An Alternative Natural History of Sussex.
This blog shows the highlights of my day to day findings as a naturalist and ecologist living and working in Sussex. Delivered with a pinch of nihilism, a dash of sarcasm and absolutely no tweeness, here is my attempt to show natural history as it really is: Brutal, beautiful, uncompromising and fascinating...and occasionally ridiculous.
I have been studying natural history for some thirty years, nineteen in a professional capacity. I currently work in Sussex as a freelance entomologist, ecologist and botanist and specialise in nature reserve and rewilding management advice based on the interpretation of the surveys I carry out. I also run a number of identification courses. An advocate of the pan-species listing approach. My main areas of interest are birds, plants and invertebrates and a lot of my spare time is spent in the field. I am the county recorder for spiders and bugs.
16:04 - Harry Witts: "I don't think I would ever recognise a grasshopper new to Britain".
16:07 - Harry Witts: "GRAEME! Bring a big net! I think I have a new grasshopper!"
So yeah, here's Sphingonotus caerulansSlender Blue-winged Grasshopper - photographed by Joss Carr. It's very likely the first record of this species to naturally arrive on our shores. So how on Earth did I find myself in such a position not a month after the Verge Cricket madness?
Well, this story isn't about me, it's about the fantastic contingent of Gen Z naturalists who are making big waves in the British natural history world - many of whom are doing so using the pan-species listing approach to natural history. Two such naturalists are Harry Witts and Joss Carr. In the last couple of years, Harry has come out and shadowed me on a few different surveys in Kent and Sussex and this summer Joss has set up some fantastic PSL field meetings in London, many of which I have attended and enjoyed - they are both smashing it! PSLers are (in most parts) a sociable bunch. As I have said for years, it's not really competitive, it's collaborative and we all learn from each other. Pushing each other up not down. PSL is all about breaking down barriers and shoving gatekeeping into the history books. I always had this belief that if I had started PSLing in my teens, it would have fast-tracked me into being a more knowledgeable naturalist at an earlier age. It genuinely does just that, and now there is a growing number of super-capable young naturalists out there, many of which I hope will end up working in the conservation sector and many who already are.
After coming out with me for the day at Blean in April, Harry offered to return the favour by spending a weekend in Essex in August. Harry also invited Joss Carr, as not two weeks earlier they had had a brilliant day out at our destination - Colne Point, even finding Geocoris megacephalus new to Britain there (I had this bug new to Jersey in 2024). This is a coastal SSSI managed by Essex Wildlife Trust.
Colne Point is a sensitive site, with Harry arranging access to survey it through his work. It's pretty dangerous too, you can easily get cut off an a really high tide if you are not careful.
Of course, I wanted some lifers (I was hoping for Ground Lackey in the evening) but was also keen to get some year ticks for the 6000 Species Challenge. Dittander, Golden-samphire, Hog's Fennel and Shrubby Sea-blite were all year-ticked from the car! The first invert of the day was Clouded Yellow. Literally anything could happen...and it did.
First lifer of the day was the tiny picture wing Myopites eximia. This fly galls Golden-samphire.
And in the same first sweep, the first of many of the saltmarsh form of Rhysodromus histrio. This weirdly yellow form is incredibly different to the heathland one, I am amazed it's not a different species. Much less contrasting but clearly the same shape.
The first vac had this metallic purple beauty in it! The sea-lavender feeding Pseudaplimonus limonii. I rarely see this weevil as we have so little saltmarsh in Sussex. So little in fact, that I was getting year tick after year tick.
I got another lifer in the form of the long overdue Dun Sentinel Assiminea grayana! It seems to be really common on saltmarsh on the Thames Gateway and Essex coasts, despite being Nationally Scarce. Pleasingly proportioned.
Joss was on fine form with hoppers as per usual and has found some really significant county firsts there. As we headed to the shingle, I spotted a very large bee fly, which we think has to be Dune Villa Villa modesta. Here's one of Harry's record shots before we missed it with our nets. That's another long overdue lifer for me.
