I reached 774 species (12.9% of the challenge) by the 14th January, 372 of which are invertebrates (there's so much to see in mid winter). I had a great day out at Binstead Woods with James Chisnall last Saturday and then went on to Burton Pond for a couple of hours. On the 14th I went to Old Lodge with Matt Secombe, targeting a whole load of spiders and we got most of them!
First up though, it was a surprise to beat a Corizus hyoscyami off a pine! That's me on 43 species of hemipteroids (my target is 500 for the year).
One of the key targets was Micrommata virescens. This spider is identifiable as an immature if you know how to separate them from Tibellus! I flushed a Woodock just as I found this (still not seen a Greenfinch but I did finally unlock Sparrowhawk in the park when I was training this afternoon).
Nice to get the bog specialist shore bug, Chartoscirta cocksii. There is so much to be found at the base of mature tussocks of Purple Moor-grass in January.
Back to the spiders. So I am now on 129 arachnids for the year (or 25.8% of my 500 species target). This 129 includes 122 species of spider. Taranucnus setosus is pretty much guaranteed at Old Lodge in Molinia.
We found just one immature Raft Spider Dolomedes fimbriatus but you only need one for the list! I really need to start taking photos of people and landscapes to illustrate this challenge, or an future talks or articles I do on it are all going to have photos with grey backgrounds.
Like this one! Centromerus arcanus is really common in Sphagnum at Old Lodge. It has such an incredible distribution, check out the SRS page for it and you'll see why I think of Ashdown Forest as 'Sussex's upland'.Other spider targets all found included: Notioscopus sarcinatus, Hypselistes jacksoni, two male Theonoe minutissima (only the 2nd time I have recorded it there) and a bonus Thanatus striatus (which is new to Old Lodge)! It was a four species of Walckenaeria day too! I love it when you show stuff to someone and they keep saying 2 "I have wanted to see that for ages!" And any day you get to shove a Garlic Snail up someone's nose for the first time is a good day.
Matt found this Cychrus caraboides under a rock. I so very rarely see this big beetle, in fact it is only my 9th record in 17 years of beetling! I am on 94 beetles for the year, that's 7.8% of my 1,200 species target for beetles. Gulp.
And now the exciting find of the survey, vacuumed from a bog I have surveyed many times before, a couple of these small narrow beetles. It's Corticaria umbilicata, very obviously long and narrow. Last recorded in Sussex from Broadwater Warren in 1985 and not recorded since. It's not only new to Old Lodge but to any SWT reserve. These sort of records are important at demonstrating how worthwhile challenges like this are, every time I go to one of these reserves I find something new.
A huge thanks to everyone has donated to the
Just Giving page so far, and please do consider donating something at some point throughout the year. It's all going to help the management of the Trust's reserves.
If you want to take part in pan-species listing, you can sign up for free here!
Off to Ebernoe Common for a big day out tomorrow. Watch this space!
How exactly did I end up in a bog with a chap kneeling at my feet shouting "get your little man out" just as two strangers walked passed and gave us disapproving looks? Well first off, I should say he meant TinyRecorder. That 'he' was Ray Gabriel. Ray, Danni Sherwood and I met up to go spidering at one of my favourite spidering sites, Old Lodge. It was a slow and steady on the spider front but we had seen many of the site specialities by this point. Having introduced Ray to my
little public engagement project earlier when we found a big
Dolomedes, we moved on to another mire when I heard Ray shout "I've got something big! A cricket" or something like that. I thought to myself as I rushed over, it can't be ANOTHER
Large Conehead can it? It only bloody was! It's only 19 days since I saw them at Dungeness on the day they were discovered, here I am on a Sussex Wildlife Trust reserve in the middle of the Ashdown Forest a long way from the coast! In fact the nearest Sussex coast is just under 20 miles away. Clearly, Ray realised that this was a 'TinyRecorder moment' but his choice of words was just hilarious. This isn't the first Sussex record though, as there has been one in a garden in Bexhill since the start of August.
If an en entomologist can encounter these twice in less than three weeks, then there are far more around than you perhaps realise. It's going to be common here very soon I think. They are big and obvious in the day and very noisy at night, so I would think you might have a chance at finding them anywhere in the county now. Absolutely incredible! So nice to see in daylight too though. Enjoy the photos! I thought their eyes were black bu they are really not.
