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.
I was out with Martin Allison at Ebernoe Common setting up some fungi monitoring there are a couple of days ago and we were enjoying the Oak BracketsInonotus dryadeus. I love the amber droplets that extrude from the cap so I was trying to do some quick research to find out what they actually are. I drew a blank but did find out it has the colloquial name of Weeping Conk and I do love a good colloquial name.
On a tree that was full of Porcelain Fungus last year we walked right up to this huge bracket which is quite a goody. Martin microscopically identified this as Clustered BracketInonutus cuticularis. Hard to imagine they are in the same genus! There are only around 15 records in the SxBRC database and 10 of those are from either the Mens or Ebernoe Common. It's very hard to get a new fungus for Ebernoe Common!
And Ruby BoleteHortiboletus rubellus was also a nice one to see.
Just a quick one today but I leave you with the remains of a Bird's-nest Orchid. Still good enough for a record quite late in the season.
Wow! What can I say? I've long wanted to get to grips with the balance between the commoner Chalk Fragrant-orchid and the scarcer Marsh or Dense-flowered Fragrant-orchid (above) at Ditchling Beacon. So I arranged to meet up with one of the commoners who just happens to be a leading specialist in orchids! Dr Phil Cribb and a local chap called Ben met me in the car park and we soon started counting orchids. We were not expecting them to be doing quite so well. With around 3250 counted in a couple of hours and this doesn't even cover the whole site! They are bigger, darker, more densely-flowered and slightly later flowering. They are probably just peaking or going over as we speak so if you want to see this wildlife spectacle, then go and see them this week/weekend. You can smell them just by standing among them, they smell a bit like parma violets. This orchid is listed as RedList but Data Deficient. I wonder if this is the most significant colony in Sussex now?
The bottom of the big slope at Ditchling is pretty hard to get to but this is where they are at their best. Hundreds growing in the holloway there that usually has none. It must be something to do with the crazy climatic conditions we have had over the last four months.
And here is Phil with his magical counting finger. It's really hard to see from this photo but this was perhaps the densest area of all.
And here is possibly the main pollinator for this plant. Six-spot Burnet. It's proboscis is covered in the orchid's sticky pollinia.
Here is a Marsh Fragrant-orchid on the left and the Chalk Fragrant-orchid on the right. We saw less than ten chalk!
It wasn't just these we were counting and mapping. We were also looking for Musk Orchids. They are not doing quite so well this year. We have counted 75 in the quarry or Tae's Land this year already but only saw 18 today on the main slope. These are tiny, heavily designated orchids. Being Nationally Scarce, S41 and RedListed Vulnerable. I tried to get a decent photo of the two species together but this was the best I could do. Actually I think that's a pretty cool photo, I can't help feeling the Marsh Fragrant-orchid is looking down disapprovingly at it's more diminutive and drab cousin. Saturday I am off to Heyshott to do the same thing. I wonder if they're doing as well there too?
Finally connected with a new species of orchid, here is Sword-leaved Helleborine. This Hampshire Wildlife Trust (Chappetts Copse) is right next to one of the farms I am surveying but I missed them five years ago. There are hundreds of them there, if not thousands. Lots of Sweet Woodruff too.
Prior to this I went and helped Susy Jones get to 1000 species. This is significant in its own right but particularly so that she is now the 100th person to reach a 1000 species! Go and have a look at the top 100 listers and sign up if you haven't already! We even found a really scarce bug Dalman's Leatherbug Spathocera dalmanniwhich I've only seen once before.
For the last five years I have looked for the mythical Burnt Orchids that Steve found around ten years ago at Southerham but no one has seen since. Until now that is! Yesterday I started mapping and/or counting the rarer plants of our chalk grassland site Southerham. I was concentrating on mapping Chalk Milkwort and White Horehound. I was going to attempt my annual search for the Burnt Orchids when I met up with Steve at Bible Bottom, I really didn't think we would find them.
