An Alternative Natural History of Sussex.
This blog shows the highlights of my day to day findings as a naturalist and ecologist living and working in Sussex. Delivered with a pinch of nihilism, a dash of sarcasm and absolutely no tweeness, here is my attempt to show natural history as it really is: Brutal, beautiful, uncompromising and fascinating...and occasionally ridiculous.
I have been studying natural history for some thirty years, nineteen in a professional capacity. I currently work in Sussex as a freelance entomologist, ecologist and botanist and specialise in nature reserve and rewilding management advice based on the interpretation of the surveys I carry out. I also run a number of identification courses. An advocate of the pan-species listing approach. My main areas of interest are birds, plants and invertebrates and a lot of my spare time is spent in the field. I am the county recorder for spiders and bugs.
On the 31st August, Sussex Wildlife Trust will be conducting a 'bioblitz' at Woods Mill as part of the 50 year anniversary there. A bioblitz that starts in summer and ends in autumn (if you measure the seasons meteorologically like any reasonable person).When I heard that the event will be starting on the Friday evening and going on for pretty much 24 hours, I thought, maybe it will be worth giving this a go. And by that I mean actually doing a full 24 hours like Dave and I did last June.
So it's on! Lois, James and the team will be running the event but being sensible people, will be going to bed at some point. I am gonna start at 3.00 pm with a derived list from the reserves species master list on waterproof paper. I'm gonna plough on until 3.00 pm the next day. Then sleep. There are some differences though when it comes to doing this in June . One rather big one is that I'm not gonna have Dave Green (unfortunately he's not around that weekend) catching & identifying stuff and will also have to scribe and count myself. Eeeek! The other is 10 hours of darkness. And most of this will happen in September. However, here is what IS in my favour.
No travelling. It's all on one site.
A classroom with Internet, power and somewhere to put my books and microscope/s.
A site I have recorded intimately for years so I know where a lot of stuff is. All those lunch time walks will come in handy.
Lots of people on hand to help.
The master list for all reserves currently stands at 10,129 species for all 32 sites. Woods Mill is our fourth most well-recorded reserve at 2361 species (surpassed only by Rye Harbour, Ebernoe Common and Iping & Stedham Common). The mean year of the last record for Woods Mill is 2008 (compared to an average of 2006 for all reserves). The mode of the last record for Woods Mill is 2016. So we are highly likely to change these statistics. I predict a good few new records for the site and maybe the odd one new to the reserve network.
So what is realistically achievable? I have no idea. I really don't. I would expect to get a 100 species in the first 30 minutes and 200 within an hour, soon after this I think it's gonna plateau, I just don't know! Here are the challenges that I am gonna set for us:
To collectively record a 1000 species at Woods Mill in the whole bioblitz, including identifications made after the 24 hour period. That would be over 40% of everything ever recorded in the last 50 years.
To personally get to at least 600 species on the site within the 24 hour period. That would be over 25% of everything ever recorded there in the last 50 years.
Here is the link to the event on the Trust website. I am gonna have to rethink whether this is worth doing to this intensity if the weather is really wet though. So, if you would like to come and lend some support or add your sweep net to the mix, then come on down! You're gonna have to find me though, as I am gonna be very mobile. I'd really appreciate help with the odd social media update and relaying results back to the HQ. I'm probably gonna collect a lot of specimens in the first afternoon to go through in the 10 hours of darkness. Dew isn't likely to burn off until 10.00 am on this site, so there is gonna be 10 hours of trudging around in the damp on 1st September if I don't plan this wisely! At least I can use this time to do birds by ear though.
I'm not going to be fund-raising this time, it's purely for the joy of celebrating the wildlife at Woods Mill that I've enjoyed so much over the last 10 years and to produce a whole load of records for the site.
Anyway, it's only a week tomorrow so I better get packing, ordering and charging!
PS I HATE the word 'bioblitz'. Wish we had something better but this seems to have stuck.
If you missed what all this is about, it started with this post a few days ago. I will recap where we are at in the story...
Many moons ago all the shieldbugs and squash bugs were eating any old thing and squabbling over who ate what. The oldest and wisest of all the bugs, Doc Squash, called a meeting and all the bugs mustered around the big table in the juice bar.
