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.
This following italicised sections were written by Matt Phelps, who first heard
this unusual cricket...
I strolled over to Sussex Wildlife Trust's Waltham
Brooks reserve from home a bit before sunset on 13th July. It
was another balmy evening after yet another scorcher of a day. There had been a
few Night Herons popping up in other parts of southern England in
recent days and weeks so it was primarily this species I had in mind as I
approached the lake, especially as it was pretty much four years to the day
since the previous record of the species here. Aside from quite a few
Mallards and flyover Little Egret there wasn’t much going
on here, so I decided to start heading for home.
As I crossed the bridge
over the old canal my attention was immediately drawn to a loud
chirruping sound coming from somewhere ahead of me. I crept towards where
I thought the sound was coming from but, each time I felt like I
must be right on top of it, the source of the sound seemed to
move! I’m certainly not the world’s greatest expert when it comes to Orthoptera, but I was certain this wasn’t something I had
heard before. I scoured through some Juncus tussocks in the hope of
finding the culprit but could only find Lesser Marsh Grasshopper, so I decided
to record some video of the song for posterity before heading home.
The following day I sent the
video to Alice Parfitt, in the hope she might recognise it. I was
then off work sick for a couple of days and, as I hadn’t heard back
from Alice, the whole thing slipped my mind somewhat. I made a return
visit on the evening of 19th July and, sure enough, heard
the very same sound in the same place. Again, none the wiser to what it was or
where it was coming from! Funnily enough, Alice text me back a day or two
later to say she’d exchanged messages with the Sussex Orthoptera Recorder, Ralph Hobbs, who was a bit mystified, but suggested Tree Cricket.
Neither Alice nor I thought this sounded right at all, when compared to
recordings online.
Here’s where I come in. Last week at a Sussex Moth
Group event at Petworth Park, Matt showed me the above video he had taken a few days before. So I suggested we headed there
to look for it on the first day we could get out there together.
Sunday (26th July) night, Karen and I met up with Matt (later we were also joined by Steve Baines) and did a bit of casual recording before it got dark.
There was lots of nice things to see but we needed it to
get nearly dark before this cricket would start up.
Like clockwork, it did just that, and as we edged closer to it, it seemed to move
wildly around. We decided to try and triangulate it as there were four of us,
but we all seemed to be pointing at each other. I think we were all
assuming it would be coming from a tussock of vegetation. Then I thought it was
coming from under an old railway sleeper, so I bent down to listen closely and
it suddenly sounded like it was metres away in the hedge. Then it dawned on me,
we had been stood right on top if almost from the moment we got
there. It was in the middle of the path, deep down in a crack in the bare ground!
It was only occasional calling, so I had to try and
pinpoint where I thought it was. I had my head torch on by now then suddenly I
caught site of it, about 20 cm down and impossible to get to. It looked like a
large, dark Wood Cricket but it was gone again, out of sight. About an hour of breaking the
sun-baked ground up with nothing but our bare hands and multi-tools filled much
of the fissure up with dry loose earth. We were starting to think we had blown
it by causing a little too much disturbance when I tried turning the torch off.
It sang within seconds and was suddenly right there in the open, only to
scuttle back into a crack that was yet again impossible to reach into.
It was nearly 10.00 pm by this point and I was
starving! I had no idea how much time had gone by. Karen suggested using a
feather to coax it out (something I have done successfully before with
spiders). One attempt and it worked, the cricket popped out and bounced around
frantically for a few seconds before I got him in a pot!
Here it is!
It clearly wasn’t a House Cricket or a Wood
Cricket. Consulting “Grasshoppers of Britain and Western Europe” I thought it
was closest to Svercus palmetorum on looks but the call
was totally wrong. A few days ago when I had shown Peter Sutton
Matt’s recording, his first thought was Eumodicogryllus bordigalensis. But
both of us dismissed this at first as this animal appeared too dark, especially
compared to the photos in the book. I posted images on a Facebook group to see
if any one had experience of Svercus in Europe so I
could rule it out, when Chris Tindal suggested it could indeed be Eumodicogryllus bordigalensis.
Sound recordings on Xeno Canto were a good match. Now this species is heading
north in France, it’s just over the Channel in fact. Also, macropterous animals can
fly, so it is actually rather more likely than not that this animal
got here on its own. Suddenly this has gone to a ‘first for Britain’
scenario, rather than just some escaped pet food (it did seem odd to me
that an escaped cricket would walk for half a mile from the nearest house to
set up home where it did).
