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 have rarely had such a good day out in the field as I did last Sunday at Blean. By 08:59, I was looking at a very immature Pistius truncatus (have a look here for more info).A Critically Rare arboreal crab spider, something of a mega in the spider world. Not seen in the UK for 20 years and only ever known from the East Blean Woods complex (and old records in the New Forest). This was therefore a new location for the spider on the KWT managed land. It was also at the very far west of this area, about as far from East Blean Woods as it could possibly be. I picked this up on the second out of 24 plots I am surveying this year, so I expected I might see some more. I did not. I do still have three rounds of visits to go though. It's a gorgeous little spider, appearing to have no hind legs to the naked eye. They're a translucent yellow, next to the greeny/brown body. Very similar in build and shape to Thomisus onustus. Here is my first view of it in the tray.
The spider list is epic. With Walckenaeria mitrata found in a conifer plantation last month, the total number of spiders with conservation status stands at 20 already! That's 20 out of the 127 spiders I have recorded so far. New this month was Salticus zebraneus and a stonking adult male Philodromus longipalpis. This really is clearly bigger than the other Philodromus in that group.
But it's not just the spiders. Across the board, rare species are turning up in droves. In fact, so far 46 of the 378 species recorded have some form of conservation status. I had four new beetles that day. First up being a real surprise for me that took a little while to digest. Lagria atripes was listed as Regionally Extinct in the 2014 review but it was widespread at Blean. I recorded 10 animals across six of the 24 compartments. It seems it has been turning up in a few places in Kent though, so is not that much of a surprise.
Then I had a "WTF?!" moment. I love that there are so many beetles in the UK that you can keep encountering ones that you have never even seen a photo of before. This is the Nationally Rare melandryid, Hypulus quercinus. Phwoar!!!
And quite a surprise was the recent addition to our longhorn fauna, Agapanthia cardui. Swept from a cleared area in the wood. I expect this will be all over the south east in a few years.
The fourth beetle was one that I am surprised it has took me this long to find, Pityophagus ferrugineus (not photographed). Additionally to all these lifers, there were loads of nice beetles I have only ever encountered once or twice before. First up the myrmecophile, Clytra quadripunctata. Found so far on three out of 24 plots. A stonking Nationally Scarce species. Not a surprise with all the Formica rufa there. Oh and I had a new ant, Guest Ant!
Two Anthribus fasciatus (Na) from one plot. Only the 2nd and 3rd examples of this I have ever seen. The last being Knepp in 2015.
Four Tritoma bipustulata (Na) on brackets on a recently fallen, rotten oak limb. I have only ever seen this at Levin Down in West Sussex.
Trogulus tricarinatus. Not sure why this isn't nationally scarce. This rather large and bizarre looking harvestman was found by suction sampling vegetated leaf litter (which is especially rich at Blean - the best leaf litter I have ever sampled).
A stonking Didea fasciata was a new hoverfly for me.
Always nice to see Lapidary Snail too.
And a long overdue lifer. Although try as I might I cannot find this in any of the 24 plots. I walked passed a sunny bank of Cow-wheat and thought to myself, "if this isn't there, it can't be here at all". I found it in 30 seconds. The Cow-wheat ShieldbugAdomerus biguttatus. It must like plants growing on sunny rides and not under the canopy, not surprising really.
And of course, Heath Fritillary is the commonest butterfly there at the moment. What a beauty.
All this is baseline monitoring/research is driven by the application of the bison to the site. But it's important recording in its own right, with this area of Blean receiving relatively little invertebrate monitoring compared to East Blean Woods and the RSPB reserve. Monitoring like this is vital for nature reserves and rewilding projects alike, as it shows not only what is working but what isn't. So the management of sites can be adjusted accordingly. It's part of a whole package across a wide range of taxa that KWT are carrying out this year.
Definitely one of the best days I have ever had in the field and also, possibly the best survey I have ever done, for the sheer number of rare species and lifers. What makes it so good? Well, along with sites like the Surrey Heaths, it's the landscape scale effect I am sure. It's big enough to cope with small scale extinctions that can easily recolonise from other areas of the wood. Small, isolated sites can't cope with this. Continuity of management is always vital for good sites and it's also in the south east too, to be fair. I can't wait until July!
I have had a bit of a break from blogging recently. Not natural history though, I am already 36 field days into my field season, with over a quarter of the work complete for the year already. One of the most exciting projects I am working on this year is the #WilderBlean invertebrate baseline survey. Kent Wildlife Trust are going to put bison into part of Blean Woods, well West Blean Woods in fact. It's all being monitored heavily before hand, which is great. This includes a solid baseline, with controls and proxy grazers. So using my methodology for monitoring invertebrates on rewilding projects, but scaled up to take in the three different treatments, I will be heading to Blean monthly between April and September. You can read more about the project here.