"This incessant fighting over what to eat must stop!" exclaimed Doc. "I propose we divide up the plants evenly between the bugs so that everyone can have their fair share. Now, I have decided to specialise in Rrrrrrumex. A delightfully abundant plant which means my offspring will never grow hungry. I might even have the odd bit of Rrrrrrhubarb for afters. Now some of you might want to generalise or pick a habitat to focus on. Or you might wish to specialise, like me, on a particularly common family or plant. So, with all that in mind, starting with you Dom the Downs Shieldbug, what do you think is a sensible thing for you to eat? Choose wisely mind"...
"I is like gonna eat this Bastard-toadflax juice ain't I?" announced Dom. "Pardon me?" "I said BASTARD-toadflax bruv." "Why on Earth would you chose that? You know it's really scarce don't you?" asked Doc Squash. "Yeah but it's got a SICK name innit? It's got a curse word in it!". "You know it only grows on chalk-grassland, you don't even like chalk-grassland do you Dom?" stated Squash. "I don't even know what that is. Can you smoke it?". "Oh dear, and you know it's really, really small? Why not pick one of the commoner plants, or families? Or something with some actual foliage? "I like this stuff dude, I don't like anything else. Now I'm trying to do a selfie of me eating some Bastard-toadflax, do you mind?" "Well, don't come running to me when you're sick of that stuff next week. Now, who's next? Spike, you've always been a pretty straight down the line guy, what are you going to specialise in?..."
You'll have to wait until next time for the next installment of Fussy Eaters...
I've had a very enjoyable couple of days freelancing in Surrey and Kent and quite a few lifers. But first I finally caught up with my first adult Rambur's Pied Shieldbugs. My first reaction was how much blacker they were, in fact it looked more like a black bug with white bits on than a pied one. These were in Kent. This bug has yet to reach Sussex but look for it on Black Horehound in the north east of East Sussex, it's only a matter of time!
Back in Surrey we saw quite a few Raglius alboacuminatus, also on Black Horehound and also not yet in Sussex. This is a striking ground bug that I found mainly with the suction sampler by sampling in litter beneath or near to the foodplant.
Here are all the lifers from the last two days:
Raglius alboacuminatus Cheilosia soror Leopoldius strigatus Tapinopa longidens Creophilus maxillosus (at long last, what a beast!) Scymnus femoralis Stethorus punctillum (the UK's smallest ladybird at less than 1.5 mm!)
In fact, it was a great couple of days for ladybirds, the full list is here and includes the two lifers at the top. A total of 17 species not bad for two days. This is mostly down to using the suction sampler and picking up some of the smaller ones.
I was out with Martin Allison at Ebernoe Common setting up some fungi monitoring there are a couple of days ago and we were enjoying the Oak BracketsInonotus dryadeus. I love the amber droplets that extrude from the cap so I was trying to do some quick research to find out what they actually are. I drew a blank but did find out it has the colloquial name of Weeping Conk and I do love a good colloquial name.
On a tree that was full of Porcelain Fungus last year we walked right up to this huge bracket which is quite a goody. Martin microscopically identified this as Clustered BracketInonutus cuticularis. Hard to imagine they are in the same genus! There are only around 15 records in the SxBRC database and 10 of those are from either the Mens or Ebernoe Common. It's very hard to get a new fungus for Ebernoe Common!
And Ruby BoleteHortiboletus rubellus was also a nice one to see.
Just a quick one today but I leave you with the remains of a Bird's-nest Orchid. Still good enough for a record quite late in the season.
Yesterday I was mapping Bastard-toadflax at Southerham. I walked up to the first plant and there was the Bastard-toadflax (or Downs if you prefer) Shieldbug Canthophorus impressus. The next plant had these three TINY little Bastard-toadflax Shieldbug nymphs on. I then didn't see another individual all day. Now this little bug eats ONLY this restricted and nationally scarce plant that only grows in chalk-grassland. At Southerham it only grows in an area a few square metres in extent and within that, the bug has only ever been found on the steeper (and presumably hotter and more sheltered) area either side of the path. I have mapped the plant and the bug over the years but that's gonna take a while to generate. In the mean time, the following came to mind, so I am just gonna leave this here...
