The Lyons Share

On Friday I beat this amazing little anthribid from a dead oak limb in East Sussex. This is Pseudeuparius sepicola, something I have wanted to see for some time since Peter Hodge mentioned there was an old record from the Mens. This was on a farm in East Sussex, where it is the first record for the county, and the first in Sussex since the 1960s. It's listed as RDB2, Vulnerable. Mark Gurney said it rarely turns up in the same place twice, so it must be really hard to find. I feel really lucky as, although it was a great site for wildlife, it wasn't a particularly good site for saproxylic beetles; this species was NOT on my radar. Here are some more shots of what is a frustratingly mobile beetle to photograph.

The tree was an open-grown oak between two fields at the end of a thin strip of scrubby-woodland. Here is the tree.

And the branches I tapped it from. So really nothing hugely different to almost every decent sized oak tree! Probably my find of the year so far. I was at the time walking along the other side of the fence and had a lot of ground to cover but at the last minute I decided to make a short diversion to beat the oak foliage of this tree. As I was leaving the tree, I noticed the small dead limbs underneath and had a bash. It's amazing how so much of entomology is chance! The previous day, yet another Cantharis rustica tanked overhead and I figured I should check it just in case, I turned and dashed after it. It was only Stenostola dubia! I always think it's worth going that extra mile. If something pops into your head or makes you think about it, ALWAYS go for it. I think there is a great deal of room for creative thinking in entomology, more often than not, this is where the unusual findings are. So it's not just chance. I suppose you make your own luck.

I might as well go through the other anthribids I have seen, as there are only four in all. They are all such smart beasts. Chonky, cryptic, scarce, mostly saproxylic and highly photogenic. What's not to like? Anthribus fasciatus, I have only seen this once, at Knepp in 2015. This is the only one of these four that's not saproxylic.

And Platyrhinus resinosus, still surprisingly rare in Sussex, I have nine records but only one of these is from Sussex. As soon as you go into Surrey or Kent it becomes much commoner.

I can't get enough of waxcaps. I mean, look at them! They're some of our most charismatic species, they're also extremely good indicators of good quality, well-managed, nutrient-poor grasslands. On Tuesday I went on a grassland fungi training course at the Kent & Sussex Cemetery in Tunbridge Wells. Andy McLay of the Natural England Field Unit lea the course and Janet Whitman made the whole thing happen. Thanks to Clare Blencowe for inviting me too.

There is a scoring system for five main groups of grassland fungi known as CHEGD. Each letter refers to the first letter of the genus. The H is for Hygrocybe or waxcaps and that's what I am particularly interested in. I had seen 16 species up until Tuesday but thanks to Andy we saw 11 species on the day and four of these were new to me making my list now stand at 20 in all. 

In the above image from top left to bottom right you have: Oily*, Blackening*, Parrot*, Snowy*, Goblet*, Crimson*, Earthy*, Splendid, Slimy, Scarlet, Golden*, Pink, Fibrous, Cedarwood, Dune, Meadow*, Honey* and Heath (I have no photos of Butter or Spangle*). Those with stars we recorded on the day.

The best thing about the course was realising that these fungi are better identified from macroscopic characters rather than microscopic ones. The other was that I have always been worried I am overlooking Crimson Waxcap among the Scarlets and Splendids. I now realise that I have not been doing so, I have just never seen it before. Until Tuesday that is. Here is Crimson Waxcap, quite a beefy or blood-red colour with a robust and fibrous stipe.

This is the Oily Waxcap. It smells of bed bugs apparently but having not seen a bed bug, I have also never smelt one. Turns out that the smell is actually just the general smell that most bugs release, it's the reason that shieldbugs are called stinkbugs in the USA. So I was able to temporarily 'acquire' a bug (a Juniper Shieldbug I found on the toilet wall). Once people had smelt the actual smell, it was much easier to pick up the same diluted version of the smell in the fungus. It's like an overpowering chemically-version of coriander. A great example of different areas of natural history interacting. 

Andy got excited about this one, the Earthy Waxcap, with unusually arched gills where they join the stem. Other than this it's a pretty boring looking one but it's a really good indicator.

And Goblet Waxcap. A bit more matt to the naked eye compared to the miriad of shiny Spangle Waxcaps it was hiding amongst. Well spotted Clare! A bit 'scurfy' under the hand lens, you can just about see that here.

