The Lyons Share

Last Saturday I completed visit 5 of 6 of the invertebrate survey of East Head and it was a great day, I had to reschedule at short notice due to poor weather and was expecting to be doing the survey alone but I was wrong. Mark Gurney, Lee Walther and his family were all able to join in at short notice

Working in conservation, I have been lucky enough to work with so many of the great naturalists of our time and Mark Gurney has got to be up there. The last time we spent the day entomologising was about 2012, you can read about it here. Here is Mark with his legendary weevil fork.

Seven years later and Mark has levelled up becoming a national specialist on weevils. His weevil guides are making this unnecessarily difficult group much more accessible, even the apionids. In the field, Mark now uses multiple forks and has a new outfit. Seriously though it's great to still be working together all these years later after our RSPB days, even though we are both in different roles now.

The highlight for me was the weevil Protapion dissimile. I mentioned there was a big patch of Hare's-tail Clover over there. We got to it, turned the suction sampler on for 30 seconds and there was a male, complete with funny tarsi and swollen first antennal segments. It's great when it all fits together like that. This was a new beetle for me and only the 7th Sussex record. 

We found some living specimens of Dicranocephalus agilis. This is the only known site for this bug in Sussex. So far I have only found a dead adult, so it was good to find these nymphs on the fixed dunes where more dead litter builds up beneath the plants.

The proportion of species with conservation status has dropped slightly but is still incredibly high at 16.2%. Here is one of Mark's photos, the Nb Anerastia lotella. A mainly coastal pyralid that feeds on grasses. I also found a dead Shore Wainscot which was cathartic as I thought I had the larva earlier in the year but couldn't confirm it. I also found another Hypocaccus dimidiatus in the mobile dunes.

And another one of Mark's, a plant tick for me. Lax-flowered Sea-lavender.

I have just got back from a fantastic weekend setting up monitoring at an exciting project in Norfolk. The Ken Hill Estate are planning to restore around 400 ha of farmland and woodland, predominantly through rewilding, and thanks to Penny and Dave Green I was able to get involved in setting up a baseline before any changes took place. This month saw the beginning of the invertebrate survey, the start of some BBS transects and of course lots of casual recording. It's really great that the Estate have been able to pull this baseline together in time and that I was in just the right place going part-time freelance too. It will be a great way to measure the huge biodiversity gains that are expected from this change in direction.

But before you can do that, you need to know what's there. You also need to do that in a way that's standardised where possible, simple and easily repeatable.

The highlight for me was finding two Heath Shieldbugs Legnotus picipes (nationally scarce). In Sussex, this has only ever been recorded from the Crumbles, I have looked for it many times (I even have a day this month pencilled in to look for it again). At Ken Hill, the two I found were on an area of open acid-grassland/heathland but both of them were found on small scrapes and it's great that this might continue. One was found in the suction sampler, the other found under a stone. 

On the first scrape, I also 'sucked' a single Ant-tiger Euryopis flavomaculata (also nationally scarce), which appears to be only the second record for Norfolk after Steve Lane found one in 2018 at Roydon Common. Overall I recorded 146 species last Friday, which was pretty good as it wasn't all that warm. That doesn't even include most of the beetles and bugs which have gone in vinegar until the winter. Spiders are currently at the number one slot with 46 species (but they have all been identified already), followed by beetles at 29 (this will overtake the spiders from this visit alone though). I'm expecting well over 600 species at this rate from this survey.

Oh and Gymnocheta viridis, a new tachind for me (thanks for confirming Tony), was everywhere. Wonder why I have not seen this in Sussex before?

I ended the weekend on 164 species of spider for the year too and added a few nationally scarce species from the dunes there that all seem to be new 10 km square records. Thanatus striatus, and Xerolycosa miniata (those were new for me this year) as well as Zelotes electus and Crustulina sticta.