Many moons ago all the shieldbugs and squash bugs were eating any old thing and squabbling over who ate what. The oldest and wisest of all the bugs, Doc Squash, called a meeting and all the bugs mustered around the big table in the juice bar.
"This incessant fighting over what to eat must stop!" exclaimed Doc. "I propose we divide up the plants evenly between the bugs so that everyone can have their fair share. Now, I have decided to specialise in Rrrrrrumex. A delightfully abundant plant which means my offspring will never grow hungry. I might even have the odd bit of Rrrrrrhubarb for afters. Now some of you might want to generalise or pick a habitat to focus on. Or you might wish to specialise, like me, on a particularly common family or plant. So, with all that in mind, starting with you Dom the Downs Shieldbug, what do you think is a sensible thing for you to eat? Choose wisely mind"...
But I'm afraid you'll have to wait another day for part 2! It's been years since I've picked up a pencil, really enjoyed doing that!
On the 1st June, I ran a course at Levin Down called the Invertebrates of chalk-grassland. I promised to write up the species list so here it is, unfortunately a bit late but this has bee a crazy summer so I am sorry for the delay. I now realise important rainy days are after experiencing a summer without any, I actually started writing this at the end of June. Anyway, the course was about showing people what they can do in the field but also what the limitations are of doing so. Here, I also wanted to prove the point that habitat specialists are pretty uncommon by introducing some rather crude resource analysis.
We arrived at Levin to find it shrouded in low cloud. This did not bode well. However, we started the morning simply by active searching, waiting for the dew to burn off. Sweeping, beating and suction sampling did not begin until after lunch.
It ended up being a pretty awesome day. We recorded 120 species in the field. Turns out 23 (19.1%) of these were new to the site! Nine had conservation status (7.5%). I personally didn't get any ticks but the highlights for me were these two. At the top of this post is the suction-sampler special. The tiny little Southern Crablet Ozyptila nigrita. I have 11 records for this species and eight of them have been made using a suction sampler.
But the star of the show was seeing three of these, two males and a female. Xysticus bifasciatus. A rather smart spider. You can do this male by its genitalia on this photo, they are so large and distinctive (fnar fnar!) Not a chalk-grassland invertebrate at all though.
And the beetle Tritoma bipustulata. This is the only place I have ever seen this, it seems to be fairly easy on this site on rather dull bracket fungi on relatively small trees, scrub and stumps that have been cleared. Again, not a chalk-grassland invertebrate.
Here is the list with a few notes on its key resources and associations, the year of the last record and whether it has a conservation status or not (noted after the species name). Now, these are quick notes, I expect people will disagree on some of them, please don't comment on the detail as I won't have the time or energy to get drawn into another debate. As you can see, looking down the list, chalk-grassland specialists are actually few and far between and probably don't make up anymore than 10% of what we saw. Sorry this doesn't quite fit the page but it's a compromise of getting as much detail into a small a space as possible and the year of the last record is quite a useful thing to have here.
Yesterday I completed the 5th (out of 6) survey visits planned at Iping & Stedham Commons this year to monitor invertebrates. The highlights was stumbling upon a Hornet Robber-fly carrying a huge black mass. It struggled to fly more than a few metres at a time due to the weight of its food but eventually I got a look at the prey item. It was none other than Tachina grossa, our largest tachinid! This alone is a huge fly so this really was quite the sight! Go large or go home!
In the black corner, we have Tachina grossa. They spent their informative years living inside the body of an unsuspecting Fox Moth larvae devouring it from within (the most likely host at Iping). In the yellow corner, Hornet Robber-fly, who as a youth lived under a cow pat and devoured Minotaur Beetle larvae in their subterranean burrows (the most likely host at Iping). They had never met until today but now one has become the other's lunch. It's a fly eat fly world out there!
I had a couple of lifers, both were also new to the SWT reserve network. These were the ladybird Scymnus suturalis beaten off pine and the mirid Trigonotylus caelestialum. Neither particularly rare and I was surprised to see the latter was a first for West Sussex.
