The Lyons Share

Choughed to bits

Posted by Graeme Lyons , Sunday, 18 September 2022 17:44

Before we got to Pembrokeshire, a brief visit to the Worm's Head on the Gower produced the first of the daily Chough action, their calls rapidly becoming a common feature in the local sound-scape. A quick bit of rock-pooling produced what I think is a Daisy Anemone.

EDIT 20/09/22 - Thanks Evan, Daisy Anemone looks nothing like this, of course this is the Elegant Anemone.

With help of some locals, I spotted a HUGE Sea Bass in a deep gully (the tides were great, both big tides and easy tides - really great considering I did zero prep). I didn't manage a photo but the young fisherman who was looking for bait, was almost crying because he didn't think to lunge at it with his big net.

And the first of many netted fish. The obligatory Rock Goby.

Day two. I had ONE target for the WHOLE trip. The only thing I vaguely researched was Scaly Cricket. I knew it was at Marloes Sands but it was a slim chance being mainly nocturnal. But there were rockpools there too. And they were full of Montagu's Blenny, hugely distracting. I could look at these goofy little twerps all day.

We spent an hour in an area that looked good for what I imagined Scaly Cricket would like. Turned out we were in the right area but just unlucky. Well, if you can call it unlucky. I saw a large black gnaphosid but I lost sight of it in the scree. I searched, saw it again but it went under the shingle never to be seen again. The tide was coming in and I didn't want us to get cut off and walk up the steep steps (this was a 47 miles in six days kinda holiday) when I saw a small spider with four small spots. It was unmistakable. It was clearly Callilepis nocturna. I am at the base of a cliff without signal and my camera is 20m away in my coat pocket and this thing looks like it's going to run into the shingle. It froze long enough for Karen to grab my camera then jumped onto my hand and started doing circuits. I looked like David Bowie in Labyrinth messing about with his balls. I got it in the tray. Behold!

I was rather stoked. Thinking I had a first for Wales, we headed up the cliffs for food and signal. Only to find that it was discovered on the exact same beach 'recently'. This is where it gets really weird. It was found there 20 years ago by another Brightonian, and a chap I know well. Dave Bangs. I might not have got a first for Wales but I did get all the excitement of one and I also stumbled on one of the rarest UK spiders (it's still only at three sites). That's my 518th UK spider. Totally beats that stupid cricket. We went back on day four as that beach was just so beautiful. Here she is in all her glory. What a beauty!

I took the sucker this time but hardly used it. We found 16 more but 14 of these were from hand searching.

The habitat shot.

Whilst I poked around here for a little while, Karen did some reading and then told me about a place which is pretty good for Otters! Now, Otter is my biggest bogey species. That's day five sorted then! I did get one other rare spider here. A new site for Porrhoclubiona genevensis. It's known from the hectad but last seen there on Skokholm in 1934 by Bristowe! An important record then, not bad considering I only turned it on four times in the whole trip.

UPDATE 20/09/22 - It turns out Richard Gallon had both species from near there on a job in 2021! Oh well! But the main group I found appears to be in a slightly different area, so that's good.

But before day five. It's day three. And after a visit to Tenby in the morning which was lush, we headed to Wiseman's Bridge. The rockpooling was a let down. So I suggested walking along the beach to Saundersfoot where I could see an interesting looking rocky outcrop. A single large rockpool there, produced three fish that we didn't see anywhere else. First off though, probably the best underwater shot of the trip was of this Shanny. The Meadow Pipit of the rook pool. They get boring quickly. My TG-6 has been working hard under water of late.

First dip in this rock pool produced a lifer for me. I pushed a shoal of largish-looking fish into a blind corner and lunged with the net. I caught two but one jumped straight out of my empty Ferrero Rocher container. Took some figuring out this one but it's clearly Horse Mackerel. A fish of the open sea and not really a rock pool fish at all! Check out that dog leg in the lateral line and those weird ridges. Quite a strange fish. Nice to say that literally for once.

The second dip produced a single Long-spined Sea-scorpion. Common enough but the only one we saw and Karen was quite taken with its grumpy face and eyelashes.

But it was the third dip of the net that got me really excited. Initially, at the bottom of the net I thought this was a pipe fish but I soon realised it was an adult Fifteen-spined (or Sea) Stickleback!!! Just wow. This is a fish that I saw once, on Anglesey some 20 years ago and it was nothing like this. An absolute stunner.

Then a chap said, "There's a family of Otters up there!" We started running and we got there just in time! All those years electrofishing with the RSPB and nothing. Hours put in at the crack of dawn searching across the UK in the cold, nothing. And then there they were, not giving a monkeys about the hoards of people walking past, or their dogs. Amazing to watch this family of four with their synchronised diving. They reminded me of Studio Ghibli dragons but in the water instead of the air. A continuously rolling, relentlessly restless, wet, muscly and hairy sine wave of reconstituted fish. Sublime.

But the highlight here was walking down to the beach. I was distracted suddenly by lots of white snails, which of course were actually White Snails (Theba pisina). Another reason to use capitals to distinguish between a species and just a white snail, of which we have many (White Snail being one of them). Then Karen said; "What's that?"

It's only a nymph of the Boat Bug (Enoplpops scapha). One of my most wanted species and the last UK squash bug I needed to complete the set! Result.

Posted in anemones, beetles, birds, Bosherston, bugs, fish, Freshwater West, Grassholm, mammals, Marloes Sands, molluscs, Pantier, Pembrokeshire, plants, Ramsey, Saundersfoot, spiders, The Gower, Wiseman's Bridge, Worm's Head