The birds were really exciting with sightings of Spoonbill, Great White Egret, Barn Owl, Marsh Harrier, Red Kite and more Grey Partridge than I see in a decade. I was typically seeing around 50 Brown Hares a day and the Lapwings were also very plentiful. Quite something!

Back on the little scrapes where I was photographing the Heath Shieldbug, I noticed a few plants of Field Mouse-ear in flower, always love seeing this. Then I noticed in the same scrape I was literally kneeling on a patch of Shepherd's-cress (Near Threatened). I love the little 'jigsaw-puzzle' leaves of this little crucifer, always a good indicator. Was lovely seeing plants that I used to see much more in the RSPB days like Shrubby Seablite, Mossy Stonecrop and Flixweed too. I can't wait until the next visit.

Back on the 16th June (how can six weeks feel like a lifetime away?!) I ran a short half-day course for the RSPB at Wiggonholt Common, part of Pulborough Brooks RSPB Reserve. The remit of the course was to teach a whole load of RSPB staff about heathland invertebrates. This recently restored heathland coming out of pines is fairly under-recorded, so we were likely to get some good records for the site. I used the picture of the Pantaloon Bee Dasypoda hirtipes just to attract your attention, although a nice 'bare ground' species, they are well known from the car park at Pulborough Brooks! Those hind legs are spectacular but I am sure I have seen them somewhere before...

By far the best thing we found was this Dalman's Leatherbug Spathocera dalmanii found by one of the attendees! It's actually my first Sussex example of this species (I have only recorded twice before, once in Hampshire and once in Dorset). It's also only the third Sussex record and the most easterly in the county! Well done.

What I really wanted to do was to show just how few heather specialists occur on a heath. In the table below, I have written a very quick one or two words about the most significant habitat requirements of that species. Now please note these are quick notes and someone is bound to object to the odd detail. So unless I have made a glaring mistake, please don't bother! It's a rough guide and this sort of analysis works by weight of numbers. For those that came on my chalk-grassland invertebrate course, I am working on a similar post but with twice the species, this is taking a little longer than I had hoped.

Of the 63 species we recorded in around two hours, only five (7.9%) were thought to be directly associated with heathers. In total, six (9.5%) had conservation status which is pretty good. So generalists, bare ground species, woodland & scrub and deadwood species ALL outnumber those species that are tied to the heathers. Yet of these, it's only really the bare ground species that fall into what we would call a 'heathland invertebrate'. Not that the others are not welcome. Additionally if we count the acid grassland species and those on sandy soils, that's a total of 14 out of 63 species. So about 22.2% could perhaps be considered 'heathland invertebrates' but this is becoming more subjective as you group the species in this way.

This is a really interesting exercise in showing that a healthy heathland is not just about dense blocks of heather, far from it. A healthy heathland has a wide range of resources held in an intricate mosaic. This is not an easy thing to achieve, and requires careful management to hold these sites, often poised at the point of collapse, so that all of these resources can be present in some amounts all of the time.

A year or two ago I mentioned to the SxBRC & Adastra that I'd like to do a shieldbug atlas for Sussex. Something like what Shropshire has produced. Having no time or coding abilities, that's as far as I got. Before I knew it, volunteer Mark Robey had created (with Bob's help at the SxBRC) an online atlas. So with a few photos from myself and Derek Binns, a few lines of text from me and some minor tweaking of the look of the thing, SxBRC have launched the online atlas. (I know it was MUCH more work than that but I was impressed at how quickly the test version appeared). The site can be found here https://www.sxbrc.org.uk/shieldbugs/mapping.html.

So many thanks to all of you have been submitting records via iRecord, they're all in there already so you can look around the map and find your records. As well as gaps in recording effort. It includes all the shield bugs, squash bugs, rhopalid bugs and the other usual suspects (such as Fire Bug).

You can start off by displaying all records across all of Sussex and see where the hot spots are and where the gaps are.

Here for example is the 1 km square I live in with eight records of six species.

