The Lyons Share

Back in 2009, we carried out many surveys at Ebernoe including one looking specifically at deadwood beetles with Mark Telfer and another looking more generally at invertebrates across the common with Mike Edwards. We are currently repeating the work with Mike Edwards seven years later so it's not easy to add new species of saproxylic invertebrate to the list but we have certainly done that over the last two months!

Back then, a lovely huge Beech had lost its limbs, one every year for three years or so providing plenty of habitat at just the right stage of decay. It was where I first saw Platystomos albinus and cut mt my teeth on saproxylic invertebrates. Six or seven years later and the fallen tree has mostly passed through the exciting stage of decay. Most of the bark has fallen away, the fungi present are hard (Lumpy Brackets and Ganodermas) and full of little other than Cis species. I suddenly remembered on the previous visit, a more recently fallen Beech with intact bark. It also had on the April visit some very fresh oysters which I figured would be nice and rancid by now. They were indeed. I broke one open and the following fell out.

Mycetophagus quadripustulatus

Mycetophagus multipunctatus

Pycnomerus fuliginosus

Triplax aenea (no other Triplax species sadly)

Glischrochilus quadripunctatus

Pediacus dermestoides

Cartodere nodifer

Rhizophagus sp.

Several staphs to be looked at later

A diverse mix but probably nothing new to the site. It was our very keen budding entomologist and trainee warden Oly Sayers who handed me a beetle I recognised instantly as the RDB3 Corticeus unicolor! Oly is close to the end of his placement with us at the Trust and he has only been out with me a few times but has proved to be good at finding rare and scarce deadwood invertebrates! It does also go to show however that the wood decay process is a dynamic process. A continuous supply of deadwood with various stages of decay is needed for a site to have a good saproxylic fauna. Everything always changes and that's also true for deadwood species. This is one reason why I have such a problem with log stacks, they promote the idea that wood decay is not a process but a static and continuously productive habitat. A log stack is really only marginally valuable for deadwood invertebrates for a few years when after that, it will mostly become a home to woodlice and centipedes and then worms (that's fine by the way - just don't kid yourself it's for deadwood invertebrates).

Anyway, back in 2011, I was with Mark Telfer when he found Corticeus unicolor new to Sussex at Cowdray. It's since been seen at Knepp and now it's been found at Ebernoe Common. I have heard its arrival in the south from its stronghold in the north has been dismissed as an introduction via timber movements. I have a problem with this as all the sites it's been found on contain old growth trees with lots of other saproxylic interest. 

Anyway, having seen some 18 longhorns at Ebernoe, Including three I have seen nowhere else, I was hoping for some longhorns this week. Despite beating plenty of hawthorn, all I saw were two Tetrops praeustus and two Grammoptera ruficornis. Mike did pick up two of the amazing Criorhina asilica from the glades which has to be my favourite hoverfly. However, it was tipulid larva Mike and I found in standing deadwood that was previous cleared of Holly that proved to be most exciting. Mike took it home and it emerged as Tipula selene which is also RDB3 and is only the second time he has seen it in 20 years! Ebernoe keeps throwing up surprises. There are also plenty of species there which I have seen nowhere else, such as this lovely leaf beetle on the willows in the glades Gonioctena viminalis.

I went to Cowdray Park today to look for deadwood beetles with Sarah Patton (10th place on the pan-species rankings). We found this Colydium elongatum under Beech bark which was a tick for me. Last year at Cowdray I found a single elytron high up in a spider's web in an oak tree and presented it to Mark Telfer who recognised it instantly. Nice to see this RDB3 species in the flesh. It's a predator of smaller saproxylic beetles (it helps to eat things smaller than you) and it gets around the problem of getting into small holes in a similar way to stoats and weasels. It's the same diameter as its food but is much longer.

I spotted the Upright Chickweed, I could not see any at all last year despite a thorough search.