There is a Polish paper that suggests macropterous males can remove their wings, but this doesn't seem to be backed up with good evidence. So are there more animals at Waltham? Did it get here under its own steam and this is one of the young from a previous generation or was it introduced accidentally? I believe that we have to work under the assumption that this is the start of a likely natural colonisation. This species has been marching north in Europe rapidly - Peter told me it is already in Scandinavia, so it it seems it was inevitable this species would make it here at some point.
As I wrote most of this last night, I turned on Channel 4 News to see the piece about the fires in Bordeaux - utterly heart breaking. Yes, seeing new animals colonising the UK is interesting to us entomologists, as is the wish to be the first to see or find a new species but it does also make me feel like a disaster capitalist on occasion. This really would be unlikely to be happening without man made climate change. Yet, it's vital that these events and species are catalogued so we can adapt to our ever-changing invertebrate fauna.
Peter Sutton is happy it’s Eumodicogryllus bordigalensis. So it
looks like we have a cricket new to the British Isles (it has not even been recorded on the Channel Islands yet). The common names are numerous: Bordeaux Cricket, Southern Cricket or Verge Cricket, and it’s quite common in
France. I don't really like those first two names, so suggest we use Verge Cricket here (place names are not very helpful). Apparently, they are known to enter cracks in the ground
during the day – just like this one did. I predict there will be more of
these animals on the south coast, in the near future, if not already.
It just goes to show, if you hear or see something a bit
different it is worth putting the hours in. Persistence does pay off in natural
history.
Back to Matt for the final word!
I’m delighted that I was able to pick this cricket up from its unusual call, and that it stuck around long enough for us to pin it down. Huge thanks to Graeme for the time and effort he put into finding and capturing it, and for his detective work on confirming the identification. This is the first time I’ve ever found a species new to Britain! It really does go show to what else could be out there, waiting to be found.
I've recently stumbled across quite a lot of good species whilst doing other things. Firstly, I noted this Field Mouse-ear while mapping Chalk Milkwort (below) at Southerham this week. It turned up on the site in 2016, a record came in via Dave Bangs when I did the review of the species list but I have never found it on the site, so I was pleased to find it there!
There is masses of Chalk Milkwort in this really rich area and more Adonis Blues than I have ever seen there before, all down to finally being able to fence out this compartment from the arable reversion and gain better control of the grazing. It's looking great!
When I was showing Steve the mouse-ear, he spotted something shiny in the short turf! We managed to get it, a Scarab Shieldbug! A new record for the site of this now Nationally Scarce species, despite a thorough survey with a suction sampler here a few year ago.
Then yesterday I was at Amberley Wildbrooks helping the RSPB with a CBC there. Right at the end I stumbled on a field with about 100 Narrow-leaved Water-dropwort or Sulphurwort (Near Threatened and Nationally Scarce) plants in! It's been a few years since this was recorded here. Being an early flowerer and growing in the field centres (not the ditches), it's not one we pick up on the ditch survey.
Best of all though was last week. Jane and I were finishing a bird survey when I noticed a plant on an area that we couldn't access some distance away. I thought it was Large Bittercress. A really uncommon plant and it would be a new record for the site. So I rested my elbow on Jane's shoulder and took this terrible photo through my binoculars. Never had to do this before!
Frances went and had a look and found another plant nearby and confirmed it and while she was there, found the first Subterranean Clover there in 40 years. These surprises at Waltham are a direct response to the better graze it has been having the last few years. Jane took this photo of the Large Bittercress. The moral of the story. Always have a GPS and a notebook with you, whatever you are doing. And recording to eight figures IS really useful despite what some people say. Eight figures can always be turned into six but you can't do that the other way around. Additionally, I'm very fond of mapping plants using the basic unit of a 10 x 10 m square (or to eight figures) on the British National Grid in GIS.
I have literally only just managed to enter all the records from the 1000 species challenge. I have been chipping away at them for weeks. I have already reported that we had three species new to the reserve network (never recorded on any SWT reserve before). These were; the Welsh Oak Longhorn Beetle (shown above), the mite Aceria origani (a gall forming mite on Wild Marjoram) and...Walnut. Yes there is a naturalised Walnut tree that's grown up in the last few years and that's a new record for the site and any reserve. Although it turns out there is one at Ditchling too.
What about the species new to just the specific reserve they have been recorded on? Well, of the 1033 (this has dropped by two since pulling this together, I doubled counted Great Tit and deleted Oyster Mushroom), 177 (17.1%) were recorded between the reserves leaving 856 (82.9%) record on the reserves. Of these, 114 (13.3%) had never been recorded on that particular reserve before. Levin had the most new species with 24 out of 93 (24.7%). This is surprising as I surveyed the invertebrates there in 2016!