And if you click on that square the species list for the square pops up.

I was looking around for the most well recorded square. It looks like this one has 145 records of 21 species!

Here they are. Including the incredible Scarlet Shieldbug Eurydema dominulus. I would love to see that. I think this square must have something to do with Patrick Roper.

Now if you click on the species list from the drop down menu at the top left, you can focus in on individual species. Such as the Green Shieldbug here, perhaps the commonest species. Frustratingly I have just noticed that these images have squashed up a bit (that's why they're called squash bugs ha ha) but I haven't got time to change that right now. It gives you an idea anyway.

You can change the scale.

And if you click on the 'i' button some more text about the species, where you can find it in Sussex (or where it's likely to turn up if it's not yet in Sussex) and how you might find it.

Here is a scarcer species. I put this in as there is already a new dot on the map but it was great to be able to instantly know it was the third county record and the most easterly one too, a great benefit of having an atlas. An attendee on a heathland invertebrate training I ran at the RSPB found Dalmann's Leatherbug Spathocera dalmani at it's most easterly site in Sussex at Wiggonholt Common. SxBRC will update the records at regular intervals so the records are as up to date is practical. Given that I haven't even entered this record into my copy of Recorder 6 yet, it's not going to be for a while!

And here is the individual. Only seen this three times now. Once in Hampshire and once in Dorset so this was the first Sussex one for me and only the third Sussex record. Is it slowly spreading east?

And I leave you with the map of a species I am yet to see, the Vernal Shieldbug. Tantalising stuff!
A massive thank you to Mark Robey, Bob Foreman, Clare Blencowe and Derek Binns as well as Pete Boardman from Shropshire and Tristan Bantock for being inspirations.

Now Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.B.U.G.S., get out there and fill those gaps in!!!

For the last two days I have carried out an aquatic invertebrate survey of Waltham Brooks. I  recorded seven species of leech there and have become quite taken with these bizarre animals. There are not that many leech species in the UK and they are not too hard to identify. So here are a few of my favourites and what they feed on. 

This is Hemiclepsis marginata. It feeds on fish and this is the only one I have ever seen. It has  a chequered margin to the body, is quite broad and has a large shovel shaped head and a big banded suction cup at the rear. Quite the looker.

When I used to do the electro-fishing for the RSPB, this is what I used to know as the Fish Leech Piscicola geometra (not knowing there was another species) regularly seeing it attached to fish. This is VERY thin and worm-like with a similar large head and suction cup.

Another one I had not encountered before. Glossiphonia heteroclita and this one feeds on molluscs. A different array of eyes to the following species.

And the darker Glossiphonia complanata which has  different eye arrangement of a 2 x 3 matrix. This also feeds on molluscs but Elliot & Mann states they get their first meal from...other leeches! That dark internal structure on these two species is the crop!

This is the Duck Leech Theromyzon tessulatum. I think someone needs to tell it that's not a duck. Wait, it's not a duck right? Actually it feeds on water birds, usually entering the nostrils. It has been known to even kill ducklings. 

This small leech has two eyes and a dot behind them called a 'callous dorsal scute' in Elliott & Mann. This is Helobdella stagnalis and feeds generally on aquatic invertebrates.

I've been at Amberley Wildbrooks all this week with Mark Gurney, Andy Skinner and Vivienne Booth from my old department at the RSPB. Also yesterday Shaun Pryor came out to help too. What a week! The weather was really well behaved, five years ago it was just way too hot and the increased grazing out there means that getting about was mostly a lot easier too. The rare plants have certainly increased in number. Marsh Stitchwort for example is in loads more ditches and in some places is even in the field centres.

As more ditches are in the early state of succession, there are more ditch slubbings. This is where you find Small Water-pepper.

Great Water-parsnip is slightly up on last time too. I should add we still have many ditches to survey next year so the picture could change somewhat.

Marsh Cinquefoil returns to the SWT side after ditch clearance!