However, most exciting of all was a large black and red Ampedus found under Beech bark. We recorded Ampedus cardinalis there last year in the big old red-rotten oaks. I think this is going to be Ampedus cinnabarinus but I can't be sure for now. It would be a great find if it is this species, both new to the site and my list. I end the day on 3915 species.

I changed the interception traps at Cowdray yesterday for the penultimate time. I was surprised at how many beetles there were so late in the season, more than there have been earlier in the season. With some of the biggest hollow trees being present on the golf course, a funny thing occurred there yesterday when I hid inside a hollow tree to wait out a heavy rain shower. The complete surprise on a passing golfer's face as I jumped out of the tree afterwards was priceless! My explanation of what I was doing in there only seemed to confuse them even more!

I did manage one new species walking between the trees. The fungus Blackening Waxcap. I have really slowed down with the listing now, adding only two species since the start of August! I hope I can get some more fungi and lower plants this Autumn...

I have been NVC mapping Graffham today. I saw a few interesting inverts in the process including this odd spider, Cyclosa conica. I have seen it before at Friston but I have never seen its web with the strange 'stabilimentum'. Apparently, not used for stabilising the web but more for camouflage. This particular species decorates the stabilimentum with chunks of undigested prey. Awesome!

A nice surprise were two male Hornet Beetles Leptura aurulenta. I may start thinking this species is common.

Also got these shots of a male Downy Emerald, I was hoping for more yellow, that would have been brilliant.

Called into Cowdray for an hour after work and found the RDB2 Lymexylon navale within ten minutes when it flew into my net! It looked really weird in flight, like a flying worm. It was very lively so no chance of a photo. So much for scaling back the natural history.

Yesterday was a dark day. Too painful was yesterday's event that I could not even blog about it until 24 hours later. No, actually I was so busy running around from one end of the county to the other with work that I didn't get a chance to blog. Anyway. Picture the scene: I walk up to a tree at Cowdray which has been very productive to see an ovipositing Hornet Beetle Leptura aurulenta. I pull out the Coolpix, go to turn it on when it begins to make a very pained sound and refuses to turn on at all. At least it went out with style. I bought the camera second hand in 2005 and 95% of all the photos on this blog are taken using this 4 mega pixel fossil. Good job I bought a back up. Perhaps now I will finally figure out how to use this vastly superior camera! 

Anyway, we had a good day with a number of species new to my list and many more for the site. Again, picking through fragments of beetles in old trees proved very productive and we might have found two RDB additions to the list using this method! Not so productive though for the pan-species lister.

I then went on to Friston to look for one of my bogey moths, the Lappet. We failed to see it but we did see Olive Crescent, Great Oak Beauty and one of my other bogey moths, the Fern (which flew off before I had chance to get a photo). We also saw a couple of Scallop Shells (haven't seen them for years), my first male Glow Worms, and this  Brown Chafer Serica brunnea which was also new to me. I end the day on 3515 species. I also remembered that today has another signifigance. It's ten years ago today my career in conservation started as a volunteer at Dungeness RSPB Reserve. I may have to do yet another blog about that...

I changed the vane traps at Cowdray today and found this pretty little micro moth sitting on the bottom of a trap inside a hollow oak tree. Didn't expect it to be anything exciting but thought I would give it a go. I thought it was going to be a gelechid but it's actually a pRDB3 saproxylic Dystebenna stephensi. I'm going to have to get the specimen confirmed but it is highly unlikely to be anything else considering where I found it. By the time I extracted myself from the tree, I noticed this first for West Sussex sitting on the outside of the tree. It's the Nb Pseudocistella cermaboides. I new it instantly as I found it new to Sussex at Eridge Rocks last year. Now it's in West too, it would seem I am the only person who has seen this beetle in Sussex! This is what happens if you go poking around in red-rotten hollow oak trees.

I also saw new to the site this Na Tomoxia bucephela which was doing something quite odd. I decided to take a small video to show what it was doing. Perhaps its over-sized head (hence the Latin name) is adapted to whatever it is it is doing. I also recorded the Na Dasytes niger which was new to me. I didn't find a single beetle new to the site list that didn't have a conservation status! My list is currently on 3480.

