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.
No puns are needed when species have such ridiculous names as Rhombic Leatherbug Syromastus rhombeus. At the last minute I decided to go to Climping Dunes today and Tony Davies came along too. This time we actually found the target species but as ever, it's the things we were not expecting to find that stole the show.
Any day where I see a new jumping spider is a good one. This one is tiny being a male Sitticus saltator, a sand dune specialist and I saw dozens there today. They are REALLY small (3 mm mature) but incredibly territorial. We watched one run backwards and forwards along a fallen grass stem waving its front legs around and reflexing them backwards. It doesn't look like there are many records for West Sussex, maybe it will be a county first with any luck! Another spider I saw today I have only ever seen once before was Thanatus striatus.
Plants today including Spring Vetch, Sea Clover, Rough Clover and a grass tick, the nationally scarce Dune Fescue! Loads of other stuff to report too but no time, the pub beckons!
There is lots going on this weekend in my world. My birthday, the soft launch of the pan-species lister's new website (coming soon), my first silver WOD at Crossfit, the start of a freelance invertebrate survey on the Pevensey Levels today and of course, my imminent approach to 5000 species. So what better time to spend an entire day legging it around Hampshire and Dorset looking for wildlife with Tony Davis? That's exactly what I did yesterday and it was great fun.
Now it's great looking for target species but I quite often fail to find them and find something rarer or more unexpected in the process. Yesterday was a great example of this. I got some gen from Andy Phillips that Studland Dunes was a good place to see spiders so we headed there. I wanted to see Philodromus fallax and the Rhombic Leatherbug Syromastus rhombeus. We saw neither. But we did see LOTS of cool things including the much rarer Dalman's Leatherbug Spathoceradalmanii (above). This is a Na species, much rarer than the target leatherbug!
Other highlights from these dunes included these jumping spiders which I was convinced was a new species for me until I realised they were the females of Aelurillus v-insignitis. Still, I've never seen the females before and never seen this species outside of Iping Common.
This click beetle I believe to be the Nb Cardiophorus asellus. Zoom in on the photo. Seriously, it has a heart shaped scutellum! I think this should be called the Romeo Click Beetle.
And nearby this tenebrionid, being Phylan gibbus. I could literally spend all day staring at bare ground searching for movement. To me this is the entomological equivalent of sea-watching.
This is really only a fraction of the species I saw yesterday which also included great things to stumble across like a stonking Heath Tiger Beetle and male Sand Lizard! Anyway, I reckon I can easily get to 5000 this weekend (I'm on 4990!!!) if I push it but I was starting to feel a little jaded by it all last night, so I am going to relax and just let it happen! I think going off piste and finding unexpected things is far more rewarding than always hitting the targets. You only have to look to Star Wars to remember how bad things can go if you don't learn to be a little flexible now and again! Loosen up!
I spent the weekend up north and went to the sand dunes at Blyth Bay in Northumberland. Now, I've not got much experience at working sand dunes and given how windy it was, the only thing I took with me was a sieve and a tray. It didn't take long to find invertebrates though. My highlight was loads of these quite large pseudoscorpions that even have an English name being the Marram Grass Chelifer Dactylochelifer latreillei. It's associated with Marram Grass on the east coast. Now, it's hardly a 400m long Shai-Hulud but another dune specialist I sieved from litter was the millipede Cylindroiulus latestriatus. I had a carabid tick too, all the Bembidions I saw were the same one, Bembidion aeneum. I'll be back in the summer.
I kicked up a single Snow Bunting from the dunes too, which was a nice surprise, it might even be my first for four years.
I spent a pretty dull day in the office today so I have a brief trip report from Anglesey to fill the gap. Jo and I went to Tywyn Trewan dunes at Rhosneigr on the 20th April, I lived there for a summer in 2002 whilst looking after a colony of terns on the offshore islands shown in the central photo. The nearby dunes have some interesting plants including Britain's smallest grass, Early Sand-grass. The plant is in full flower in the photo so you can see how ridiculously small it is next to a penny. There is a large area of Black Bog-rush in the dunes which is usually a sign that there are other interesting plants about. The spider is Arctosa perita, a specialist of sand dunes and heaths. The spider has a remarkable strategy in that it almost disappears when it stops moving, so convincing is it's camouflage. Other interesting species included a Merlin chasing hirundines unsuccessfully (get a Hobby) and large areas of Heath Dog-violet and Dune Pansy. Nearly eight years have gone since I spent a summer there living partly in a shed on an island and partly in a caravan at the end of an RAF training runway. My most endearing memory was tying my dreads up to stop the terns pecking my forehead when I walked through the colony (they started dive bombing my hair instead) which made me feel really clever...only to have one shit in my mouth. Mm, I will never forget the taste of tern processed sand eels!
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