The Lyons Share

When was the last time you saw SEVEN species of vertebrate you hadn't seen before in the UK? I can't remember. I also now that this time yesterday, I hadn't heard of a Reticulated Dragonet but I saw one today. I got up at the ungodly hour of 4.00 am to go and volunteer with Chichester Harbour Conservancy and Sussex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority with some of their annual monitoring of fish populations. I was expecting a few new species, but six new fish and two new crustaceans was a real treat. I haven't been that excited since I first started moth trapping years ago!

Other highlights included three Great Pipefish all around 30 cm long. I also keyed out the spider crab you can see in the image below. There are several different species but this one was the Long-legged Spider Crab. I saw some unidentified pipefish under rocks on Anglesey years ago but these were a totally different looking beast.Much more like the sea horses they are related to.

Here is one of the beautiful Sand Smelt as it was being measured and put back in the sea.

I hadn't realised how many gobies there were, but I learnt how to identify Black Goby today. New fish number four!

We caught quite a few young Pollack. My fifth new fish of the day.

The final fish I hadn't seen before were Herring but I didn't get a photo of those. We also saw Common Goby, Shanny, Sea Bass, Long-spined Sea Scorpion and this Mackerel.

I picked up a very odd looking shrimpy thing which keyed out easily to Chameleon Prawn. Yet another new species! On the way back we saw a Little Tern, six Common Seals and two Grey Seals (one Grey is visible to the bottom right of this photo). A big thank you to Ed Rowsell and colleagues for the opportunity. I'll definitely be going back.

But that's only six vertebrates I hear you say. Well, the 7th was at the opposite end of the county in the Cuckmere. I just went and twitched a first summer male American Golden Plover that Matt Eade found yesterday. A nice bird and one of my bogies! So, after what seems like a very long day I end the day on 4314 species.

I got a tip off from Peter Whitcomb about this nationally scarce arable plant on the Ditchling Road so I was able to stop in as it's right on my route back from work. A phone call later and I finally managed to see the thing, it's Fine-leaved Fumitory and it's quite distinct with very fine leaves and tiny white flowers. Here is some Common Fumitory for comparison.

However, that's not the best lifer I had today because I went and twitched the White-winged Black Tern at the Chichester Gravel Pits at lunch time. Always wanted to see a summer adult and having dipped on a couple over the years, it was a gamble that paid off. Also present were Common Terns and  a Little Gull. See if you can spot the bird in this ridiculously bad photo or alternatively look at some decent shots on Jake's blog. That leaves me on 3290.

So I'm poking around a wall in a park in Chichester looking directly at the biggest spider I have ever seen in Britain in the wild (no kidding!), but how did this all come to be? Well, I knew I was going to be doing a farm survey today and I would finish up near Chichester around lunch time. I was tempted by the Black Stork on the other side of the New Forest but I didn't fancy another 100 mile car journey and I'd like to do the New Forest properly, not rushing around after some bird. I needed something more local to satisfy my daily natural history fix, so I tried an experiment. I posted this request on Twitter:

I got a response from none other than Buglife's Matt Shardlow. Amongst other things he told me that Chichester was a good site for Segestria florentina. I found what I thought would be a suitable looking wall and began my search. Plenty of Steatoda nobilis and Armadillidium depressum, two spiders with large chelicerae but they very quickly retreated into their holes. After about an hour's searching, I found one and using a twig to emulate a fly trapped in the web, I lured it slowly out. A leg came out that could only belong to a MASSIVE spider and when I finally saw its whole body I have to say I was quite surprised and a little jumpy. I'm not exaggerating when I say it's the biggest spider I have seen. Roberts states the females can be up to 2.2 cm long, coupled with the huge thick hairy legs and the formidable looking green 'fangs', this is one mean looking spider. I couldn't get enough of it and showed a few interested people that walked past that didn't think I was a weirdo. Here are the best shots, enjoy!