By the time we hit the shingle, Geocoris megacephalus was pretty much the commonest insect! Around this time Harry pulled two immature Heliophanus from his pocket he'd found on a previous visit. The abdomens were covered in golden and copper-coloured hairs but with no white spots. Harry thought they were likely Heliophanus auratus and I was inclined to agree. We knelt down and almost immediately Harry spotted an adult male Heliophanus running around on the shingle. I got hold of it and was happy to confirm this as an adult male Heliophanus auratus! My 565th spider in the British Isles. Here's the adult male, the legs are tri-coloured, while the abdomen is covered in dense shiny hairs that gives it a very distinct appearance. I went on to sieve another from Marram nearby but we didn't get any in the sucker.
Here's those two incredible immatures.
I also recorded Zelotes longipes - my first away from Jersey!
It's now 16:04 and things are about to get interesting.
I leg it over to where Harry is just 10 m away and he soon gets me on to an unusual orthopteran. There is talk of blue wings but the animal I am looking at looks nothing like the Blue-winged Grasshoppers Oedipoda caeruelscens I know well from Jersey. Smaller, slimmer, less contrasty, differently-coloured and with seemingly proportionally longer wings. I have a good side view with my close focus bins and the thing that struck me was the constricted neck and raised head. I think I exclaimed "It looks like a locust!".
Here's Harry's shots taken at a safe distance. This really captures the moment for me.
Quite hard to spot, isn't it? Until it flies!
I heavily cropped Harry's shot here to show the view I had through my bins, showing that oddly-positioned head.
I attempted to get it in the net but it crawled out from under it and flew. Long-winged but with very pale blue (almost white) hindwings. Again, quite unlike Blue-winged Grasshopper. It also flew quite some distance for a grasshopper, but we sprinted after it relocating it almost instantly among the shingle. I wish someone could have filmed it, it felt like comedy gold as we 'moved as one' as Harry described it. I soon had my hands on it and transferred it to the dirtiest pot in the entomological world - at least we were not going to lose it now and could get some record shots of that hind wing indoors.
I was utterly convinced this was some other species of grasshopper with blue wings. Joss had found a candidate on his phone, read out the differences and tracked down a 2024 record on the Eurostar tracks at Folkstone on iNaturalist before I had even unlocked my phone (how do Gen Z work their phones so quickly?). Anyways, I was pretty sure we had nailed the ID with Sphingonotus careulans. I called Peter Sutton up straight away. As if all the Verge Cricket/Praying Mantis/Blue-winged Grasshopper madness wasn't enough!
The next day, Joss got a shot of the hind wing and the lovely shot at the top of this post. Soon after Peter Sutton confirmed our ID was correct.
And here's me, Joss and Harry enjoying the sunset as we wait to do a bit of dusking.
I spotted this Ray's Knotgrass on the beach.
Harry found Armadillidium album under some logs. He was on fire!
Dusking wasn't the greatest but we did see lots of Sandhill Rustics, which I have not seen since before Joss was born.
And then we called in on the way back to look for Agonopterix putridella - which Harry spotted! A super-rare micro that only feeds on Hog's Fennel! What a day. Utterly unforgettable.
Time for Bob Dylan to provide the sound track for my pensive conclusion...
Our invertebrate fauna becomes more continental by the day, mostly down to man-made climate change, with species colonising our shores almost as fast we can write them down. Furthermore, that rate of change is increasing, it's as if we are heading towards an 'entomological singularity' if you will. This leads me to a state of cognitive dissonance, where I feel both joy and terror simultaneously at seeing these novel species. I want both more of them AND less of them. It's vital that we record them though. So lots of keen eyes on the ground is essential in all of this.
However, the great news is, I think that the young PSLers are doing a great job at carrying the torch of natural history, biological recording and wildlife conservation into the uncertain future that awaits us all. They're not just brilliant naturalists for their age - they're brilliant naturalists period! I don't just go out with them to show them stuff, I go out with them as I know they'll get me a load of lifers too! I absolutely love being shown things by people decades younger than me. It's great fun seeing PSL thriving in this way.