Everyone's favourite Unbranched Bur-reed does well in early to mid-successional ditches.

But it's Cut-grass that's the thing we were most interested in and that seems to have a shown a big increase. Last night when I closed my eyes I could still see it. I get this sometimes when you have to pay close attention to spot something. Whenever I show anyone this grass, I usually state first: "Prepare to be underwhelmed!" Yet in hindsight, I actually love this plant. Every time I spot it it releases a little bundle of endorphins. Jesus, did I say that out loud? Here it is growing out in the open on bare mud.

And here it is holding its own against dense Water Horsetail in a clogged ditch!

And more Whorl-grass than I've ever seen!

The survey simply took the form of presence or absence of all species in each ditch and amazingly we covered 83 ditches in 4.5 days. Cut-grass, Great Water-parsnip and True Fox Sedge were GPSd too. Here is a lovely open ditch with Sharp-leaved, Hair-like, Shining and Broad-leaved Pondweed, Frogbit, Amphibious Bistort and Cut-grass on the bank!

Here is Narrow-leaved Water-plantain (left) compared to regular Water-plantain (right).

And here is a shot that says it all. Amberley is clearly doing very well and I'm looking forward to completing the picture next year.

Oh and yesterday, after the RSPB lot left, Shaun and I stumbled upon this. Sorry Mark, we'll have to go and look for one of these next year! Another 13-spot Ladybird! Other non-botanical highlights included Lesser Cream Wave, Dotted Fan-foot, Water Vole, Crarabus granulatus and may more!

I last updated my list on the 27th April 2013. Despite doing most of my natural history at work this year, I have added quite a few in this time, 283 species to be precise. Beetles continue to be the biggest grower with 71 new species, closely followed by spiders at 51. I split arachnids into spiders and harvestmen, so now my next spider will be my 200th spider! The third group which showed the highest increase this summer amazingly was fish! I added 24 new species this year, a 60% increase in this group for me.

I've seen so many good things this year but have had very little time to show them. Here are a few that never made a blog post of their own! First up is a male Araneus marmoreus we found at Old Lodge in September.

I also caught up with one of my most coveted species, the ant mimic jumping spider Myrmarachne formicaria. Yes, this IS a spider. This was at the Crumbles near Eastbourne in July. 

Also at the Crumbles I recorded a species new to Sussex, albeit a naturalised one. The small ground bug Nysius huttoni.

I had no idea that Cat-mint was a native and vulnerable arable weed. I had to do a 50 mile double take for this one.

New longhorn beetles are always a welcome addition to my list. I've encountered Arhopalus rusticus twice this year, this one was at Old Lodge.

I finally caught up with Red Hemp-nettle over at Rye Harbour.

And I've been enjoying getting to grips with coastal invertebrates too including this Liocarcinus holsatus from Rye Harbour last week. I'll resist showing you anymore photos of fish!

Here is the break down:

So, 283 species later my list currently stands at 4505 species. However, the big change this year for me has been beginning the long process of databasing all of 25 years of natural history recording. I posted about this sometime ago but it took me a whole to get going. It's a long process but a hugely rewarding one and I might have only scratched the surface but it's changing the way I do natural history. My approach is that I will never allow current records to develop into a backlog and this is working. Perhaps half of the 7129 records I have put in this year are casual records from this year alone. So my casual records for the last five years are up to date. I now have to concentrate on surveys and older records. I am currently working on the RSPB years, 2007 to be precise but it does get increasingly 'birdy' the further I go back. It's quite nice delving back through 25 years of records, if a little daunting.

So here is my overview of the records at the Sussex level. You can see the Trust reserves as dense clusters.

And a close up of Brighton & Hove. You can see clusters of records at Woods Mill, Ditchling Beacon, Malling, Southerham as well as Seaford Head and the Eastbourne Downs. I would encourage anyone with more than a passing interest to go down this road and the quicker you do it, the better. I just wish I had started years ago.