I have rarely had such a good day out in the field as I did last Sunday at Blean. By 08:59, I was looking at a very immature Pistius truncatus (have a look here for more info). A Critically Rare arboreal crab spider, something of a mega in the spider world. Not seen in the UK for 20 years and only ever known from the East Blean Woods complex (and old records in the New Forest). This was therefore a new location for the spider on the KWT managed land. It was also at the very far west of this area, about as far from East Blean Woods as it could possibly be. I picked this up on the second out of 24 plots I am surveying this year, so I expected I might see some more. I did not. I do still have three rounds of visits to go though. It's a gorgeous little spider, appearing to have no hind legs to the naked eye. They're a translucent yellow, next to the greeny/brown body. Very similar in build and shape to Thomisus onustus. Here is my first view of it in the tray.
The spider list is epic. With Walckenaeria mitrata found in a conifer plantation last month, the total number of spiders with conservation status stands at 20 already! That's 20 out of the 127 spiders I have recorded so far. New this month was Salticus zebraneus and a stonking adult male Philodromus longipalpis. This really is clearly bigger than the other Philodromus in that group.
But it's not just the spiders. Across the board, rare species are turning up in droves. In fact, so far 46 of the 378 species recorded have some form of conservation status. I had four new beetles that day. First up being a real surprise for me that took a little while to digest. Lagria atripes was listed as Regionally Extinct in the 2014 review but it was widespread at Blean. I recorded 10 animals across six of the 24 compartments. It seems it has been turning up in a few places in Kent though, so is not that much of a surprise.
Then I had a "WTF?!" moment. I love that there are so many beetles in the UK that you can keep encountering ones that you have never even seen a photo of before. This is the Nationally Rare melandryid, Hypulus quercinus. Phwoar!!!
And quite a surprise was the recent addition to our longhorn fauna, Agapanthia cardui. Swept from a cleared area in the wood. I expect this will be all over the south east in a few years.
The fourth beetle was one that I am surprised it has took me this long to find, Pityophagus ferrugineus (not photographed). Additionally to all these lifers, there were loads of nice beetles I have only ever encountered once or twice before. First up the myrmecophile, Clytra quadripunctata. Found so far on three out of 24 plots. A stonking Nationally Scarce species. Not a surprise with all the Formica rufa there. Oh and I had a new ant, Guest Ant!
Two Anthribus fasciatus (Na) from one plot. Only the 2nd and 3rd examples of this I have ever seen. The last being Knepp in 2015.
Four Tritoma bipustulata (Na) on brackets on a recently fallen, rotten oak limb. I have only ever seen this at Levin Down in West Sussex.
Trogulus tricarinatus. Not sure why this isn't nationally scarce. This rather large and bizarre looking harvestman was found by suction sampling vegetated leaf litter (which is especially rich at Blean - the best leaf litter I have ever sampled).
A stonking Didea fasciata was a new hoverfly for me.
Always nice to see Lapidary Snail too.
And a long overdue lifer. Although try as I might I cannot find this in any of the 24 plots. I walked passed a sunny bank of Cow-wheat and thought to myself, "if this isn't there, it can't be here at all". I found it in 30 seconds. The Cow-wheat Shieldbug Adomerus biguttatus. It must like plants growing on sunny rides and not under the canopy, not surprising really.
And of course, Heath Fritillary is the commonest butterfly there at the moment. What a beauty.
All this is baseline monitoring/research is driven by the application of the bison to the site. But it's important recording in its own right, with this area of Blean receiving relatively little invertebrate monitoring compared to East Blean Woods and the RSPB reserve. Monitoring like this is vital for nature reserves and rewilding projects alike, as it shows not only what is working but what isn't. So the management of sites can be adjusted accordingly. It's part of a whole package across a wide range of taxa that KWT are carrying out this year.
Definitely one of the best days I have ever had in the field and also, possibly the best survey I have ever done, for the sheer number of rare species and lifers. What makes it so good? Well, along with sites like the Surrey Heaths, it's the landscape scale effect I am sure. It's big enough to cope with small scale extinctions that can easily recolonise from other areas of the wood. Small, isolated sites can't cope with this. Continuity of management is always vital for good sites and it's also in the south east too, to be fair. I can't wait until July!
I don't often post about earwigs. Mainly because there are so few species. I have just had a lifer from some samples I took in west Kent in September though. I have finally seen a Hop-garden Earwig! It's not been recorded in Sussex. It seems the best part of the world to see it is in Kent, Suffolk and Essex, so it's likely to turn up in north East Sussex if it ever will. The females look quite like Lesne's Earwig females but the males have quite different pincers to one another. Both species lack the visible hind-wings peeping out from under the fore-wings that is so obvious on a Common Earwig (which I don't have a photo of). You could easily mistake either of them for an immature Common Earwig if you don't know what you're looking for. They look neater and a bit more translucent and less substantial than Common.