Independently, Steve and I both came to the conclusion that Chalk Milkwort seems to grow only on the very best parts of the chalk and could maybe be an indicator for other interesting plants. The Chalk Milkwort is by no means ubiquitous at Southerham like Common Milkwort is, in fact it grows in discrete but diffuse patches that lend themselves well to mapping. In fact the area where the Bastard Toadflax is, is in a Chalk Milkwort area too (but that is too hard to find until it's in flower). I did see some yesterday but only by getting on my hands and knees, I'll go back to do this in a month. Anyway, we were surprised at how little Chalk Milkwort there was compared to what are memories were telling us, I believe this is the fault of our memories though and not a decline in the plant and demonstrates the importance of detailed monitoring. Memories change the more you access them, Excel files don't.
Right at the top of the slope, way further up than I would have thought to search, we found the first patch of Chalk Milkwort we had seen in all the huge area of Bible Bottom and ten metres beyond this I walked right up to a single Burnt Orchid. Suddenly there were four more and then Steve found another seven. Despite a thorough search, we didn't find any more. Twelve specimens tallies with what Steve recorded all that time ago. Another point this illustrates is the importance of taking accurate grid references, we only ever had a six figure grid reference for the old record. Now we can monitor these plants and keep an eye on them. A brilliant and unexpected end to the week! Not the best photo in the world but I don't care as this is evidence that we have our own Burnt Orchids!
Now, I was originally going to blog about the differences between Chalk and Common Milkwort so here goes. In the image below, the top plant is Common and the bottom one, Chalk Milkwort.
With Common Milkwort, the stems are usually a little longer, the leaves larger and more pointed but more importantly they are smaller towards the stems base and are alternate all the way down. With Chalk, the leaves are a little smaller and blunter and get larger towards the base where there is a 'false rosette'.
However, they can be separated on jizz and colour with experience. On the Lewes Downs, Chalk Milkwort is usually (95%+) white with a hint of blue and only occasionally electric blue as is the typical form (both are shown in the photo below). Common is white, pink or violet but is rarely the electric blue-white of Chalk. My camera doesn't quite do this shade of blue justice.
In addition, the flowers are arranged differently, much more congested but more neatly arranged all the way around the stem (first image below) while Common looks messy in comparison (second image below shows Chalk Milkwort in white and Common in pink). Chalk also appears more upright and forms denser patches of flower spikes about the size of a dinner plate whilst Common appears more scattered. With experience, it's quite easy. What really struck me yesterday though is that Chalk Milkwort is restricted to the most floristically rich CG2. Go and have a look now, as Chalk Milkwort is an early flowerer and will be over by mid summer.
Day two. A few less people but also one extra in the form of Steve Gale who I finally got to meet. There is a bit of a walk to get to Heyshott and when you are there the terrain is pretty hard going. We had been on site a matter of minutes when we started recording Grizzled and Dingy Skippers, smart green Cryptocephalus aureolus, Bracken Chafers and then Duke of Burgundy! The coolest thing about this particular Duke was that not only was it Mark Skevington's first, it also landed on his net! Then I looked down at my net to see a really cool Cryptocephalus which was a tick for me. Cryptocephalus moraei.
Clive Washington got his suction sampler out and I was amazed at how well it worked in short turf. We saw all sorts but the Devil's-bit Scabious Jewel BeetleTachys troglodytes was perhaps the coolest. Another tick for me was the nationally scarce crab spider Ozyptila nigrita. There are very few records for this little crab spider in Sussex. I was hoping it was gonna be a county first. Never mind!
Bruce Middleton showed everyone the bryophytes the site is well known for. People were pleased to see Rhodobryum roseum and all sorts of scarce liverworts. Having covered these with Bruce on a previous podcast, I concentrated on the invertebrates. That said, it was cool to see a green Fly Orchid!