This one's not a waxcap but it is the commonest member of the genus Dermoloma (or the D in CHEGD). Also known as Crazed Cap and you can see why here.

I also realised that a waxcap that I stumbled across in Badlands back on the 14th July 2016 happened to be quite a goody. I don't think I ever featured it on this blog but here it is. Fibrous Waxcap. A big, robust waxcap, incredibly fibrous all over and with white-chocolate coloured (and textured) gills. The early fruiting time is also key, I wonder if that means it is under-recorded? That said, I have never seen it doing quadrats before anywhere.

A massive thank you to everyone involved in this course, particularly Andy for sharing his incredible knowledge. It has totally reinvigorated my interest in fungi and I am now thinking I might try and go and look for some of the other species we have in Sussex that I have not seen yet, Such as Toasted Waxcap. This just leaves me one question that I forgot to ask on the course.

Why on Earth are they so brightly and variably coloured? What is the point?! Is it a deterrent to grazing animals?

Pevensey Marshes SWT reserve is an amazing place. Just one dip in the water with the net and all sorts of things can be found. So much so that it took me and Evan Jones all day to cover four ditches last week. I'll be going back to finish the survey tomorrow. The first ditch was FULL of Water Spiders and Fen Raft Spiders Dolomedes plantarius but this photo shows a Lesser Water-measurer Hydrometra gracilenta sitting on a Fen Raft Spider. I don't think the two occur together anywhere else in the UK.

And this nationally scarce wolf spider is the beefy Pirata piscatorius. It's like a Pirata went out on Halloween dressed as a Dolomedes and people do mistake them, mainly due to the relative bulk and the white stripes on the side of the cephalothorax. Note however that even this image has been photo-bombed by another Dolomedes showing it how it's done, those legs are huge! We only saw three P. piscatorius on this survey, all in the same ditch, the only ditch I have seen it in on site. It's not normally the sort of thing that would be recorded during an aquatic invertebrate survey but I will add it on to this survey. Outside of Pevensey it's only been recorded in West Sussex once at Burton Pond in its more typical habitat of a Sphagnum-rich bog. 

The molluscs and beetles are great out there too but I didn't have a lot of time for taking photos. I couldn't resist this one of a lovely Pike being photo-bombed by Notonecta glauca.

This is Oak Mazegill. A fungus I've not seen before and it was all over several fallen oaks at the Mens today. It's easy to get lost in the Mens. Like it's easy to get lost in these gills. Or in your own thoughts. I'll be back when I find my way out...

It's been a funny year for fungi. Nothing was growing on the ground in the woods or on the grassland but the fungi growing out of dead and decaying wood are going bananas (I bet this is out of date now with the rain we've finally had in the last week). It's clear why, we've had a dry summer and autumn and dead and decaying wood holds water for longer than soil does. It got me thinking about what the difference between saproxylic and saprotrophic is. I realised I didn't know other than the former refers to how invertebrates consume the resource of dead and decaying wood and the latter, fungi. A bit of research shows that the difference seems to be in how the nutrients are processed. Internally for invertebrates and externally by the fungi. Anyway. Lots growing in and around trees at the moment including this young Spectacular Rustgill. I tried to turn it into a rare webcap but fortunately Clare Blencowe had a look and passed it on to Nick Aplin. I should of realised as there were some open ones around the corner which were the biggest typical shaped mushrooms we saw all day on my fungi course at Ebernoe but I didn't connect the dots.

Here is Yellow Shield at The Mens a few weeks back. Thanks again to Clare Blencowe and Mike Waterman from WWFRG for clinching the ID.

And here the much larger and commoner Deer Shield also at the Mens. A quarter-pounder of a mushroom.

And from Knepp we have Ganoderma resinaceum. Unusually for a Ganorderma, the cap was slightly squidgy and yielded slightly upon compression .

Back to Ebernoe and my course last week and moving away from the trees. We spotted these Lilac Fibrecaps in the churchyard at Ebernoe. I was surprised to see I'd seen this species before but I had no memory of it, I think it must have been a washed out specimen as this was a right little stunner.

We had a look at the cricket pitch too and added a few waxcaps but very low numbers compared to last year. We did find a ring of these odd 'foamy' mushrooms. Quite like the texture of those shrimp sweets you used to get and not waxcap like at all. Any ideas?

Well, very cool caterpillars. I've seen hundreds of Pebble Prominents Notodonta ziczac (isn't that the best Latin name!?) but have never seen the larvae before, despite beating hundreds of suitable trees every year. We walked right up to these two larvae feeding on Aspen seedlings today in Badlands Meadows.

