The Lyons Share

So last Tuesday I went hunting spiders at Levin Down and Iping Common on my birthday. I did pretty well but didn't really find anything I hadn't seen before. Until a few days later when I found a little thing in the bottom of my utility belt (it's not a bum bag) which I assumed was an immature in the field but clearly looked different enough for me to put it in its own tube. It took a while to figure out it was an adult female Scotina. Now I have seen Scotina gracilipes and celans only very occasionally and find them quite generic looking but this was found by sieving moss in chalk-grassland, so there was a chance it was the Nationally Rare and Endangered Scotina palliardii. I wasn't sure, so sent it off to Peter Harvey who confirmed it was today. There is one record for Shoreham with a vague date, which is the only other Sussex record. It's the 392nd spider recorded on a Sussex Wildlife Trust reserve and seems to be a genuinely scarce beast. It's the first larger spider I have added to the reserve list since year listing spiders became a thing this year (the only other species so far was Sintula corniger). Can we get to 400 spiders for the reserve network? Levin has some really good spiders, with 18.8% of the 64 spiders recorded there having conservation status.

A few nights later, I went over to see my mate Simon who has recently moved to Shoreham. Last year I did an invertebrate survey there for the Friends of Shoreham Beach that involved extensive suction sampling on vegetated shingle. I had another go for 10 minutes and found a spider genus (in good numbers - six at least) that I had never seen before. Zodarion. I also didn't have any genitalia diagrams of this genus so wasn't able to identify them, so I sent them to Peter along with the Scotina and he confirmed them as the most likely candidate, the Nationally Scarce Zodarion italicum which is a new species for West Sussex. They looked like very fast money spiders in the tray, also not far off a reddish Phrurolithus festivus in the way they moved (which I found them with). What's really strange is that I found so many of them so easily but didn't pick them up last time. The one big difference was it was at 7.30 pm at the end of a very warm day, so maybe they are more active at this time of day.

I end the day on 194 spiders for the year! Can I find another six spiders in seven days?

Another visit to Shoreham Beach to continue the survey there and I swept both the larva and an adult of Toadflax Brocade. Back in the summer of 1997, my first summer in Sussex when I was only 19, I saw my first one of these. I was walking up Ditchling Road and I spotted it on a railway bridge. I carried the moth in my hand until I could get back home and identify it using Skinner. It's so much easier now to identify invertebrates. No websites, no digital cameras and no social media, imagine that! Back then I had my copy of Skinner and that was it! I didn't even know anyone else in Sussex who recorded moths. Here is a photo of the larva taken earlier this year at the London Wetland Centre. I only ever see this moth on Purple Toadflax and the spread of this garden escape is no doubt why the moth has done so well in recent years. I was always taken by the name.

On the top of the Old Fort, I found a single Six-belted Clearwing. It seems to be having a good year, I've seen it twice this year already. Here is a photo of one I took at Beddingham. Not that I remotely think there is anything wrong with moth trapping but I get so much more out of recording moths in the field like this. Yes, you get a much shorter list but you feel like you're really getting to grips with a site this way.

This year I have been carrying out an invertebrate survey of Shoreham Beach LWS on behalf of the Friends of Shoreham Beach and on the 30th June I carried out another visit. I was shocked at how much the vegetation looked like the Mediterranean but it was full of stuff. The bugs were quite good fun and it was really nice checking them against the new Sussex Shieldbug Atlas. In fact I had three species from the atlas new to the 10 km square and one of those was new to me!

I'll start with my favourite shown above, the delightfully weird nymph of the Rhombic Leatherbug Syromastus rhombeus. This is always a pleasure to see and I think it's the first time I have recorded the nymph before.

I even managed a bit of footage of it.

Next up was this stick insect of a bug which I swept at the time as the Rhombic Leatherbug. It's not that scarce but was a lifer for me, Chorosoma schillingi. Now it looks like a grass bug but it's not actually a mirid, it's a rhopalid bug! It's also huge! Not entirely sure if this blurred image is of a nymph or a micropterous female in hindsight. As I swept a male in the same net I am guessing it's a female. It needs an English name this one. I propose Dune Stick-insect!

This nymph wasn't new to the 10 km square but was new to the site. It's Denticulate Leatherbug Coriomeris denticulatus nymph. I think this is probably the commonest squash bug after Dock Bug (if you don't use a sweep net you'll probably say Box Bug though). I see it on dry grasslands quite frequently.

The third species new to the 10 km square was the Bishop's Mitre Shieldbug Aelia acuminata but I didn't get a photo of that one. Other highlights included a few Garden Tiger larvae!

And lots of a spider I expected to find there. Sitticus inexpectus, a nationally scarce shingle specialist. It's known from the site but the record has no date!