On the way back, a cool thing happened. I asked if there was anything that feeds on Wild Garlic. Someone said there was a hoverfly that nectars on the flowers. I swept the flowers, we caught the hoverfly. Everyone in the group saw the fly and here is little garlic breath himself: Portevinia maculata. I am really pleased with how things went. I added 25 species to my list. Hopefully the next meeting will be held in a different county and rockpooling seems like a popular idea!
I have already been back in the field today setting up some invertebrate monitoring at Iping & Stedham, where I added a further three species including the odd little saproxylic deadwood hoverflyMicrodon analis, the crab spider Philodromus cespitum and the cool little weevilCionus tuberculosus (which also landed on my net). I am on 3987. Only 13 to go to the 4000 mark. Shall I attempt to make 4000 something good or just let it happen and leave it to chance? I predict I will be there by the weekend...
I've been at Seaford Head today and I was surprised to chance upon a patch of Green-winged Orchids that I initially walked right by! It got me thinking about the great show Green Wing. Staring one of my favourite comedians, Mark Heap, who stole every scene as the ludicrous Dr Alan Statham. Here is the infamous recorder dance:
OK, back the natural history. I saw this smart little Adonis Ladybird Adonia variegataon the saltmarsh. This is only the second time I have seen this nationally scarce species.
I did get two ticks but I didn't get any photos of either. The first was a little micro nectaring on Wayfaring-tree blossom. I thought it didn't look quite right for the Nettle-tap (which I did also see today) and it turned out to be the Apple Leaf SkeletonizerChoreutis pariana. Also on the saltmarsh I found a rare carabid under a stone, Philorhizus vectensis. Peter Hodge found it many years ago in almost the exact same place so it's not a new record but a nice record all the same being an RDB3 species! I end the day on 3895.
Southerham was very damp and bleak today, with cloying low cloud and damp still airs that carried sound clearly for miles. The low cloud had grounded quite a few migrants and we saw two Whinchats and a Redstart as well as a number of Wheatears and Yellow Wagtails.
The sward was looking in good in many places but a real surprise were two Autumn Lady's-tresses just outside a quadrat on one of the arable reversion fields.
Invertebrate-wise though there was very little happening and I wasn't expecting to see anything new. As we were walking towards the car I spotted this amazing spider hanging beneath an Upright Hedge-parsley umbel and thought I recognised it from the book as one I had not seen. I like this spider as it is easily identifiable in the field and is the only one in the genus being Neoscona adianta.
A Chalk Carpet of course! I have always wondered why I have not seen this moth because I always spend a lot of time on the chalk during its flight season. As I walked towards a quadrat at Ditchling Beacon today, I kicked up what I thought was going to be a Treble-bar but as it settled I recognised it as a Chalk Carpet. It was quite well hidden against the chalk. The small black twin-spots are an ID feature. This moth is both Nb and on the BAP list but there are old records for the site. Nearby I saw the remains of a Musk Orchid.
I added two other species today too, the small tortrix Acleris aspersana and the leaf beetle Sermylassa halensis which in hindsight I have seen before at Castle Hill and probably other places too. That leaves me on 3562 species. Someone mentioned to me today about me stopping listing. Just to reiterate, I have not stopped listing! All I have done is ease the pressure of trying to get to 4000 by the end of the year. I don't think I could ever stop wanting to see new things, nor will I ever forget what I have seen. Anyway, three new species just by walking between quadrats is pretty good going I reckon!
There is something quite disturbing about the flowers of Henbane. The purple veins remind me of films such as the Exorcist, Evil Dead and Event Horizon. It's a botanical zombie and it's not really a surprise that it's poisonous and smells so foul. I saw lots on a farm survey which was a surprise. There are more comparisons to a black hole beyond just the film Event Horizon, as the gaping black pit at the bottom of the corolla reflects no light at all. Speaking of points of no return, I have just hit 3500. I'm past the halfway mark now and feel like I cannot possibly give up. So, what was species 3500? I'm afraid it was quite dull. Spear-leaved Willowherb, photographed in an incredible thunderstorm and the only shot that came out OK was of a leaf (blunt tip and presence of a stalk are clinchers). I had read that it grew around the village of Stedham and I found one within about 10 minutes.