Spiders new for the year were Floronia bucculenta and remarkably, Drapetisca socialis, putting me on 345 spiders for 2020. Here is Drapetisca. Common as muck this one but it's my first of the year. We recorded at least 51 species of spider today but this really did eclipsed for me by that huge cricket. So unexpected!
New for the site was Ozytpila sancturia swept by Danni and Cnephalocotes obscurus by myself. It's not easy to get a new spider for Old Lodge so nice one Danni! The site has now had 172 species of spider recorded on it. Also new for the site, and only the second ever Sussex record was the ground bug Lamproplax picea that I sieved from Sphagnum. The only other Sussex record was Flatropers in 1696! Over 50 years ago. What an awesome day! A big thanks to Danni and Ray for a really enjoyable day.
Last weekend I was lucky enough to spend some time in the field with other arachnologists. The shadow in the above photo is Richard Gallon, with Ray Gabriel central and me on the right. We were looking for the enigmatic and extremely rare
Thanatus formicinus. A big and impressive spider last seen in Sussex in 1969. There is about as much chance of finding Winnie the Pooh, also from the Ashdown Forest. Yet it did just turn unexpectedly up at Clumber in Nottinghamshire, where I assume it has remained undetected for decades.
We didn't find it. Possibly due to a thick layer of Scotch Mist.
However, we did have an awesome day and recorded something in the region of 45 species of spider. Armed with a trio of suction samplers, we looked like a cross between the Ghostbusters and Last of the Summer Wine. Richard had his petrol driven beast and Ray and I had an electric one a piece. First sample and Richard got a lifer for him and a new one for the year for me. A big female Agroeca brunnea. Only the second time I have seen it and the first female.
I didn't take many more photos on the day, except this Himacerus boops recorded at Duddleswell. It seems to be a genuinely scarce species in Sussex. I do a lot of sampling on heathland and this is the first Sussex record since 2011!
Now back to the spiders. I was able to tease out just what I wrote down from my sampler in the field and make a comparison between a single petrol suction sampler and an electric one.
| Species |
Status |
|
Petrol |
|
Electric |
| Agrocea
brunnea |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Agroeca
proxima |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Araneus
diadematus |
|
|
|
|
1 |
| Bathyphantes
gracilis |
|
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Centrmerita
concinna |
|
|
|
|
1 |
| Centromerus
dilutus |
|
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Ceratinella
brevis |
|
|
|
|
1 |
| Ceratniella
brevipes |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Cercida
prominens |
NS |
|
1 |
|
|
| Clubiona
subtilis |
|
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Cnephalocotes
obscurus |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Ditcyna latens |
|
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Erigone atra |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Erigone
dentipalpis |
|
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Ero cambridgei |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Ero frucata |
|
|
|
|
1 |
| Euophrys
frontalis |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Evarcha
arcuata |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Gonatium
rubens |
|
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Gongylidiellum
vivum |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Hahnia montana |
|
|
|
|
1 |
| Hypselistes
jacksoni |
NS |
|
|
|
1 |
| Hypsosinga
pygmaea |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Hypsosinga
sanguinea |
NS |
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Mangora
acalycpha |
|
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Mermessus
trilobatus |
|
|
|
|
1 |
| Metellina
mengei |
|
|
|
|
1 |
| Neon
reticulatus |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Pachygnatha
degeeri |
|
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Palliduphantes
eicaeus |
|
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Pelecopsis
parallela |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Pholcomma
gibbum |
|
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Pisaura
mirabilis |
|
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Pocadicnemis
pumila |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Simitidion
simile |
|
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Sintula
corniger |
NS |
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Tenuiphantes
mengei |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Tenuiphantes
tenuis |
|
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Tenuiphantes
zimmermanni |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Thanatus
striatus |
NS |
|
1 |
|
1 |
| Walckenaeria
antica |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Walckenaeria unicornis |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Zora spinimana |
|
|
1 |
|
1 |
| TOTAL SPECIES |
43 |
|
35 |
|
25 |
| Percentage |
100% |
|
8.41% |
|
58.1% |
| Unique |
n/a |
|
18 |
|
8 |
| Ubiquitous |
17 |
|
17 |
|
17 |
| Species with
status |
5 |
|
4 |
|
4 |
| Proportion of
sp. with status |
11.6% |
|
11.4% |
|
16.0% |
This has proved a really interesting exercise. It was fairly standardised, we did about as many samples as each other. Mine certainly took longer to collect and a shorter time to process but I think this is a fairly standardised comparison without getting really science about it. Clearly the petrol gets more but they do get slightly different things when using them together. In this case, it would seem the electric sampler slightly inflates the metric of 'proportion of species with conservation status' that is a valuable tool for assessing a site's quality through its invertebrate assemblage.