Right next to them was this cracking Chrysomela populi showing the indicative black tips to the elytra and new for me today was the Broad Damsel Bug Nabis flavomarginatus.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've really got back into fungi, adding 32 species since the start of October. I had a great day yesterday with the West Weald Fungus Recording Group at the Mens. I added 15 new fungi and nine new leaf-miners (thanks to Tony Davis). So, I'll start with the showiest of the lot, the Veiled Oyster. We only saw one of these.

Not a rare one at all but many common fungi are still new to me, this is the Clustered Bonnet.

And along with Saffrondrop Bonnets, which are everywhere in the Mens and Ebernoe, we have the Burgundydrop Bonnet shown below.

'Self founds' are always the best though and yet again I managed to find something new minutes after talking about it. I was asking one of the recorders about Beechmast Candlesnuff and he said he had only seen it twice in 30 years of recording, mostly down to the fact that you have to specifically look for it as it's so small. I turned over a log to look for inverts and there was Beeechmast Candlesnuff! This is a tiny fungus, only a fraction of a millimetre in diameter.

I also found these tiny Slender Clubs, another new one for me.

But the species that Barry Hughes got most excited about was this probable Lactarius romagnesi. This one will need to be confirmed though. Not the best photo as the light was really poor under the Holly at times. I also had a taste of the milk of Fiery Milkcap, quite unpleasant.

These odd Stump Puffballs were also new for me but I am sure I have seen these before.

Here we have a single Dead Man's Finger.

Other highlights included Jellybabies, Crystal Brain, Magpie Inkcaps, White Saddles, Sulphur Knights, and Spectacular Rustgills. A huge thank you to Barry Hughes and the recording group and the rest of the Sussex gang for a great day out, you really are mushrooms to be with! I never did get that joke.

I've had a few other nice self found fungi ticks recently too, including these TINY Holly Parachutes at Ebernoe. They actually grow out of decomposing Holly leaves.

And nearby on Ebernoe Cricket Pitch there has been a number of Orange Grisettes, I like the stipe.

So I end the day on 4608 species and my fungi list has reached 241. I'm thinking I might have to start taking fungi more seriously and get into spores...

Well actually it's a mummy. I netted (and tentatively identified) this female Ctenophora flaveolata (A CRANEFLY) in flight today at Levin Down and I was pleased to see when I looked in the net that it was what I had thought had flown past me. That's right, this is Diptera and not Hymenoptera but I think it has to be one of the most convincing Batesian mimics out there after Volucella bombylans. Although this impressive beast has a conservation status of RDB2, there is also a reference that it no longer warrants such a status. I have only ever seen it once at The Mens deep in a Holly bush next to a fallen Beech but I couldn't get anywhere near it. I was pleased then to get a photo of it today but I was surprised to see a deadwood species flying across chalk downland..

Other highlights today included a male Drilus flavescens, Omaloplia ruricola, Garden Chafers, Orchid Beetles, a tiny Neon reticulatus and several very late Grizzled Skippers.

You know a tree is going to be impressive when it has a name. This is the Idehurst Oak at the Mens and it's one of the biggest we have on our nature reserves. I have seen some pretty interesting things on and from this tree including the rare Lymexylon navale and even a Polecat in broad daylight. Last week we were told by a tree surgeon that the impossibly huge limb on this tree had a huge crack in it. We went to check it out yesterday but it had already come down. I was quite glad really that we didn't have to do any work on it. It has fallen in such a way that it has taken out a number of other trees, mostly Holly and Beech. It has created its own rather large canopy gap and also exposed the trunk to direct sunlight. I will be going back over the next few years to look for saproxylic beetles and fungi.

Nearby we found what I thought was going to be the Yellow Stainer but I am not so sure now as it smelt very strongly of almonds, marzipan even. Yellow Stainer is unlikely as it is meant to smell unpleasantly of ink. We are going to get hold of a specimen and get some identification on it. Vivien Hodge has kindly pointed out that it is likely to be something interesting and will do the identification for us, watch this space.

At Ebernoe I spotted another one of these mushrooms that we saw also at Woods Mill this week. Another almond scented Agaricus known as the Lilac Mushroom (and a new species for me).

I also spotted this rather awesome liverwort in Ebernoe, Plagiochila porelloides.