. Highlights this week were an
Oodes helopioides I sieved out of reed litter in the fen at Filsham, a
Dromius angustus that Chris Bentley found at Old Lodge and this huge female
Amaurobius ferox which I found at the end of my street in Brighton. April has been a good month with three new vertebrates and dozens of invertebrates, I wonder what species 4223 will be?...
| Vascular
plants |
1186 (+30) |
| Moths |
873 (+15) |
| Beetles |
544 (+61) |
| Birds |
347 (+2) |
| Fungi |
209 (+3) |
| Mosses |
171 (+34) |
| Arachnids |
160 (+21) |
| True
bugs |
108 (+17) |
| True
flies |
106 (+8) |
| Molluscs |
79 (+4) |
| Aculeates |
70 (+3) |
| Butterflies |
53 |
| Mammals |
45 (+4) |
| Liverworts |
43 (+7) |
| Fish |
40 (+1) |
| Crustaceans |
32 (+2) |
| Dragonflies |
32 |
| Lichens |
31 (+1) |
| Crickets
& grasshoppers |
19 |
| Seaweeds
& algae |
7 |
| Reptiles |
7 |
| Amphibians |
6 |
| Anemones
& jellyfish |
6 |
| Mites |
6 (+1) |
| Lacewings
& allies |
6 (+2) |
| Caddisflies |
6 (+3) |
| Leeches |
5 (+2) |
| Millipedes |
5 |
| Cockroaches |
3 |
| Slime
Mould |
3 |
| Springtails |
2 |
| Parasitica |
2 |
| Centipedes |
2 |
| Mayfly |
2 |
| Lice |
1 |
| Silverfish |
1 |
| Earwigs |
1 |
| Aphid |
1 |
| Flatworm |
1 |
| Sponge |
1 |
It could be something to do with that I have been watching the Walking Dead all day that I could come up with such a blog title for what was essentially a survey of Wild Daffodils, but as usual, it's the the less obvious things I encounter when I'm out, the underdogs, that interest me. Yes, Wild Daffodils have their own intrinsic beauty but this Toothwort that Nick Sturt got me on to, does it more for me. Looking like dentures that have fallen out of a gawping botanist's mouth or a half-buried dead creature, Toothwort has to be one of the strangest plants out there. I find all the plants that can't be bothered to get their energy from the Sun hugely fascinating. Considering the host is Hazel, why is it so scarce at West Dean Woods?
It was 'bring your girlfriend to work day' last Thursday and Rachael was great at spotting daffs, even when they weren't flowering. She also spotted this Yellow Brain Fungus.
The mapping exercise was a success, I hope to show the results on here next week. For those that like Wild Daffodils, here are bunch of the showy little tarts. Apparently, they look amazing this year! Whatever floats your boat, give me Toothwort any day!
Finally, to dispel any myths that I'm not out there doing natural history or listing anymore, my current list is on 4209 and I've added 30 species (mostly invertebrates) since the start of March! All of this is from the two surveys I am doing at work this year, one at Filsham Reedbed with Alice Parfitt and the other at Old Lodge with Chris Bentley. I anticipate these surveys being the main source of additions to my list this year based upon the success of the March visits but that is another story...
Must be one of the best names in natural history and I found a couple of these tiny snails on Thursday at Filsham Reedbed. Alice and I have started an invertebrate survey there to inform management and I was pleasantly surprised to have recorded 53 species on a cold day in March! That's just the species I could identify quickly. We have adopted the 'timed-count' methodology which has been so useful at other sites. Sieving was the main method we were using this time though rather than beating or sweeping and it was really productive!
So far I have identified 23 beetles, 8 snails, 8 bugs, 7 spiders, 2 leeches, one moth and earwig. Eleven of these were new to me but the species I was perhaps most pleased to see was this tiny snail, Vertigo antivertigo. At 1.5 mm long, it would have been really easy to overlook it. I did manage to 'ping' one specimen with my forceps as I was trying to count the teeth!
Other highlights included three nationally scarce carabids; Demetrias imperialis, Odacantha melanura and Pterostichus anthracinus. I managed to identify a couple of female money spiders too, including the oddly patterned Lophomma punctata. This survey will carry on until the September or October and is the first completely in-house invertebrate survey we have carried out at the Trust. I expect we will get quite a list and learn lots about the site. Also heard my first Bearded Tit at Filsham. My list stands at 4192 species.
At Filsham today I stumbled across a pond with a nice muddy margin. I almost immediately groaned as I saw it was covered in (what i thought was) New Zealand Pygmyweed. A closer inspection showed it to be a water starwort and upon looking more closely at it, I realised it was Intermediate Water-starwort. This species looks to be the second commonest water-starwort after common, still it's a new one for me. The pond was also full of Fine-leaved Water-dropwort. I end the day on 3692 species.
Alice presented me with this little crab spider last week. She found it in her hair upon returning from a day's work at Filsham Reedbed so I thought I would have a go at identifying it. I recognised it as being in the genus Xysticus but there are twelve species and need to be seperated by their genitalia. With spiders, this is all on the outside but the female's genitalia, the epigyne, is (for me at any rate) far harder to distinguish than the male's genitalia, the palps. I think this is because the palps are more complex and it is easier to observe variation between more complex structures than simple ones.