EDIT: Totally forgot to say that Sintula corniger is new to East Sussex!
It was such a great day, so good to spend time with other arachnologists, something I rarely do being almost entirely self-taught. A big thanks to Richard and Ray and thank to Richard for the cake and coffee. I have been driving by Duddleswell Tea Rooms for 12 years! I was a bit gutted I didn't take more photos, so on Tuesday I went back up to the forest and did two hours sucking with one electric battery at Old Lodge and got a few goodies. First up I took some photos of species from above.
Here is the tiny Centromerus dilutus which is super common. This is on full zoom. This spider has a maximum length of 1.5 mm when adult! I never take the time to take photos of linys, this was quite a fun exercise but the photos are all poor, the light was awful too.
An adult male Walckneaeria antica.
And also very common, Centromeritus conccinus.
Evarcha arcuata and Cercidia prominens, both adult males at Old Lodge in November. There do not appear to be any records for either in November. It just goes to show it's worth getting out there even on these cold November days.
I did get a few species we didn't find on Saturday. These were.
Ozyptila atomaria
Micrommata virescens
Crustulina guttata
Meioneta mollis (new to site and Nationally Rare)
Tapinopa longidens (first Sussex record since 1968!)
Hahnia helveola (new site record and a lifer)
The last two of these species being new for the year putting me on 336. only 19 behind Matt! Here is a young Micrommata virescens.
Not to be mistaken for a young Tibellus.
To the naked eye, these and young Thanatus striatus all look quite similar but Micrommata have what I can only describe as 'feet'. Like in this shot. Showing that they are related to huntsman.
And finally the adult male Hahnia helveola, which happens to be the 48th new spider I have had this year and my 7500th species in all. Now I wrote this pretty quickly in just over an hour as I am now going to go to, you've guessed it, Ashdown Forest. It saves me driving to the north of England to look for linys, while still getting good records for Sussex.
So yes, we suck. But we are awesome at finding spiders. If Tapinopa longidens can turn up at after 51 years, we won't miss Thanatus formicarius. I am sure it's out there. One thing I learned from Richard was the habitat I was looking in is a bit off, a little too Molinia dominated so now I am concentrating on a heather dominated structure that I think I understand. Watch this space!
After hearing of the success of Thanatus formicinus being found in numbers two weeks ago in Nottinghamshire, I thought I would try and have another go for it at Old Lodge. I didn't find any. However, I did get three new spiders for me and six new spiders for Old Lodge. First up though, I found quite a few immature Micrommata virescens. This is the spider that grows up into a huge luminous green huntsman (an old image is shown below). This time of year they are pretty small and look quite like Tibellus. Of the two I photographed, I wonder if they are a young male (above) and female (below) as they are quite different looking even at this small size.
And here is what they'll become next year. Ashdown Forest is the main stronghold in Sussex for this amazing spider, nice to be able to record it in November. Actually, I recorded around 20 species today using the suction sampler.
This one was new to Old Lodge. Agroeca proxima. Agroecas look at first glance like wolf spiders but they are a different family. I do'r record them very often, in fact, this is only the 7th Agroeca record I have, this probably due to their late season.
The three money spiders that were new for me were also new to the site. Two of these,
Ceratinella brevipes and
Tenuiphantes cristatus are widespread species with a strong north-western distribution. Typical for Old Lodge to be home to species like this that are uncommon elsewhere in the county. There really is no reason to go up north when you go to the Ashdown Forest, it's like a bit of north-west England down here in the south. The third was also new to the reserve network, it's the nationally scarce species
Notioscopus sarcinatus or the
Swamp Lookout Spider. It's less than 2mm long and has a really odd feature in the male. A finger like projection that sticks up in the middle of the cephalothorax just behind the eyes. I couldn't get a decent photo down the microscope but here you go. The 387th spider recorded on our reserves.
