The Lyons Share

I've just got back from another trip to Ken Hill. Along with the structured surveys I am doing there, building a site list is also a key task. That means that casual records of species made when you are doing different jobs, or moving between plots, are extremely important. Such as this emerging Humming-bird Hawk-moth recorded on a large area of acid-grassland with some heath known as the Plain. Now these are not all that scarce as a migrant but I have never seen this before, an adult that had clearly still not taken its maiden flight. Last summer I saw an adult ovipositing on Lady's Bedstraw at Heyshott Down but this was a first for me. Annoyingly, my memory card broke so I only had my phone camera for much of this trip. However I took this shot and posted it on Twitter not thinking that much of it, three days later it reached 1000 likes and over 150 retweets. I think even the Calosoma sycophanta event only got about 300. Anyway, not bad for a phone shot!

I've now recorded over 700 invertebrates there this year and the list is rising all the time. Highlights included a new location on the site for Breckland and Fallen's Leatherbugs, the impressive wasp Podalonia affinis (also on the Plain), the Scarab Shieldbug, the unpronounceable Sphragisticus nebulosus (a new species for me). Also on the Plain (and cathartic as I caught one last month but it flew off before I could pot it) were my first stiltflies. They turned out to be the notable Micropeza lateralis. Also on the Plain, quite a few Hedychrum nobile. A not very impressive camera photo of a very impressive jewel wasp.

To the north of the site this very late Agapanthia villosoviridescens. It's usually a late May to June species.

We ran a moth trap on the Plain which would have been more successful if the generator hadn't kept cutting out. We did add a few species to the list such as this Vestal.

Always a pleasure to see Antler Moths (below) and True Lover's Knots too.

However it was the by-catch that proved most interesting. There were lots of aquatic bugs and beetles that were all new to the site, hundreds of Water Veneer moths too. Quite a few carabids came to light  but the best was Harpalus froelichii which I have only seen in the Brecks so far. Talking to Steve Gale I was expecting to see this at Ken Hill but as yet I had not knowingly picked it up. It's Nationally Rare, Near Threatened and S41 and adds to the Breck-like nature of the site's flora and fauna.

The vegetation structure and composition plots are now complete. I added a couple more arable plants to the list including another good one which was also a lifer and a 7 point scorer. This is my new favourite grass, Rye Brome which was confirmed by vice county recorder Richard Carter when we met up in the field. It's Vulnerable and nationally scarce. Along with Corn Mint (scores 1) that gets the site index for arable plants up to a whopping 113!!!

A couple of veteran trees were really impressive. This 6.5 m+ (that doesn't even include the 2.3 m branch on the right) girth Pedunculate Oak is one of the biggest I have ever seen.

And this Common Lime Tilia x europea was 4.31 m girth!

And a few fungi were about too, such as this Dyer's Mazegill on pine. I've started the NVC map now, so I will be doing some series footfall (this last trip was 42 miles) for the last two visits. Whatever will we find next month?! A huge thanks to the Padwick's, Richard Carter and everyone else at the Estate for their support and time and making it such a fun project.

Ground bugs are great, they are practically beetles. And this smart looking black one with a big orange blob on has been on my 'list of cool looking things I want to see' for some time. Behold, Aphanus rolandri! Now I took the above photo in the Brecks last year, the only time I have seen it. Meanwhile, Mike Edwards was doing a survey for us at West Dean Woods and picked it up there new to West Sussex within a few days of my record! Now what's interesting about this is how different the sites are, given that there are so few records in Sussex. There is a very old record from Seaford in 1949 and two from Brighton between 2006 and 2011 and that is it. It's a big and distinctive bug, I would expect it to come to me to verify via iRecord if it was more widespread but that hasn't happened.

Now the ones I saw in the Brecks were in a huge, hot, dry and old clearing on an abandoned airfield. The immediate vicinity was calcareous-like grassland due to the substrate put down for the runway. As this has been there since WW2, there is a great continuity to this glade. A mass of Wood Small-reed  (quite uncommon down in Sussex compared to East Anglia) was growing next to the old runway, mainly unmanaged and it was collapsing in on itself forming a very hot and dry litter layer. There were hundreds of nymphs and adults running around in this having a whale of a time.

You can read about it here on the British Bugs site.

