The Lyons Share

Yesterday, as well as four species of ladybird beaten from one branch of a Douglas Fir, there was also a sub adult male Araneus (either triguttatus or sturmi). Now sturmi usually favours evergreens and trigutattus deciduous trees according to the texts. So you would think that it's more likely to be sturmi. Being a young male though, it wasn't possible to tell. I fed him some springtails from the garden today to see if he would grow. An hour later I checked to see if he had eaten any of them and it appeared dead. No, wait, it's just started shedding its skin. So I dashed to the microscope and set up the camera and recorded it shedding its skin! So cool...

Turns out it is Araneus triguttatus which is much commoner in Sussex than sturmi. I have never seen one with this particular colour pattern as they are usually much more orange with a distinctive pattern, not these three pale dots. My 125th spider for the year and another new species for Burton Pond. I would have missed this if I had looked 10 minutes later, so feeling pretty lucky.

No, that doesn't work or make any sense but it's too late now, I've said it. I'm ashamed of myself. I think I've been watching too much Alan Partridge. Jane Willmott and I spent half an hour recording at the Warren today, part of our Burton Pond reserve. I saw a beatable branch of Douglas Fir and thought it worth a tap. A girl band's worth of ladybird species popped out instantly. Three of the four ladybirds above were new to the site! From Left to right we have Eyed, Cream-streaked, Larch and Pine Ladybirds. Pine was the only one we had previous records for.

We had a quick go with the suction sampler in a recently cleared and scraped area that is regenerating into a heathy/acid-grassland glade. We were amazed to witness a song fight between THREE singing Marsh Tits that descended into a massive rumpus. Agonum sexpunctatum, Arctosa perita and Anoplius viaticus were all present.

This nationally scarce spider was new to the site, Euryopis flavomaculata. I have very few records of this spider. It has the English name of Ant-tiger, which I really like. The 'wild card' names that don't fit a formula really appeal, it is in a genus of of its own though. It doesn't make a web and predates ants.

Also new to the site (and the year for me) was Enoplognatha thoracia. Another spider that wouldn't keep still.

Bathyphantes approximatus and (finally!) Erigone dentipalpis make my spider year list up to 124 and the site up to 107.