Here is the breakdown of the species we recorded by reserve. We wanted to break the back of it at Ebernoe early on without moving too much which I think was a good tactic.
This just goes to show that was partly a bit of fun and also partly a fund-raising and promotional event turned out to have a real tangible recording element. I think part of this is down to being on sites at unusual times using methods you perhaps wouldn't normally use. The other big factor is going to parts of reserves you wouldn't usually go to. You tend to survey at the best bits of reserves but if you want to get a huge list you need to start sweeping as soon as you walk through the gate. The rank grass at the bottom of the hill at Levin that is a long way from being good quality chalk-grassland, produced a lot of site firsts!
Some of the site firsts were indeed quite surprising. That is how recording goes though. Here they all are in the order they were recorded. Just bare in mind that this is the first record that's been made, it might not be the first time it's been seen there. Also, the sites with multiple ownership (Burton and Amberley) this is just referring to SWT's portion of the site. So, Bombus pascuorum is new to SWT's portion of the site, it may well have been recorded elsewhere on Amberley Wildbrooks.
For the last two days I have carried out an aquatic invertebrate survey of Waltham Brooks. I recorded seven species of leech there and have become quite taken with these bizarre animals. There are not that many leech species in the UK and they are not too hard to identify. So here are a few of my favourites and what they feed on.
This is Hemiclepsis marginata. It feeds on fish and this is the only one I have ever seen. It has a chequered margin to the body, is quite broad and has a large shovel shaped head and a big banded suction cup at the rear. Quite the looker.
When I used to do the electro-fishing for the RSPB, this is what I used to know as the Fish LeechPiscicola geometra (not knowing there was another species) regularly seeing it attached to fish. This is VERY thin and worm-like with a similar large head and suction cup.
Another one I had not encountered before. Glossiphonia heteroclita and this one feeds on molluscs. A different array of eyes to the following species.
And the darker Glossiphonia complanata which has different eye arrangement of a 2 x 3 matrix. This also feeds on molluscs but Elliot & Mann states they get their first meal from...other leeches! That dark internal structure on these two species is the crop!
This is the Duck LeechTheromyzon tessulatum. I think someone needs to tell it that's not a duck. Wait, it's not a duck right? Actually it feeds on water birds, usually entering the nostrils. It has been known to even kill ducklings.
This small leech has two eyes and a dot behind them called a 'callous dorsal scute' in Elliott & Mann. This is Helobdella stagnalis and feeds generally on aquatic invertebrates.
Birds were pretty good too over the two days. Two Hawfinches over but also Grey wagtail, Brambling, Siskin, Redpoll, Kingfisher, Black-tailed Godwit, Yellowhammer, Red Kite and Water Rail.
Mike Edwards and I completed the June invertebrate survey for Waltham yesterday, starting and finishing early due to the heat. So afterwards I stayed out and went and mapped some key plants. Thanks to the SxBRC I finally tracked down the Common Meadow-rue there, about 25 plants present, last recorded in 2011.
The last time Pink Water-speedwell was recorded was 1977, before I was born some 40 years ago. I soon noticed it was galled and it didn't take long to find an adult of the weevil that caused the galls, Gymnetron villosulum (a Nb species new to the reserve network).
We also had lots of Skullcap leaf Beetle, recorded new to the reserve by Dave and I in the 1000species challenge.
Plus hundreds of Crudosilus ruficollis, a wetland soldier beetle that can look quite like the much commoner Cantharis nigra until you take a closer look. This is flatter, glossier with more feathered-antennae and a pitted pronotum.
I've finally got a new camera! And I don't mean a fourth Coolpix. I only heard about the Olympus TG-4 about three weeks ago and have been counting down the days until the next tax year to get one. It's insanely good and easy in macro function, check out the awesome Horsetail WeevilGrypus equiseti which I found in a pile of litter at Waltham Brooks yesterday. This is the first record in Sussex since 1985.
Also yesterday was Philorhizus sigma, this being only the 2nd site for this (outside of Amberley next door) for this Na carabid.
This is the very cool Prasocuris phellandrii, which was all over one compartment yesterday. I've only seen this once before at Pevensey Marshes.
And here is a comparison between the normal macro and the photo stacking functions. Gotta learn my way around it but I'm pretty pleased with half an hour messing around in the garden.
A couple of days ago I carried out a bird survey at Waltham Brooks. There was a mist first thing and it highlighted all the webs. Orb weavers are mostly fairly large spiders, many are identifiable in the field and are often represented by only one or several species in a given genus. They make for a good family to get into when you start on spiders. I don't often look at the webs, so it was interesting to see how different they are. Larinioides cornutus is everywhere there in long vegetation, particularly rushes. It has a nearly horizontal web which sags in the middle and is very scruffy.
