Had an unexpected day free Sunday so headed to Seaford Head for a spot of bird-watching when I suddenly realised the tide was pretty good. Bird-watching soon turned into rock-pooling and about the third rock I turned over had a lifer on it! It was a Grey Sea Slug Aeolidia papillosa. It really reminds me of those weird floral vintage swimming caps that used to give me the creeps. It's my fourth sea-slug, all of which I have seen in the last two years and all from between Seaford and Beachy Head.
I like this last shot. It looks like it's just devoured a tiny Human and the only bits left are two tiny fingers giving the peace sign as they too are slowly absorbed. So long, tiny Human!
Later on, I found this purple triangular crab under a rock. Pretty sure this is
Pisa armata, not a species I have seen before.
This thing had me scouring the Handbook though. I thought it was some bizarre mollusc. Then I thought it was a pistachio macaron for a while. Now I believe it's actually a fossilised mollusc. Thanks to Robin Shrubsole for pointing me in this direction.
I have only ever seen
Dendroxena quadrimaculata twice; in 2009 at Ebernoe and again in 2012 at Parham Park. Today I found a single elytron in a spider's web when servicing the data loggers at Ebernoe Common. There are less than ten records for this nationally scarce species in Sussex and all from the West, we didn't find it all during a repeat survey there in 2016. I love identifying beetles from body parts. It's like sea-watching for invertebrates. Distant and tantalising glimpses at the edge of your ability. This one is pretty distinctive though. A caterpillar-predating carrion beetle with unusual markings.
The most abundant beetle elytra behind the loggers in the spider's webs is what I am now coming to know as my least favourite beetle:
Nalassus laevioctostriatus. A beetle that has way too many syllables for something so ubiquitous and dull. It truly is the Meadow Pipit of the beetle world. Most of the time if you find one intact, it's covered in fungus. I think they are so slow moving that they can't even outrun a fungus. What's your least favourite beetle?
Most of the spiders were
Amaurobius but I did spot this HUGE
Tegenaria gigantea which popped out from under one of the protective flaps hiding the loggers. I didn't jump at all.
Later on I noticed this mass of regurgitated beetles. Almost all of them looked to be the
Woodland Dor Beetle Anoplotrupes stercorosus but there were a few carabids in there too. I wonder what had selectively sought these beetles out? It seems to have been lying here for some time.
Hawfinch calling around the Brick Kiln too and my first
Chiffchaff of the year at Woods Mill.
Today I decided it was time to go for along overdue walk around Woods Mill. I haven't been doing it half as much as I used to, work has just got so busy. So, I decided to head out after finishing my conservation committee work (which is on this evening). I didn't have my binoculars, yet I wasn't too worried about this. I kicked up a Jack Snipe in the valley field, first I have seen in years. I was heading back pleased with this record when at 1.45 pm I saw a butterfly in the distance. It's only the second butterfly I have seen this year so I was quite pleased. I walked past a Bombus hypnorum and eventually got closer to the butterfly. I was expecting a Peacock or a Red Admiral. It was clearly a Large Tortoiseshell. Now, I'm really regretting not having my binoculars at this point. My camera is in the bowels of my back but I managed to get it out and take a record shot before creeping forwards. This is the photo I took.
I took one step and it was off! It flew past me to the left at an incredible speed. I took this photo as it flew by me...
Now at this point I drop my bag and ran (in wellies) as fast as I could as it flew south east. I got half way down the valley field before I lost it. It was zigzaging so much I must have looked like I was dodging a sniper. I was thinking that my shot was not going to be good enough to separate Large from Scarce (not realising the Scarce influx was likely a one hit wonder). I got everyone excited looking for it but it wasn't seen again. Turns out that the above photo is enough to clinch the I.D. This is the 50th butterfly species on a Sussex Wildlife Trust reserve and my 56th.
I can't remember the last time saw a new butterfly, it might even be the Long-tailed Blue back in 2014, let alone a self found one when you're not expecting it! This is definitely the way to start the field season!
Alice and I had a recording day yesterday for the volunteers of the new Flatropers Wood volunteer group to excite them about wildlife and biological recording. For a site with no designations that's so far away, Flatropers is really well recorded so to record at least four species new to the site was pretty good. Including one that is nationally scarce that I have only seen once before.
Why is that? The answer: recording in March. It's a great time of year to find stuff that many naturalists and even entomologists don't usually pick up. It's also a time of year I am at my most DESPERATE to do some recording. It's also the time of year I (usually) have the most free time before the field season starts.
