The Lyons Share

I have had so many natural history experiences this year that I have not been able to post about so I am going to try and get a quick blog out every day like the old days and see how that goes. Yesterday, when leaving Butcherlands after a veg survey I noticed a Villa in the gateway between Brick Kiln Field in Butcherlands and Furnace Meadow. 

I couldn't catch it (no net) but I am happy it's Downland Villa Villa cingulata from the photos and video. Mike and I had this new to Sussex at Heyshott Down two years ago, we've also both since seen it at Graffham Down but this is quite a jump north and a fairly different habitat. It's neutral to slightly acidic if anything. It must be less associated with chalk-grassland than stated in the literature. Here is another video with more sun-boiled ramblings. I am so bored of this heat now! 

This fly is rapidly colonising the south so I would expect to see it near you some time soon. The habitat was not exciting. This is the fourth bee-fly we have on the reserves now.

Wow! What can I say? I've long wanted to get to grips with the balance between the commoner Chalk Fragrant-orchid and the scarcer Marsh or Dense-flowered Fragrant-orchid (above) at Ditchling Beacon. So I arranged to meet up with one of the commoners who just happens to be a leading specialist in orchids! Dr Phil Cribb and a local chap called Ben met me in the car park and we soon started counting orchids. We were not expecting them to be doing quite so well. With around 3250 counted in a couple of hours and this doesn't even cover the whole site! They are bigger, darker, more densely-flowered and slightly later flowering. They are probably just peaking or going over as we speak so if you want to see this wildlife spectacle, then go and see them this week/weekend. You can smell them just by standing among them, they smell a bit like parma violets. This orchid is listed as RedList but Data Deficient. I wonder if this is the most significant colony in Sussex now?

The bottom of the big slope at Ditchling is pretty hard to get to but this is where they are at their best. Hundreds growing in the holloway there that usually has none. It must be something to do with the crazy climatic conditions we have had over the last four months.

And here is Phil with his magical counting finger. It's really hard to see from this photo but this was perhaps the densest area of all.

And here is possibly the main pollinator for this plant. Six-spot Burnet. It's proboscis is covered in the orchid's sticky pollinia.

Here is a Marsh Fragrant-orchid on the left and the Chalk Fragrant-orchid on the right. We saw less than ten chalk!

It wasn't just these we were counting and mapping. We were also looking for Musk Orchids. They are not doing quite so well this year. We have counted 75 in the quarry or Tae's Land this year already but only saw 18 today on the main slope. These are tiny, heavily designated orchids. Being Nationally Scarce, S41 and RedListed Vulnerable. I tried to get a decent photo of the two species together but this was the best I could do. Actually I think that's a pretty cool photo, I can't help feeling the Marsh Fragrant-orchid is looking down disapprovingly at it's more diminutive and drab cousin. Saturday I am off to Heyshott to do the same thing. I wonder if they're doing as well there too?

Where to start with this one. A 120 Hawfinches? Australian Flu? The first airing of Season 3 of the Mighty Boosh some ten years ago? The Big Bang? Or maybe my first day back at work this year. Yes let's start there. I got to the boot of my car on the 2nd Jan and the whole car STUNK of fox. I was even more surprised when the smell had some how permeated into the car. I drove to work half expecting  the Crack Fox from the Mighty Boosh to be sitting on the back seat. This guy. Fortunately he wasn't.

I got back in the car at the end of the day and it STILL stank! I even called one of of my colleagues over and he was amazed at how bad it was. And it wasn't until the 6th that I realised what on (fox) earth was going on! But first we have to go back to the 30th Dec...

...I am recovering from what I now think is Australian Flu and having spent all of Christmas indoors I am itching to get out. I have some freelance work to do at Heyshott Down looking at bryophytes and I'm up there in a bit of a daze, it was way too soon to be back at work but you live and learn. I am seriously wrapped up and I only went out because it was 12 degrees. I have some new finger-less gloves. I'm head down mapping the stunning moss Rhodobryum roseum (which has spread on the site due to the management of the Murray Downland Trust) BUT I am continually distracted by calling Hawfinches. I had seen five at one point perched in the distance but it's so hard to ignore the call as I usually hear them so infrequently. 

Suddenly I look up and the sky is black with Hawfinches. A flock of some 45 birds flies over head and lands right in front of me. I lift my bins and can see a further 20 birds in the mid distance. I heard calling behind me and saw even more!!! Around 55 birds in the trees to the west. I did the math. 120 Hawfinches (and I believe that to be an underestimate). In all the excitement I began to overheat, now this is an important clue: I took my gloves off and put them in my big lower pockets in my combats. Exciting stuff. 