At West Dean Woods, Mike told me they were plentiful and clearly well established there. Below is the site it was found on. A very recent and quite small clearing in fairly humid woodland. Even the recently cleared coppice coupes nearby are more like the Breckland site than this is but they lack any continuity of bare ground that even a very small glade like this can offer. It's fascinating, as these sites are so different, it makes you think why is it so scarce down here? Or are we actually just seeing the start of a colonisation event from a species that's actually not that fussy and just does well in warm sites? The impression I get is that it is genuinely scarce and whatever these two sites have in common is the answer but there doesn't seem to be much in common!

I spent a long but enjoyable day yesterday at the BTO's headquarters at the Nunnery thrashings out ideas of what to record in a national living landscape monitoring strategy. Despite seven hours driving and a five hour meeting, I squeezed in some natural history thanks to Andy Musgrove and Brian Eversham. The highlight for me was this notable a weevil, Cossonus linearis, that I found on a hybrid Black Poplar snag. It's  real specialist of this part of the world according to the NBN, so it was a really nice thing to chance upon. Another beetle Brian showed us that was not something I have ever come across before, Gonodera luperus. I see that has a stronghold in the Brecks too. I saw three new beetles in all but dipped on Otter and Platyrhinus again!

Strangest though was ticking the nationally scarce Wall Bedstraw from a step ladder on the walls of the old Nunnery! Thanks to Andy, Brian and Rob for such an enjoyable day.

Beetling in the Brecks was great. It would have been far less great if Mark Gurney hadn't had a fork with him. Just a simple fork you would eat your dinner with but also just the right tool for turning over rosettes of low growing plants and picking through the top layer of the light sandy soils. I reckon he was finding ten beetles for everyone I found. I will be carrying a fork on my person from now on. Another amazing thing I saw Mark using was a photographic reflector and filter, that also doubles up as a beating tray! It's great for taking photos on very bright days AND it packs down to almost nothing. I have already ordered one. That and my new fork should be arriving any day.

Now, for some beetles. We went looking for Fingered Speedwell at a site near Lakenheath (Caudle Farm) but failed. We did find Breckland Speedwell, Grape Hyacinth and Bur Medick there though. There were a number of big, impressive mega weevils to get the blood pumping. Joint candidates for most impressive weevil of the day were the above Mogulenes geographicus and this Hypera dauci (that we found later in the short turf around Lakenheath RSPB car park). Both nationally scarce. Both new species for me. Now, I have not done much weevling. With around 600 species, they are a big chunk of the UK beetle fauna, some 15% perhaps. I can't afford to keep over looking them. 

In the above two photos of Hypera dauci, king of weevils, you can see the difference between casting your shadow over the subject on a sunny day (top) and using the filter (bottom). The difference in the colours of the golden threads of the moss Brachythecium albicans is clear! The fork and the filter will be great for finding inverts and taking photos on chalk-grassland in Sussex. Spending time in the field with other naturalists is great for learning new techniques, even if it does make me feel a bit like a chimp with a type writer.

We also saw this nationally scarce (Na) carabid and Breckland specialist, Harpalus pumilus, our smallest Harpalus.

Here is Mark in action with the fork in front of some Grape Hyacinth.
Oh yeah, we also saw some birds this weekend. Without even trying really we saw Stone-curlew and Bittern. On the Saturday I also saw  Rough-legged Buzzard at Ouse Fen. I went there with another old friend and colleague from the RSPB, Matt Self. First time on a bike in seven years and I rode 45 miles! Here is Matt shortly before the Rough-legged Buzzard was spotted. Saddle sore is an understatement!
Towards the end of Sunday, Mark and I went on two last plant twitches, to Wayland Wood for Yellow Star of Bethlehem. Very nice but mostly gone over.

It's funny the places I find myself in. So yesterday afternoon I found myself on a road verge in Thetford with Mark Gurney looking at one of the few sites in the country for Fingered Speedwell. Oh the irony, that such a flimsy plant would only allow my camera to focus on it if I placed my finger in the shot first! Nearby was the other speciality speedwell of the area, the aptly named Breckland Speedwell.

And the rather attractive Spring Vetch.

The next few blog posts are all out of county so look away now if you are not interested in rare spring annuals and nationally scarce weevils in the Brecks! For the first time since I left the RSPB four years ago, I headed back to that part of the world to see some old friends and twitch some rare plants. I have taken so many photos that I might have to drip feed the posts out so I'll start with this road verge in Thetford on Sunday, then rewind to what happened on Saturday when I got on a bike for the first time in seven years...