Quite the contrast to the meticulously crafted vertical web of Agalenetea redii. It was easy to spot the two spiders by their webs!
Rushed over to Waltham Brooks to see the Night Heron but dipped. Went out looking for Adder's-tongue Fern at Ditchling Beacon but dipped (two species I have seen before I should add). However, the first thing I saw when I woke up this morning was this crab spider. I thought it looked like a Philodromus and considering I have only ever identified two before (histrio and dispar - both distinctive looking spiders) I thought it might be a tick. It was, being Philodromus aureolus. The literature states it's one of the commoner species and does sometimes enter houses. I was amazed at how metallic the abdomen was when I shone a light on it. That was my 3931st species.
Finished the NVC at Waltham faster than I was expecting and I'm half way through digitising already. Got a plant tick (Small Sweet-grass) thanks to a tip off. It's got short, tapering, slightly glaucous leaves and is loads smaller than all the other Glycerias. Couple of Blackwits on the lake. This post title works on so many levels.
I'm not doing as much natural history this year as this time last year so I thought I would concentrate on something different and offer up some fiel work mapping experience. I thought it was about time we had a detailed, accurate and updated NVC map for Waltham Brooks. August was the month I planned to do the mapping but that has drifted into September now. That's not a problem though as wetlands are quite easy to map and the vegetation persists at this time of year. So how do you go about doing it? Recent aerial photographs are vital for this procedure in order to maintain accuracy. If you have them in a GIS package all the better. Make the photograph transparent so that you can draw on a print out easily with pencil but still see detail in the photo. Once you have series of maps at a suitable scale, chuck them in your Weatherwriter and head out into the field. Even with a Weatherwrite though, this becomes near impossible to do in rain.
When I start a new NVC, even if I am familiar with the site I always start by a walk around the site. I use this time to deside what communties are present and if I cannot instantly asign an NVC community to a patch of vegetation, then at least I can define it at this time. Once I've done this I start the mapping which can be quite labour intensive. As you need to cover the whole site, it means you need to cover it in a level of detail that you are unlikely to replicate during any other task. It's this reason why it's a great way to monitor a site, particularly where stands of plants tend to be species poor and quadrats become fairly meaningless. In this shot you can see the communities MG9, MG10 and W1. In addition, look carefully and you can see, the world's smallest rainbow!
Once I have finished the mapping I can start the second phase, digitising! Once the communities are mapped and stored on the computer, they can be used as a back drop to any other map and the total size of the communities present can be calculated, a really valuable resource as both a baseline and a tool for guiding management. I'll show the final 'product' in the exciting second part to this article later in the year...
I've been NVCing Waltham Brooks today and came across loads of these spiders, Araneus quadratus. They are really big and come in quite different colours. Not all that scarce, I have seen them before at Ebernoe and Amberley but I have not photographed them before. There were also lots of Great Green Bush-crickets around and I did manage to find one of the elusive (but noisy) buggers!
I managed to get about half of the site mapped today which I was really pleased with and this NVC community was a new one for me, OV30. The main two species here being Triffid Bur-marigold and Water-pepper. Many of the plants in this community are annuals that grow on bare mud that is seasonally inundated. There is a lot of it growing there and occasionally there is Fine-leaved Water-dropwort, Water Chickweed and in the ditches Flowering-rush.
Here is yesterday's Grasshopper Warbler from Waltham Brooks. You can't see it but it's in there! I didn't realise it at the time but you can also hear Sedge Warbler, Willow Warbler and Cetti's Warbler on the sound clip.
I carried out a breeding bird survey at Waltham Brooks today and it is looking great with Lapwing,Redshank, Little Ringed Plover and Green Sandpiper all present, it had that feeling that anything might turn up. With Cuckoo, Grasshopper Warbler and six Sedge Warblers too, it really was alive with birds.
The footpaths are full of Sticky Mouse-ear punctuated by the odd little patch of Blinks, a flower I think I have only ever seen knowingly once before. Not the most inspiring of species but I like the name.
I couldn't resist a shot of this Changing Forget-me-not unfolding like a Bracken crosier. I would go and have a look at Waltham this spring, it's looking really good and I reckon there might be the chance of something unusual turning up there on the bird front! With news of Killer Whales feeding off Dungeness yesterday, I am a little twitchy.
I also spotted this alien, Italian Lords and Ladies (just the leaves though - actually a tick for me). Which leaves me on 3242.
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