I ran a course on deadwood beetles today at Ebernoe Common. We saw six species of longhorn including this fantastic female Hornet Beetle (or Golden-haired Longhorn Beetle) Leptura aurulenta which wasn't looking too well to be honest. This is a Na species known from the site and we also saw a couple of the Na Stenurella nigra. Another species I saw today that was new to me included this fantastic spider, Achaearanea lunata.

Back to yesterday's visit to Cowdray. We added two RDB species to the site list. I found the RDB1 Laemophloeus monilis, apparently this will be only the 6th site in the UK for this strange looking beast. Mark found Corticeus unicolor, another RDB3 species that may even be new for Sussex! Other Nb species that were new for me included Lissodema denticolle and Diplocoelus fagi. I did manage one more photo yesterday which was of a weevil that Mark identified as Stereocorynes truncorum, a Na and a Grade 1 IEC species. We really have only scratched the surface at Cowdray, already the IEC (2004) is showing national significance, I can't wait to see what else is there! I end the day on 3426 species.

I've been at Cowdray all day today with Mark Telfer carrying out part of a deadwood beetle survey for the West Weald Landscape Project. We saw A LOT of good stuff and even with the small number of things I managed to identify I ended the day on 3420 species! We were finding beetles pretty much all day long, I didn't leave the site feeling at all like we had found everything! 

The above beetle is the quite stunning longhorn Phymatodes testaceus which I have never come across before, Mark found it on a Beech tree. I didn't manage to take many photos because I was too busy finding rare and scarce beetles and much of what we saw today was actually quite small. However, a tiny, well-marked, very flat beetle that I found only one specimen of on a fallen Beech looks like it is going to be of note. It's gonna have to wait until tomorrow though as I'm shattered! Watch this space for part two of this blog which will actually have some species names in I promise. Too much to take in for one day!

Today has already been a long day. After a farm survey this morning, I quickly called in at Cowdray to take some shots of the Wood Cricket nymphs. I am fairly confident that's what they are anyway and after a process of elimination, I find it hard to think what else they could be. They are certainly not bush-crickets of any type. There were dozens there crawling around in the leaf litter but they were pretty fast and I didn't get too close with the camera. Can somebody with experience of these little critters confirm the ID please?

I found this Alosterna tabacicolor on Cow Parsley (I rarely see much nectaring on Cow Parsley) and thought I would take the opportunity for a photo. This is the first one I have seen this year.

Finally, I went and met Penny Green at the bridge at Fittleworth to look for Club-tailed Dragonflies. I saw a Brassica Bug which was new to me and also another of the striking bug Corizus hyoscyami. In the distance I spotted a single Ben Rainbow searching for dragonflies on the other side of the river but other than lots of Banded Demoiselles, it was very quiet. Feeling tired and hay-fevery, I headed back and we bumped into Ben again. At that exact moment we saw a Club-tailed Dragonfly just as the sun was going in and only for a few seconds. I must go back and get better views but I was happy with the ID. That leaves me on 3340.

It appears that Blogger deleted this post (and it wouldn't let me on the site yesterday either) so here it is again. This is the view I had looking upwards inside a huge hollow oak tree at Cowdray. I was completely surrounded by red-rot on all sides and as I looked up, there was another large red and black Ampedus about 10 foot up. An amazing experience. 

The first thing I saw as I got out of the truck though was a number of Wood Crickets. I did not realise the significance of this at first as this would be the first records for this Na species in Sussex! I will have to go back and get some photos.

I didn't have a lot of time to look for beetles as we were setting up the traps. What little time I did was very productive though. Saproxylic beetles new for the site included Platypus cylindrus, Cicones variegatus (Na) and a single elytron of Deathwatch Beetle. I also saw the spectacular saproxylic cranefly Ctenophora pectinicornis. A great start to the survey.