I have only ever seen one species, Xysticus cristatus and I identified that from a male specimen. Knowing that this was from a wetland and reading that there was a swamp specialist in the genus (ulmi), I gave it a go. Here is the epigyne, I think it is just the common species cristatus but this just goes to show how hard I find them. I am not confident enough to put it to species. Xysticus sp. it is then. No ticks for me and from now on I will concentrate on the males.
Whilst visiting Filsham today, I spotted a few plants in a nearby field that were new to me. First off is the nationally scarce Broad-leaved Spurge with its warty fruits and (in this instance) bright red stems.
Nearby (and not unexpected after the above) is the local Field Woundwort, one I have always wanted to see and a bit of a midget compared to many other labiates. I also spotted Fine-leaved Water-dropwort, one that I don't see often. Beetle-wise, I have not seen much lately but I did find the nationally scarce (Nb) Crudosilis ruficolis. Despite not making a real effort to list, I am currently on 3554 species and 1126 vascular plants. This means that 31.7% of my list is made up of vascular plants.
We had an interesting team day out looking at two sites in East Sussex. That didn't stop me getting six ticks though. Perhaps best of all was this smart snail. We saw three on the trunks of old Hornbeams. It's the Lapidary Snail Helicigona lapicida and is quite big, the shell perhaps 1.5 cm across. The keel on the edge is very clear although the photo is not that crisp. I had to look up 'lapidary' and I liked the first definition I came across which was 'concerned with stone'. Despite this, they do occur on trees too. Looking at the atlas, it does not look all that common in the south east.
The meadows at Marline are looking great, there are Common Spotted Orchids and Dyer's Greenweed everywhere this year.
Earlier on I found this Purple Hairstreak at rest in one of the meadows.
We then went on to Filsham where I added a couple of common hoverflies to my list and this Greater Bladderwort. After all that I end the day on 3446 species.
I went to Filsham Reedbed today and all the work that has been done there over the winter looks great. A miserable day though and I saw very little wildlife. This woody cigar-shaped swelling on a
Common Reed stem, as far as I know, is the gall of the fly
Lipara lucens and is known as a cigar gall (I find it hard to say cigar gall without it sounding like cigargoyle!). I think it is the only species that produces this particular type of gall on reed. I have never seen the fly but there is a grub inside that woody cigar somewhere. They seem to be common in all the reedbeds I have been in but I know next to nothing about galls. The FSC book 'British Plant Galls' is really good and I'm itching to use it more this summer.
I also found this small (c4 mm) carabid which keyed out quite easily to
Bembidion biguttatum. It was hiding in some fallen deadwood, it's associated with water and damp grassland and is quite common apparently. Sorry for the rubbish photo. I struggle with
Bembidions, there are lots of similar species but this one seemed very straight forward. Now, I'm hoping for some decent weather tomorrow!
Not the globular cluster in Sagittarius, the calcareous fen NVC community of course! Ecologists love acronyms and alpha-numerics and none are more ambiguous and meaningless than those used in the National Vegetation Classification. M25, U2, M16 are all examples. Love it or hate it, the NVC is a pretty useful tool and the large area of M22 at Filsham Reedbed was doing well when I was there yesterday. It's Blunt-flowered Rush/Marsh Thistle calcareous fen. In the photo you can see that Ragged Robin and Meadowsweet are community constants. You can see the Blunt-flowered Rush in the background as a dark patch. This area is summer cut to promote this kind of vegetation and reduce the vigor of Reed which can be seen throughout. This NVC community is scarce.
I completed the 7th visit of the Filsham bird survey yesterday there was a Cuckoo on the reserve and I saw my first fledgling Reed Warblers of the year but other than that there was little to note.
Sadly I found New Zealand Pygmyweed Crassula helmsii (photo attached) today at Filsham Reedbed during a breeding bird survey. It's only a small patch and hopefully we will be able to get on top of it. It's a really hard to kill amphibious plant that can completely choke ditches and ponds, it was introduced from New Zealand as a garden aquatic. It's notoriously difficult to get rid of and even if you did get rid of it there is a good chance your neighbours won't have and it's likely to come back. Given it is known from Pevensey Levels and Rye Harbour, it was only a matter of time before it arrived at Filsham as it's easily carried between sites on people's boots and by migrating birds. On a lighter note, the survey produced 20 singing Reed Warblers, 4 Cetti's Warblers and 4 Sedge Warblers. Strangely I saw a Fulmar flying over the reeds at about 6.00am. At Woods Mill we attempted a new dragonfly transect but the sun went in and yielded only two Large Red Damselfly. Surprisingly though we had two Red Kites flying south east over the reserve towards Devils Dyke at about 2.00pm. A final surprise was a Corn Bunting on the fence along the road between Devils Dyke and the A27 on my way home from work.
I decided to do my bird surveys in the evening this week (the protocol states that 2/10 visits can be evening visits). There were five Nightingales on the reserve at Woods Mill, one up on last year (if they all hang around!). There may be three Reed Bunting territories too but I'm still not sure. There was a Cuckoo late on and some large Noctule type bats. I also saw a Scorched Carpet and a few Shoulder-stripe moths. This evening I went to Filsham Reedbed, there was one Nightingale there, good numbers of Cetti's Warblers and Reed Warblers. I flushed a couple of Snipe but they were not behaving territorially. I heard a Whimbrel fly over but I could not see it.
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