I love finding moths at rest. It's such a rare event, I'm certain that is the first time I have ever found a Yellow-horned moth at rest (and might even be the last). Although it's a well known location for moths since the Victorian era, this early spring species (along with Tortricodes alternella) were also new to the site. We swept a tiny (almost) mature male spider which I am pretty sure is Dipoena tristis (which IS known from the site). Turning logs in the wood provided only my second ever record of the Nb weevil Caenopsis fissirostris. The only other time I saw this was on the 17th March last year under a damp log looking rather soggy and dead, just like this one. I wonder if it is typically found like this?
We had a new bird for the site too. Hawfinch! At least five of them that took a bit of stalking but eventually perched high at the top of a tree. At the start of this winter we had records for 6/32 sites, it's now at 11/32 sites and that's just the ones we know about! It's now been recorded on as many reserves as Greylag and Teal and Marsh Tits were also good value.
So why not get out there and do some early spring recording? You never know what you might find!
A Tramp Slug Deroceras invadens in fact. You can tell it by the pale patch around the breathing pore. I think it was 'compost bin assisted' in its provenance though.
The reason I am posting this is I have finally got round to putting my garden on the PSL location rankings.
You can see it here. The garden is currently ranked 63rd out of 66 (albeit 64 to 66 have no records yet, so effectively I'm at the bottom). You have to start somewhere though. I need to add 28 species to go up a rank. I bought the flat back on the 13th November and made my first records that day. Today I have added a few bits just by being on the phone in the garden and finally got
Sparrowhawk on the list. So as of today I have recorded 61 species in my 36 square-metres of garden. There is no lawn by the way and until very recently it was mostly covered in palms and non-native ferns. This is all changing though.
Probably the commonest invertebrate at the moment is Girdled Snail. My highlight though so far has been a Stock Dove that landed on the shed for 15 second and the obligatory Psilochorus simoni that seems to follow me around in boxes of books. I am yet to add a beetle or a moth to the list! the garden STINKS of Red Fox. Here is the breakdown:
Birds - 27
Plants - 12
Molluscs - 5
Spiders - 5
Mammals - 3
Crustaceans - 2
Springtails - 2
Bryophytes - 2
Butterflies - 1
Bugs - 1
Hymenoptera - 1
So why not start a list for your garden? It's a great way of getting records in. You can do this in
iRecord and set up your list total by joining the pan-species listing website
here.
I forgot this. I was Googling Tramp Slug as I forgot the scientific name and this came up...
The festival of the crest to test which crest is best.
I jest. We know the Firecrest (I mean look at it, thanks to Tony Davis for the photo) is infinitely superior to the Goldcrest. Goldcrests are cute but every time I see a Firecrest I get a little buzz, you know like when you see a Med. Gull? Anyway, what this is actually about is seeing which crest I hear singing the most. I like to do crazy little bits of pseudoscience and data gathering each year, like scoring every film out of 10 I saw in a year (I learnt I needed to watch more world cinema and less horror films), how much exactly I drank in a year (I won't say what I learnt about that!) or total distance walked in a year (before smart phones I would add - it was well over 1500 miles). I gave up on how many (and which) vegetables I ate in a year. I once tried to see how long I could go in a year without seeing a Pheasant. It's harder than you think. I've been working too much, can you tell?...
For years I've been saying I think I hear as many, if not more Firecrests, than I do Goldcrests. Now I'm talking specifically about singing birds, not calling birds. I am sure Goldcrest would win that hands down, I saw five in a tree yesterday on the way to the corner shop calling away. As I wasn't too well over the last few months I haven't been out much yet this year, so I haven't heard many of either but I did get a singing Goldcrest at Ebernoe at the end of Feb when putting some ARDs out for recording bats and today, two singing Firecrests and a Goldcrest (also at Ebernoe) when I was collecting them.
I'll also produce a little map of where I saw them. So here goes. Even Stevens for now but who knows which way it will go by the end of December? I just need to remember to keep it going and keep my GPS on me (it's highly unlikely that I'll forget that). Place your bets on which crest is best! Oh, if anyone else wants to have a go then the more the merrier, it would be interesting to see how the proportions compare in different regions. Not everyone knows the difference in the song, the basic difference is this; Goldcrest is a repeating pattern on two notes while Firecrest is only on one note. They both usually finish with a little flourish. The basic vibe is the same in each; high-pitched. Like the worlds smallest violin playing just for you.