Also new to Old Lodge were
Ero furcata and
Walckenaeria cuspidata. There were also dozens of the nationally scarce
Hypselistes jacksoni which I recorded there last March. It was possibly the commonest money spider in the bog. It has a really interesting shaped head too.
So, didn't find the target species but it was well worth it. Can't remember the last time I added three new spiders in one day and Notioscopus is a really good find.
Mistletoe has never been recorded on a Sussex Wildlife Trust reserve. But today we recorded it FROM one. Not that we'll be counting it on the site list but this shows how tantalisingly close we got to it today at the Warren, part of our Burton Pond reserve. The road delineates the edge of the reserve and across the next field you can see a clump of Mistletoe. However, 'from' just isn't good enough even for a bird (let alone something that can't fly. Or move even). We never recorded the Short-toed Eagle using Old Lodge for example, although it was seen distantly from the reserve. Now this might have made a nice tweet and the story might have ended there so why am I blogging about this I hear you ask?
Well, this is the winter of 2017/18 and you can't even take a photo of a clump of Mistletoe without it being photo-bombed by a couple of these chunky monkeys due to their unprecedented invasion!
Yes, you've guessed it. A couple of Hawfinches! This is getting ridiculous. Not only did we see these two and hear them flying over the Warren we also saw five more round at New Piece. This seems to be a new record for our part of the site. This is my eighth encounter this winter which outnumbers ALL my other encounters ever! The last two times I've been out in the field they have outnumbered Chaffinches. I don't think I'll ever get bored of them and I've never been more tuned in to their insignificant calls. All encounters (except this one) this year wouldn't have happened without knowing this call, so to maximise your chances of seeing one or more of these awesome finches, keep your ears open. I love how upright they are in silhouette. I guess it's hard to perch diagonally if you're head weighs as much as a Hawfinch's does without falling over.
I'll leave you with this. The scientific name (Coccothraustes coccothraustes) always makes me think of these. Hawfinches: they're grrrreat!
P.S. Mistletoe has still not been recorded ON at Trust reserve.
I have just finished all the identifications from the invertebrate survey I carried out at Graffham Common this year (a total of 412 species recorded) and thought I would do a little review of the spiders. It came as quite a surprise to me that 16 of the 80 species of spider recorded during the six visits last year have conservation status! That's a remarkable 20%! I have never recording anything like this, especially as I always thought the conservation statuses for spiders were more stringent than for other taxa. Of these 16, 13 are considered nationally scarce while the remaining three are nationally rare! And when you think it was mostly conifer plantation five years ago with some tiny patches of heath you really start to see how special the site is.
Overall we have now recorded 141 spiders at Graffham. I carried out some pitfalls back in 2009 and in 2014 and we added some interesting species back then. Including Xysticus luctuosus (we had quite a few in 2009 but none in 2014). Interestingly it took me until 2017 to find a living one and only then was it one individual (the female above recorded on Fir Toat)! Back in 2009 and even earlier last year this spider wasn't classified as having any conservation status at all but now I'm please to see it's classified as nationally rare and IUCN Endangered! This spider is currently not known from anywhere else in Sussex!
But the biggest surprise for me was the gorgeous IUCN Vulnerable
Uloborus walckenaerius. It's an odd looking beast and is also rare. In Sussex known from neighbouring Ambersham Common. It was well established on Graffham West and on the last visit we even picked one up from Gallows Pond.
And also the BAP IUCN Near Threatened
Lichen Running-spider Philodromus margaritatus. In Sussex known only from here and the adjacent Lavington Common. During this survey the spider was recorded on all three blocks.