I head home at the end of the day feeling a little rough and spaced out. The next day as I was heading towards the pub for New Years and walked round the back of my car to cross the road I thought to myself "Someone's dropped a glove there that looks rather like one of my new gloves right outside the boot of my car" but the penny didn't drop. I carried on. Then a few days later I realised said glove was mine. It was soaking wet from all the 'rain' so I left it on my parcel shelf to dry off. Big mistake. Yesterday (6th Jan) I retrieved the glove to find it still soaking and then it hit me. Both the stench of fox scent glands at point blank range and the answer to the stinking car conundrum. The local foxes had been having their New Year's celebrations on my glove for days. What went on there we'll never know. Here is the offending article.

Now I know what you're thinking. "Nice hops". No I'm kidding. You're thinking "Why didn't you use 'fox glove' as a blog title?". Well that would have given it away right from the start. I have washed the fox glove now. It kind of now smells of a mix of part washing detergent and part greaty reduced fox musk, which is actually quite pleasant. I wonder though, what will my car will smell like tomorrow morning on my way to work?

What a year. I started with the first month in the southern hemisphere, then had possibly the busiest and often most stressful year of my life but I found some great stuff on the way, Including what I think is the highlight of my career so far. As ever, natural history and conservation has been my rock. So, in reverse order...

10. I don't do slugs but back in February I went all the way to Wales to see a whole slimy bunch of them. Here is the Alsatian Semi-slug.

9. I've wanted to see these freaky Tompot Blennies for years and was pleased to find loads off Saltdean in September.

8. It wasn't my first record of this as I had one last year but it was the first for West Sussex and the first for one of our reserves (Levin Down). Here is the awesome Platyrhinus resinosus.

7. Resurveying the ditches at Amberley was great as there was such positive changes. Like this Marsh Cinquefoil appearing in of our ditches after it was cleared.

6. Surveying the Murray Downland Trust's sites with Mike Edwards produced lots of surprises, such as this Villa cingulata at Heyshott Down.

5. I don't often see new longhorn beetles but the beetle season started with a bang with this Mesosa nebulosa found at Sheffield Park on a BMIG meeting by Nathan Clements in April.

4. The repeat of the big farm surveys in 2016 showed one of the farms in East Sussex become internationally significant for arable plants. I stumbled across three species I had never even seen before, like this Stinking Chamomile.

3. New Zealand was an incredible place. Perhaps the best memories are of the amazing seabirds. I'll never forget the first time an albatross flew right over our heads!

2. Sometimes a hunch pays off. An early morning start and we bagged the first records for Columbus Crabs in Sussex off Brighton Beach, all the way from the Sargasso!

1. Do I need to say anything other than CALOSOMA SYCOPHANTA!!!

Somewhere along the South Downs Way in deepest West Sussex is a small and isolated yet rich and diverse site managed by the Murray Downland Trust called the Devil's Jumps. So named for the sequence of five Bronze Age barrows that rise up from the site and have a rich chalk-grassland flora. Last weekend I started the fifth of sixth surveys there with Mike Edwards and it wasn't long until I swept what I initially though was a washed out Sphecodes. Then Mike became REALLY excited and shouted that's Andrena marginata! We hadn't even got close to the barrows at this stage and as we approached I saw the grassland was so dominated by Small Scabious that it only took seconds to find another two females. All in all we saw five females in total. Although currently considered nationally scarce (Na) this bee is one of the most declined bees in Europe and is therefore a hugely significant find for the survey. As the bee is only taking pollen from Small Scabious, its pollen baskets are white. Quite unlike the other rare bee on scabious, Andrena hattorfiana, which has pink pollen baskets from the Field Scabious/Greater Knapweed that it feeds on.

We went on to Heyshott Down itself and despite masses of Small Scabious, there were very few bees there at all. However, almost every flower of Wild Carrot had one of these wasps on it being Tiphia femorata. We also saw several Nomada flavopicta. Three new aculeates for me in one day! I'm up to 330 species for the survey so far and I still have all Mike's idents, my idents and this month's notes to write up!

During an invertebrate survey of Ebernoe Common yesterday, we stumbled across this amazing fungus just starting to grow out of a decaying Beech tree. It's big too, each of these fruting bodies is about fist-sized. It took a little while to identify but I am happy this is the Silky Rosegill (Volvariella bombycina). Another fungi that looks like some kind of dessert. I'm thinking coconut ice cream or white chocolate Ferroro Rocher. I love the scaly cap and the presence of a volva is quite odd for a species growing out of a tree. I think the scientific name is therefore more descriptive than the English. Here are some more shots.