I am trying to finish my annual monitoring of the arable margins of the Norfolk Estate this weekend but the weather has been challenging. I shot up to Lee Farm for an hour yesterday afternoon at 3.30 pm after the storms dried out (to make this afternoon a more realistic possibility). This is year six of me monitoring the Peppering side (and year three of the Lee Farm side). This year has so far been exceptional and it is amazing just how any new species are still turning up.
So, here is what happened in just one hour of monitoring two arable margins of two fields yesterday. I recorded 103 field dets in that hour, not in itself exceptional. At about 26 minutes into the survey I looked in the net and saw this!!! Carpocoris purpureiepennis. A recent colonist and a lifer, with very few UK records so far. It was the first to be noted on the new pan-species listing website. I was pretty stoked with this, as there are very few shieldbugs in the UK I have not seen now. I carried on looking through the same sweep net sample, and saw this! The same species but showing how variable they are.
Here they are side by side.
They are pretty big bugs, and strikingly different to anything else. They also look pretty odd underneath.
I walked back and swept a third one, which was very soft and clearly teneral, showing confirmed breeding. Apart from a nymph of this genus recorded in Kent earlier this month, this seems to be the first confirmed breeding of this species in the UK according to Tristan Bantock. Now there are lots of other species in the genus on the Continent, so you really do need to check any Carpocoris carefully.
On the same margin, I turned one big flint and found Eratigena picta, a Nationally Rare house spider with very few records nationally. I had in this field last year and last month.
Other species seen in that hour included a nymph of a Vernal Shieldbug, Dark Green Fritillary, Sitochroa palealis and Cerceris quinquefasciata. It was an eventful hour. I particularly enjoyed this five-spotted ladybird, which is clear an aberrant Seven-spot Ladybird, but shows the importance of correctly writing common names.
But the other day at Peppering was also really exciting. The first margin had a Hornet Robberfly! The first one I have recorded up there in six years.
Small Blues have colonised the margins this year with the new seed mix providing plenty of Kidney-vetch.
I found this scarce migrant moth, Loxostege sticicalis. A lifer and with less than 30 Sussex records. Sitochroa palealis and Evergestis extimalis were also new to the site. There were plenty of Clouded Yellows too.
Then I nearly tripped over this huge Large Conehead, another recent colonist! This is my first for the site and my first West Sussex record. This is an impressive cricket.
I also heard a Whimbrel flying over and found Knapweed Broomrape.
Last month was exciting too! I stumbled on my first ever Small Marbled there.
As well as a couple of Bordered Straws! Who needs a moth trap when you can just stumble upon moths in fields like this?! It also shows just how much insect migration is happening this year (although I have recorded many more migrant insects here than anywhere else on the Downs this year).
These arable margins are all in place to help the Grey Partridge project up there, which is a fantastic initiative and is really working to help biodiversity across the board. The farmers and keepers are working together with ecologists to produce something really exceptional. I have recorded over 1,000 species on just 16 fields over the years (and have hardly mentioned here the host of native rare species, with over a 100 noted so far). This year, the margins have been incredibly exciting and diverse though. Now hopefully I can get up there this avo and finish the survey for the year...
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 bigDolomedes, 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 bucculentaand 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.
So, how DID I find myself staring at LARGE CONEHEADS at 10.30 pm at Dungeness last night? (this updated to include Dave Walker's amazing photo of the first animal we actually got a proper view of that he's kindly allowed me to use as you'll see my rubbish efforts below).
Rewind. I was meant to be in Wales this week but we had to reschedule due to awful weather. This meant I had a proper weekend off. Last week, chatting to Jake Everrit, I was reminded about the Sickle-bearing Bush-crickets etc at Dungeness, I had it in my mind to pop down but wasn't sure if and when. I had a great morning yesterday rock-pooling at Holywell (that's another story) and after a chilled out lunch, we said goodbye to Libby and Shaun Pryor and I headed to Dungeness to look for the new shieldbug that Dave Walker found last year...
After about an hour of searching I found two immatures, a dead one and then Shaun spotted an adult. Result! Geotomus petiti, indistinguishable externally from the rare Geotomus punctulatus. I love the demonic red eyes! Thanks to Dave and Tristan Bantock for the gen.