I then called in briefly to Graffham to look for Green-flowered Helleborine. Pretty sure this is one, there were two growing next to a Broad-leaved Helleborine so I could see the differences, the bracts were much longer on Green-flowered but I will go back in a week or so to confirm. The light was bad and the rain was coming down so the photo is pretty poor. Just as I was leaving I looked up and saw Spear-leaved Willowherb! I must have got my eye in.
I went to a great site in East Sussex thanks to a friend and was pleased to find out there was a Lizard Orchid on show there. Seconds after taking these shots I spotted this Common Lizard too. Sadly, the weather turned pretty rotten after that and we didn't see much else. I'll have to go back!
I've been back to the New Forest today to discuss management of Holly so that we can gain experience for the proposed management at Ebernoe Common, Neil Sanderson was our guide and was, as ever, very helpful and informative. I managed a few ticks, best for me was a number of these smart hoverflies, Sericomyia lappona feeding on Bramble flowers in the woods near Pig Bush car park. On the edge of the wood, Neil was able to show me the leaves of Soft-leaved Sedge that I could not find two weeks ago but looked for. Probably because it was hardly in flower!
Nearby we also stumbled upon a Lesser Butterfly Orchid. I might not have seen this since I was a kid.
Neil also pointed a number of rare lichens that I could not possibly hope to re-identify so I won't be adding them to my list however, this Usnea ceratina is pretty distinctive and can't tolerate much pollution. We also saw the acid loving version of the moss Thuidium assimile which is called Thuidium delicatulum. I end the day on 3430 species.
I ran a course at Ebernoe today, more of a very involved guided walk really. I always enjoy these days but the weather wasn't great and although we saw a lot, we didn't see much I hadn't seen before. We did spot the Na Stenurella nigra resting on a buttercup but then Nigel Flynn spotted this longhorn beetle on a log in Dennis's Croft. It is the Nb Poecilium alni and is a new one for me and for Ebernoe Common. It looks a bit like a tiny Anaglyptus mysticus. Although it's 'only' Nb, it's a 16 pointer on the SQI list and will add quite a bit to the SQI for the site. A great find and I am glad to add this species to mine and the site's lists, it's the 18th species of longhorn I have seen at Ebernoe. We saw lots of other things but a Bird's-nest Orchid and a Hobby were some of the highlights.
A quick visit to Woodvale after work to look for Bulbous Meadow-grass was successful. Couldn't find any in flower but it was distinctive enough. As I was photographing it I heard a Firecrest singing too which was nice. Woodvale is where I saw my first Firecrest perhaps 15 years ago. Considering how much time Jo spends in the field with me I was surprised to hear her say 'Is that a normal seagull, it looks pretty different'. My reply was 'No Jo, that's a Wood Pigeon'.
Earlier in the day I started the Woods Mill CBC and picked up a Green Sandpiper on the new stretch of river and a Little Egret as well as the male House Sparrow that has moved in recently. I spent the afternoon finishing off a map at Ditchling Beacon. I was checking out a water butt for any unlucky inverts that had landed in it when this beetle bounced off my face. It's a species of Helophorus and is actually an aquatic but it doesn't really look that well adapted to life in the water. There are quite a few species though so I will have to key it out later when I am not tired.