This last one inspired me to come up with the alternative name of Forest Knockers. I'm sure in a few days it will look even more spectacular as it opens up fully. So, I think Silky Rosegill is a rubbish name for this species (I can't see the gills and it's not really silky) so I ask you, what would you call it? Please leave your comments on the blog.

Anyway. A few invertebrates from the survey. Here is the rare but expanding Episinus maculipes which I recorded new to Sussex last month at Ebernoe too. I've since also found it at Heyshott Down.

And this one was new for me. Cassida vittata (my 8th Cassida) and I wasn't expecting to see this one in the woods. Everyday is made better by a tortoise beetle. Especially one with metallic bits on it!

It's ironic that I was with Mike Edwards when he found the first record for Downland Villa Villa cingulata in Sussex the day after I watched my first ever football match. It's a type of bee-fly and is quite a smart looking beast. It hovers around in chalk-grassland looking for its host which is thought to be noctuid moth larvae. Having swept the grassland there all day yesterday, the only noctuid larvae we found in any abundance was Dusky Sallow. Could it be host-specific on this moth larvae?

Other exciting finds included the Mistletoe specialist bug Pinalitus viscicola which is new to West Sussex. Great also to see a male Araneus angulatus, only seen the females before.

Also new for me was this Six-belted Clearwing that I swept off a bank of Bird's-foot Trefoil. It was a bit worn from being swept but great to see my fifth clearwing (ALL without pheremones I should add).

Day two. A few less people but also one extra in the form of Steve Gale who I finally got to meet. There is a bit of a walk to get to Heyshott and when you are there the terrain is pretty hard going. We had been on site a matter of minutes when we started recording Grizzled and Dingy Skippers, smart green Cryptocephalus aureolus, Bracken Chafers and then Duke of Burgundy! The coolest thing about this particular Duke was that not only was it Mark Skevington's first, it also landed on his net! Then I looked down at my net to see a really cool Cryptocephalus which was a tick for me. Cryptocephalus moraei.

Clive Washington got his suction sampler out and I was amazed at how well it worked in short turf. We saw all sorts but the Devil's-bit Scabious Jewel Beetle Tachys troglodytes was perhaps the coolest. Another tick for me was the nationally scarce crab spider Ozyptila nigrita. There are very few records for this little crab spider in Sussex. I was hoping it was gonna be a county first. Never mind!

Bruce Middleton showed everyone the bryophytes the site is well known for. People were pleased to see Rhodobryum roseum and all sorts of scarce liverworts. Having covered these with Bruce on a previous podcast, I concentrated on the invertebrates. That said, it was cool to see a green Fly Orchid!

On the way back, a cool thing happened. I asked if there was anything that feeds on Wild Garlic. Someone said there was a hoverfly that nectars on the flowers. I swept the flowers, we caught the hoverfly. Everyone in the group saw the fly and here is little garlic breath himself: Portevinia maculata. I am really pleased with how things went. I added 25 species to my list. Hopefully the next meeting will be held in a different county and rockpooling seems like a popular idea!
I have already been back in the field today setting up some invertebrate monitoring at Iping & Stedham, where I added a further three species including the odd little saproxylic deadwood hoverfly Microdon analis, the crab spider Philodromus cespitum and the cool little weevil Cionus tuberculosus (which also landed on my net). I am on 3987. Only 13 to go to the 4000 mark. Shall I attempt to make 4000 something good or just let it happen and leave it to chance? I predict I will be there by the weekend...

At long last Episode Five is out now and available at the Natural History of Sussex blog page and on iTunes. This time we go in search of mosses and liverworts with Bruce Middleton at Heyshott Down and attempt to impress Michael with a big showy moss! Enjoy.

We recorded the outdoor session of Episode 5 of our podcast yesterday. We went to Heyshott Down with Bruce Middleton and had a great day. I added seven new species of bryophyte to my list with some quite scarce species and some very, very small species. First up we have Entodon concinnus. I have often thought I might have mistook this for the much more widespread Pseudoscleropodium purum but now I have seen it, I think I would recognise it again.

Here is the tiny liverwort with a silly English name. Top Notchwort Leiocolea turbinata.
But not as tiny as this Fissidens. It's Fissidens gracilifolius next to a giant 5p pence.

I ended the day on 3778 species. I have saved the most impressive till last though. Here is Rhodobryum roseum again, or Rose-moss, but these ones were much bigger than the ones I saw in the cemetery at Midhurst.