We had a few other nice things while searching, such as an immature Phlegra fasciata. And this lovely Grey Bush-cricket.
Shaun had to head off (we had been at it for nine hours by this stage and well done for him for spending that much time with me, something even I try to avoid!). However, it may have been the worst mistake of his life. I had a few hours to kill until dark and meeting up with Dave Walker to see the Sickle-bearers and Tree Crickets, so I did a bit of recording around the obs. I had barely started when Dave and Sam Perfect came over stating "we have a problem". Sam had photographed what he thought was Sickle-bearing Bush-cricket near the obs, in a new area, at about 1.00 pm (it was now about 6.30 pm), it was however a Large Conehead! We searched for an hour in the area he saw it but found nothing, we will come back to this spot after dark. I carried on poking around. Dungeness must be the only place where you can find Pellenes tripunctatus without looking for it.
This bug was a lifer for me. Ortholomus punctipennis. A really smart ground bug that I think was feeding here on Mouse-ear Hawkweed.
And then 8.00 pm came round and Dave took me out to look for the crickets. We had another look where the Large Conehead was spotted and nothing. It didn't take long before we were listening to thousands of Tree Crickets, a really magical sound! These are really odd looking crickets and hearing so many together was mind blowing. I heard the single animal on the edge of Brighton two years ago but didn't see it. This was an incredible experience.
Dave then carried on to the Sickle-bearing Bush-cricket area and soon found them. I didn't find a single one of the eight that we saw. A really leggy and long cricket that often reaches deep down into flower heads pushing the wings high up into the air or at a jaunty angle relative to the legs and/or line of the body.
This is a stunning cricket, really unlike any of our other crickets. Well, unless you count Large Conehead that is. I was convinced I could just about hear the Sickle-bearers but after listening to sound recordings I am not sure if that was what I was hearing. Here is a male with lots of Tree Crickets singing in the background.
Then ANOTHER orthopteroid lifer. Dave showed me several of the Ectobius montanus that he found new to Britain a few years ago and got to species earlier this year. A smart little cockroach, smaller than Tawny and Dusky but larger than Lesser. EDIT: Everything looks different in the light of a torch, I am pretty sure we got our wires crossed that night thanks to a comment on this post, I am pretty sure that all the roaches we saw that night were actually Lesser Cockroach Ectobius panzeri. I did think they were small, having saw some in daylight a few hours earlier, I should of looked more closely.
Wow, what a night! We were heading back to a new area that Sam had thought he had Sickle-bearings in earlier this week. He had an actinic out near there, and as we approached the trap, I did think it was odd that nearby was some kind of crackling battery, as mine is silent. It dawned on me that this was a cricket and nothing to do with the trap. As we rushed over it got even weirder. Imagine a really loud Roesel's Bush-cricket, at night, coming from scrub and you are nearly there. It was, however, so much louder and when I was close to this thing, it actually hurt my ears. The only other time I have experienced this was with cicadas in Oz. You can't hear it at all on my sound recordings though and Dave wasn't picking it up at all. It did a few little zips that Roesel's doesn't do too but was mostly just like Roesel's in terms of being just one long continuous note. I always think Roesel's sounds like a tattoo gun. This was more like a crackling pylon! It stopped and we couldn't locate it, then eventually, there was a big green cricket sitting on an upright stem, parallel to the stem and with a big pointy head. It was so hard to see in the scrub but we both got a definitive view but no photos, when I bungled an attempt to get it into a pot! Disaster! We walked a few more yards and I heard another, this time coming from utterly impenetrable bramble and while I was trying to record this, Dave found a female nearby in the grass!!! So that's two males, one female and the first one that Sam recorded. Four in all. Incredible. Here is my best shot but they all came out badly. LARGE CONEHEAD!
A massive thanks to Dave and Sam for the best evening of natural history of the year! It was so exciting, with just the right amount of dipping, followed by finding, to be a perfect roller coaster. And I was so fortuitous to be there that night for so many different reasons. I am definitely going to spend more time at Dunge. It's 19 years since I was a volunteer at the RSPB but this helped me remember just how much I love it there. I am going to become a friend of the Obs and start getting out there more often!
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