Having just spent two hours keying out two small dung beetles, I just came across this angry blog post about Mark Telfer's article on pan-species listing and the blog author's response to the comments he received and felt like I needed to make a few things clear too. Just in case any readers are not entirely with me on why I am currently listing everything and trying to get to 4000 species by the end of the year, the reasons are as follows:
I've been studying natural history for some 20 years now and as my knowledge base grows, it gets harder to remember what I have seen without some framework that is required to keep learning. Listing helps this. It also points to the areas where I know less and allows me to target my natural history. It gets me to new sites and enriches the whole experience. I want to be the most effective naturalist and conservationist that I can be, I can't do this if I am ignorant.
Life is short and I want to experience as much of the natural wonders this country has to offer before I die. I try and photograph most new things I see too, another resource that is valuable to conservation as I give all my photos to Sussex Wildlife Trust.
The more you know, the greater the range of work you can do in the field of conservation and help put something back in. If everyone only sticks to the easy to identify groups, we will end up in a situation where there might one day be no coleopterists or lichenologists for example. If we don't know something is there, how can we possibly help to conserve it if the need arises?
Listing for me evolved with this blog, the two feed each other (I was doing neither this time last year) and the listing ensures the blog is full of new things and that my enthusiasm is maintained. I get the impression people are not put off by the listing theme, in fact people seem to like it.
It's fun. I am actually enjoying natural history more than I ever have which I didn't think was possible. Having an arbitrary goal that is dauntingly far away means I am having to get out there a lot. I am seeing things I have always wanted to see that I just have never got around to seeing (and might not ever have seen if I hadn't started this challenge) as well as things I didn't even know existed!
Anyway, here's some more statistics: Natural history is more than a job and a hobby to me, it's a calling. I have studied wildlife for as long as I can remember, worked in conservation for the last decade, have given up months of my spare time, ran dozens of lectures and courses, helped conserve countless species, observed and identified 3107 of those species, (the two dung beetles were ticks) walked thousands of miles of transects, helped dozens of people with their ID skills and started a blog that within 9 months has had over 25,000 page views and I love every minute of it. I'm 32, I have 15 piercings, 6 tattoos and dreadlocks. I'm no anorak. Sadly there are people out there that get fixated on the word listing and don't look beyond that to the reasons for doing it. Wildlife in this country will be a tiny bit better off for my listing efforts both directly (in the form of records) and indirectly (by expanding my knowledge and sharing it with others).What's the problem?
I would have been within my rights to have posted an angry comment under Dylan's article but I don't see what that would gain. I blog for fun in my spare time, I don't want to be drawn in to an aggressive debate when I should be enjoying myself. I have not had a single negative comment on this blog and I would like to keep it that way. Consider this my response then, I want to show how this is nothing more than a wholly positive endeavour and I hope this has come across in this post. I know of two people I have helped inspire to put their lists together already from this blog, one who is only 17 and has already seen 1017 species! I bet he will be working in conservation in a few years. How could anyone put a negative spin on that? Thanks for following!
Oh, the photo by the way is the Fly Orchid fooling thewaspArgogorytes mystaceus which I took at Wolstonbury Hill in 2008.
There is so much Common Dodder at Levin this year that in some places it forms a carpet! As I was bending down to take these photos I was suddenly hit by the smell. Somewhere between crystallised urine and pear drops, the smell is over-bearing and I was glad to get away from it. Yuk!
I saw 14 Autumn Lady's-tresses just opening up including three in one of my quadrats. This was the most developed of them all, another couple of weeks I think until they will be at there best. That's all my chalk-grassland quadrats finished for the year, just the heathland and mire sites left now!
Finally, I saw this labitate on the edge of the arable field at the bottom of Levin and I could not figure it out. The flowers look just like figwort flowers but it's definitely a labiate. The plant really stinks, quite a familiar but also alien smell. Then it struck me, I think it's the hybrid between Black Horehound and Wood Sage. I can't be sure but if you 'morph' together the flowers of these two species in your imagination, this is probably what it would like, the first has a large top lip the second a large bottom lip. The colour is fairly intermediate too and Neil at work came to the same conclusion. Has anyone else ever seen this or could suggest an alternative answer?
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