Just to clarify what I was talking about in my last post, "what exactly IS a heathland invertebrate?". The point of this post was to show my course attendees just how few species are often strictly tied to a single habitat. And that this description itself is therefore inherently subjective depending on how we define this. For example, you could say they are all heathland invertebrates as we found them all on a heathland. Not very helpful.
You could take the extreme approach and describe only those that are say Calluna/Erica obligates as being heathland specialists, also not very helpful as it restricts you to an extremely small number of species. Such as this Phytocorois insignis which feeds on heathers and is now the most westerly record in Sussex (we recorded it at Stedham last year).
But that doesn't take into account (for example) the species that are using structural types, or a particular colour of flower that is provided in that environment. Such as these two. Now they're not heather obligates. But they do have a strong tie to heathlands. Thomisus onustus occurs mainly in heather flowers waiting to ambush its prey but I have found it on Dodder and Common Cotton-sedge over the years where it can clearly survive without the heather. Is that enough reason to not consider it a heathland specialist? I don't think so. Likewise, Evarcha arcuata is common on heathlands in Sussex in both heathers and Molinia (which I see as just another component of heathland). In Sussex I know of only one record away from heathland of this species and that's from Butcherlands. So is that enough to not consider it a heathland specialist? I would also say no. It clearly has a strong association with dwarf ericaceous shrubs in a structural way but to ignore this just because very occasionally it doesn't is wrong in my opinion.
Equally I would also consider many of the species that occur on bare sandy ground to be heathland invertebrates. They often outnumber the heather obligates hugely and are a vitally important part of the heathland. So my whole point of asking "what exactly IS a heathland invertebrate?" was to show how few heather obligates there were but to also show how this is a subjective question in the first place! What exactly is a heathland? Is it just the heather or is it all the components together functioning as a whole? And also to give people an idea on how resource analysis works with invertebrates but when you only have space for ONE factor (you'd normally use several), you're bound to have disagreements.
Now that's cleared up I can go back to my specimens but not until I show you this weird larva which I believe is a Scalloped Hook-tip.
Oh and one last thing, if you want to see Thomisus onustus, it's having a really good year at Iping and sweeping Bell Heather would yield one within a few sweeps this year where usually you could work all day and see only one, IF you were lucky.
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 BeeDasypoda 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.
Taxon
group
Recommended Common Name
Resource
Beetle
Ampedus balteatus
Deadwood
Beetle
Anoplotrupes stercorosus
Woodland, dung
Beetle
Athous haemorrhoidalis
Roots
Beetle
Cryptocephalus fulvus
Grassland
Beetle
Cryptocephalus parvulus
Birch
Beetle
Dasytes aeratus
Deadwood
Beetle
Dune Chafer
Roots, sandy soils
Beetle
Green Tiger Beetle
Bare ground
Beetle
Heather Beetle
Heather
Beetle
Hemicrepidius hirtus
Roots
Beetle
Luperus longicornis
Generalist
Beetle
Malachite Beetle
Deadwood
Beetle
Nalassus laevioctostriatus
Deadwood
Beetle
Oedemera lurida
Flowers
Beetle
Small Heather Weevil
Heather
Beetle
Stenurella melanura
Deadwood
Beetle
Striped Ladybird
Pines
Beetle
Strophosoma melanogrammum
Trees & bushes
Beetle
Vine Weevil
Roots
Beetle
Welsh Chafer
Roots
Bug
Aphrophora alni
Trees & bushes
Bug
Evacanthus interruptus
Generalist
Bug
Rhyparochromus pini (Nb)
Bare ground
Bug
Spathocera dalmanii (NS)
Acid grassland
Bug
Ulopa reticulata
Heather
Bug
Zicrona caerulea
Leaf beetle predator
Butterfly
Green Hairstreak
Gorse/broom
Butterfly
Meadow Brown
Grasses
Dragonfly
Black-tailed Skimmer
Aquatic larvae
Dragonfly
Broad-bodied Chaser
Aquatic larvae
Earwig
Common Earwig
Generalist omnivore
Fly