We recorded for an hour on each of three blocks: Graffham West, Gallows Pond and Fir Toat. A site list was made for each of the sub-sites over the six visits. The full species list is shown below.
| Species |
Fir Toat |
Gallows |
West |
|
Cons status |
| Achaearanea riparia |
|
1 |
|
|
NS |
| Agalenatea redii |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Agelena labyrinthica |
1 |
1 |
|
|
|
| Amaurobius fenestralis |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Anelosimus aulicus |
|
|
1 |
|
NS |
| Anelosimus vittatus |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Araneus angulatus |
|
1 |
|
|
NS |
| Araneus diadematus |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Araneus quadratus |
|
1 |
|
|
|
| Araniella cucurbitina |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Araneus sturmi |
|
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Arctosa leopardus |
|
1 |
|
|
|
| Arctosa perita |
1 |
1 |
|
|
|
| Argyroneta aquatica |
|
1 |
|
|
|
| Ballus chalybeius |
|
1 |
|
|
NS |
| Bianor aurocinctus |
|
|
1 |
|
NS |
| Clubiona trivialis |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Diaea dorsata |
1 |
|
|
|
|
| Dictyna arundinacea |
|
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Dictyna latens |
|
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Dipoena tristis |
|
1 |
|
|
NS |
| Drassodes cupreus |
|
1 |
|
|
|
| Drassyllus pusillus |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Enoplognatha latimana |
1 |
|
1 |
|
|
| Enoplognatha ovata |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Ero tuberculata (above) |
|
1 |
1 |
|
NS |
| Evarcha arcuata |
|
1 |
1 |
|
NS |
| Evarcha falcata |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Gibbaranea gibbosa |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Harpactea hombergi |
1 |
|
|
|
|
| Heliophanus cupreus |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Heliophanus flavipes |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Larinioides cornutus |
|
1 |
|
|
|
| Lathys humilis |
|
1 |
|
|
|
| Linyphia triangularis |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Mangora acalypha |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Marpissa muscosa |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
NS |
| Metellina mengei |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Metellina segmentata |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Misumena vatia |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Neon reticulatus |
1 |
1 |
|
|
|
| Neottiura bimaculatum |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Nuctenea umbratica |
1 |
|
1 |
|
|
| Pachygnatha degeeri |
|
1 |
|
|
|
| Paidiscura pallens |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Pardosa nigriceps |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Pardosa palustris |
1 |
1 |
|
|
|
| Pardosa pullata |
1 |
1 |
|
|
|
| Pardosa saltans |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Philodromus albidus |
|
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Philodromus aureolus |
1 |
1 |
|
|
|
| Philodromus cespitum |
|
1 |
|
|
|
| Philodromus dispar |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Philodromus margaritatus |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
NR |
| Philodromus praedatus |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Pirata latitans |
|
1 |
|
|
|
| Pisaura mirabilis |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Rugathodes instabilis |
|
|
1 |
|
NS |
| Salticus cingulatus |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Salticus zebraneus |
|
1 |
|
|
NS |
| Savignia frontata |
|
1 |
|
|
|
| Simitidion simile |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Stemonyphantes lineatus |
1 |
|
|
|
|
| Tegenaria silvestris |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Tetragnatha nigrita |
1 |
1 |
|
|
|
| Tetragnatha obtusa |
1 |
|
|
|
|
| Tetragnatha pinicola |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Theridion impressum |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Theridion sisyphium |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Theridion tinctum |
|
1 |
|
|
|
| Tibellus oblongus |
|
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Trematocephalus cristatus |
1 |
|
|
|
NS |
| Uloborus
walckenaerius |
1 |
1 |
|
NR |
| Xerolycosa nemoralis |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
NS |
| Xysticus cristatus |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Xysticus erraticus |
|
|
1 |
|
|
| Xysticus kochi |
1 |
|
|
|
|
| Xysticus lanio |
|
1 |
|
|
|
| Xysticus luctuosus |
1 |
|
|
|
NR |
| Zilla diodia |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
| Zygiella atrica |
1 |
1 |
|
|
|
| Total |
39 |
55 |
49 |
| Cons status |
5 |
10 |
9 |
| Percentage |
12.8 |
18.2 |
18.4 |
Iping & Stedham are on 204 species of spider and a whopping 25.0% of these having conservation status, Rye Harbour is very close to this with 201 species at 19.9% conservation status. Then we have Graffham Common with a grand total of 141 species (the 80 mentioned above was from the six visit standardised survey in 2017 alone) and a total of 17.0% of these have cons status. Old Lodge is next with 139 species with 11.3% conservation status. All these sites, except Graffham Common, are SSSIs (or with higher designations) with years of recording behind them.
And that's just the spiders. Other taxa are showing some similar exciting changes but that will have to wait for another day.
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