Here is the male Hop-garden.
And the male Lesne's Earwig.
I have 149 records in my database of earwigs. One for Hop-house and 13 for Lesne's, showing that Common hugely dominates in the field. But I have seen a fourth species that has not made it into my database at it's in the log book at work for the Woods Mill moth trap. The tiny rove-beetle-like Lesser Earwig turned up a few years ago. This really is a midget, half the size of the other species. This one does have very obvious hind-wings protruding through.
How many of you got the popular culture reference in the title? I wonder if anyone did because I always thought it was Power not Peril but then so did half the Internet...
I've had a very enjoyable couple of days freelancing in Surrey and Kent and quite a few lifers. But first I finally caught up with my first adult Rambur's Pied Shieldbugs. My first reaction was how much blacker they were, in fact it looked more like a black bug with white bits on than a pied one. These were in Kent. This bug has yet to reach Sussex but look for it on Black Horehound in the north east of East Sussex, it's only a matter of time!
Back in Surrey we saw quite a few
Raglius alboacuminatus, also on Black Horehound and also not yet in Sussex. This is a striking ground bug that I found mainly with the suction sampler by sampling in litter beneath or near to the foodplant.
Here are all the lifers from the last two days:
Raglius alboacuminatus
Cheilosia soror
Leopoldius strigatus
Tapinopa longidens
Creophilus maxillosus (at long last, what a beast!)
Scymnus femoralis
Stethorus punctillum (the UK's smallest ladybird at less than 1.5 mm!)
In fact, it was a great couple of days for ladybirds, the full list is here and includes the two lifers at the top. A total of 17 species not bad for two days. This is mostly down to using the suction sampler and picking up some of the smaller ones.
Scymnus frontalis
Stethorus punctillum
Platynapsis luteorubra
Tytthaspis sedecimpunctata
Propylea quattuordecimpunctata
Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata
Hippodamia variegata
Coccinella septempunctata
Harmonia axyridis
Harmoia quadripunctata
Subcoccinella vigintiquattuorpunctata
Rhyzobius chrysomeloides/litura
Rhyzobius lophanthae
Scymnus suturalis
Scymnus interruptus
Nephus redtenbacheri
Nephus quadrimaculatus
And I bought some new art equipment so the next installment of "Fussy Eaters" is coming soon...
What an amazing day. I started the day on 6997. A survey on some arable land and road verge in Kent threw up a lifer within ten minutes and one I have wanted to see for some time. The yellow and pink novelty Battenberg pyralid Onocera semirubella. Species 6998.
Next up Mike caught a Cistogaster globosa. A cracking little fly that parisitises Bishop's Mitre Shieldbugs (of which there were hundreds today)! Species 6999. So close now and no time for 'nice' photos either.
Then suddenly a bloomin' Jersey Tiger jumped out of the hedge and into my net! A bogey of mine for YEARS and what a species for my 7000th! We actually saw two, so much more impressive than i was expecting!
But why stop there? What about a new shieldbug such as Rambur's Pied Shieldbug! The red one is a Rambur's nymph, the other one which I assumed in the field was a regular Pied Shieldbug I now realise is a Brassica Bug nymph. Species 7001. Actually I recorded 9 shieldbugs and 5 squash bugs today, possibly a record for me. Oh and two rhopalids and Alydus calcaratus.
Another cool fly! This time Gymnosoma rotundatum. I am a bit late to the party with this tachinid but here is species 7002!
And what I believe are the workings of the Elm Zigzag Sawfly. Species 7003.
An incredible day. A few other nice bits too. This lovely longhorn (which was new to me on this site last month) is Nemophpora metallica.
And I can't quite believe that this is the first Comma larva I have ever seen but it is!
Ten years ago I started working in the ecology department at the RSPB where I worked alongside some great naturalists and made many life-long friends. Matt Self, Malcolm Ausden, James Cadbury, Mark Gurney and of course, Mark Telfer. On the 6th August 2003, I went out into the field with Mark Telfer to Elmley Marshes on the Isle of Sheppey, north Kent to look for a very rare RDB1 beetle, the Pride of Kent Emus hirtus. I knew VERY little about beetles back then so the enormity of seeing one of these beasts almost as soon as we got out of the car was mostly lost on me. We then spent more than four hours searching cow pats for another individual on the hottest day of the year so far but to no avail. I even followed the back end of a herd of cows so we could search the freshest pats but we must have just been in the right place at the right time.
There are some old records in the SxBRC database for this species but it's been a very long time indeed since someone has reported one in Sussex. So if you see something that looks like a cross between a devil's coach horse and a bumblebee hanging a round a cow pat, you may just have seen the Pride of Kent in Sussex. Many thanks to John Walters who took this photo of the very same specimen back in the day before it was released back into the wild...
P.S., don't confuse the Pride of Kent with the Maid of Kent. The Maid of Kent is a little larger, is always found near water and lacks the golden pubescence...
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