Dasysyrphus venustus
Woodland margins
Fly
Dioctria atricapilla
Grassland predator
Fly
Helophilus pendulus
Wetland
Fly
Neoitamus cyanurus
Woodland predator
Fly
Scathophaga stercoraria
Dung
Hymenopteran
Ammophila sabulosa
Bare ground
Hymenopteran
Bombus pascuorum
Flowers
Hymenopteran
Cerceris rybyensis
Bare ground
Hymenopteran
Dasypoda hirtipes (Nb)
Bare ground
Hymenopteran
Formica fusca
Generalist predator
Hymenopteran
Honey Bee
Flowers
Moth
Beautiful Yellow Underwing
Heather
Moth
Brindled Beauty
Trees & bushes
Moth
Brown Silver-line
Bracken
Moth
Common Footman
Lichens
Moth
Endotricha flammealis
Generalist
Moth
Silver Y
Migrant
Moth
Vapourer
Trees & bushes
Orthopteran
Common Ground-hopper
Generalist omnivore
Orthopteran
Mottled Grasshopper
Bare ground
Orthopteran
Speckled Bush-cricket
Generalist omnivore
Spider
Araneus quadratus
Generalist predator
Spider
Arctosa leopardus
Bare ground
Spider
Cercidia prominens (NS)
Scarce generalist
Spider
Evarcha arcuata (NS)
Heather
Spider
Evarcha falcata
Generalist predator
Spider
Labyrinth Spider
Generalist predator
Spider
Mangora acalypha
Grassland predator
Spider
Marpissa muscosa
Deadwood & fence posts
Spider
Neottiura bimaculatum
Trees & bushes
Spider
Xerolycosa nemoralis (NS)
Bare ground
Tick
Ixodes ricinus
Mammal parasite
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.
I had a rare thing last weekend. I had an afternoon off. So I thought I would I would switch off from natural history...kidding! So I thought I would head out to the Crumbles at Eastbourne and try and find Heath Shieldbug Legnotus picipes at its only known Sussex site. It was very windy but that's not a problem for the suction sampler. With John Burnham and Oliver Froom on their way, I stood in the car park looking at the Pampas Grass tussocks. The Crumbles is now a shadow of its former self, it was an incredible area of vegetated shingle but has been developed (and continues to be developed - a large chunk has gone since I was there last five years ago). It's a sad story that the value of vegetated shingle wasn't recognised at the time BUT it still has a lot to be found there. So with my feet on the tarmac, I rammed my suction sampler into the nearest Pampas Grass tussock. They reminded me of the kind of structure with hanging litter that Greater Tussock-sedge provides and I've had good results with those in the past. I walked right by them five years ago when I was last there though.
The first sample produced a lifer, the tiny ladybird Scymnus interruptus (above) and TWO immature Myrmarachne formicaria We went on to find maybe 50 Myrmarachne in all! Included one stonking adult male which we were very pleased to see! We initially thought we also had Synageles venator but they were just female Myrmarachne (they have surprisingly large palps). Being ant mimics, it's actually the females and immatures which make for a more convincing mimic than the adult male with those huge chelicerae, such as in this video. The mimicry comes from the way it moves, the unusually-shaped and patterned abdomen, the raised and darkened section on the cephalothorax but also from the way it holds and moves the angled front legs (which are also slightly darker and paler-tipped). I can't understand what the huge chelicerae of the adult male add to this!
In Sussex this most captivating of our jumping spiders is only known from here and Rye Harbour. They are really quite hard to find, so seeing around 50 was incredible! Here are some more shots. I can't help think it looks a bit like a duck (A sad little ant-duck-spider in the second shot).
But the fun didn't end there! I got a first for Sussex (and a lifer!) in the form of this beautiful ground bug, Beosus maritimus. That's the fourth new bug we have added to the Sussex list so far this year.
And Oli had ONE go on the suction sampler and came back with a lacewing that I thought was a spongefly at first but it turned out to be Psectra diptera. This is the second record for Sussex and the first for East Sussex. Other highlights includes Neides tipularius, Dasypoda hirtipes and Odiellus spinosus (which was a new one for me). We never did find Legnotus picipes. I wonder what else is there unrecorded?
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