It turns out Blean is one of the best woods for spiders in the south east, well the UK even, but this bit of Blean hasn't ever been as well recorded as say the RSPB part or East Blean Woods. So, after the second round of visits, I am up to 105 species of spider already, 15 of these have status (that's really good for a wood!) and quite a few of these are Blean specialists. One such species though I was NEVER expecting to find. Walckenaeria mitrata has only ever been recorded from two sites on the western most part of Blean. Have a look at the SRS page for the species here. Here are some more shots, a difficult spider to photograph well but as with most Walckenaeria, the head in the male is produced up into a bizarre 'bed knob' structure (with a pair of eyes on), held back at a jaunty angle. Here are some more shots.
Only nine specimens have been recorded, in 1967 & 1971 on the RSPB Reserve and then again in 2004 at Church Wood. So when I found a male in the suction sampler, I was rather excited, as this is only the third site for this nationally rare/vulnerable spider, ALL in Blean Woods. Interestingly, all the old records were from Sweet Chestnut coppice but this one was from a...conifer plantation!
Which just shows it's probably not as picky as we think. Or that it's at very low densities. Or both. It was strange that I looked at so many other compartments that were nicer habitat than this. It's certainly one of the least interesting of the 24 compartments I am looking at.
I wasn't going to year list spiders this year but it sort of happened. I couldn't help looking in the database and seeing what I have recorded so far. I was desk bound until 30th March though. That hasn't stopped me making over 1900 spider records in six weeks though, and 205 species already. I've had an incredible nine species new this year too, five of which are from Blean.
The leaf litter there is exceptional, sometimes I will find up to four nationally scarce species from sieving a couple of handfuls of litter. New to me (and so far the most widespread of all the spiders with conservation status in the wood - occurring in 15/24 samples) is Phrurolithus minimus. It's incredibly distinctive, appearing very red in the field. It's quite unlike the much commoner and more widespread Phrurolithus festivus.
Scotina celans is also extremely common throughout the litter, recorded in half the plots so far and very many adult females still present in April and May.
Entirely new for the whole of Blean is Euryopis flavomaculata. I have now recorded this in 7/24 plots and it has been recorded in every habitat type except high forest. It's a distinctive spider, even as an immature, and is readily collected by pitfalls. So I think this is most likely a recent colonist rather than something that was overlooked. It could be that it's only found on this bit of woodland and not East Blean and the RSPB reserve but this seems unlikely. I can't see that it has been missed. Also new to Blean in one very open compartment, is the ever expanding Sibianor aurocinctus.
Also common in the litter is Halpodrassus silvestris. So far found in 7/24 compartments.
Another one new for me is the tiny Tapinocybainsecta. So far, only recorded from two plots. A tiny spider of the the leaf litter. I have not seen this anywhere else.
The recent addition to our fauna, Nigma flavescens, was recorded at three sites in early May. I expect I will pick this up more when leaf burst actually completes. It's really taking it's time this year!
It's certainly not all spiders there. This Na Tychius parallelus, a large and stripy Tychius that feeds on Broom, is the only non-Dungeness Kent record! A new one for me. It appears to be spreading though, as the very next day, Scotty had it in Surrey. A rubbish photo but you get the idea.
With lots more visits this year, I can't wait to see what else I will find! Could it involve Pistius truncatus? Now THAT would be something!
Yesterday was the ten year year anniversary of my first ever blog post. A thousand posts and over a half a million hits later and here we are. It's been a hoot, so much has changed for me in the last decade. Pan-species listing being a big feature of my natural history adventures which in turn led to becoming an entomologist and eventually going fully freelance and leaving Sussex Wildlife Trust. Working on those reserves though was an incredible experience and three of top ten were on Trust reserves.
When I first put my list together I had only seen 2748 species, as of today I am on 7648 species, that's almost tripled. I must admit I do love blogging, it's a nice way to inspire other naturalists as well as acting like a journal and a photo library. Oh and gripping friends off of course. I am at present however limiting my time on social media as it feels healthy to do so in this crisis. That said I put the 24th April in my diary at the start of the year so I wouldn't miss this date.
Before I get to the top ten of of top tens, I must say a huge thank you to Jo Knell for encouraging me to start the blog. Jo is sadly no longer with us and without her encouragement I doubt I would have started it. Here is the link to my first post which was about an encounter with a Snow Bunting we had at the top of Snowdon during a holiday. I've been blogging for so long now I can't remember not blogging.
Now for the top ten in reverse order. ALL of these encounters were in Sussex. If you didn't read these the first time round or need refreshing, I have included the links to the original posts, please do follow these as there are plenty of anecdotes for each encounter.
10). Pardosa paludicola
In April 2017 I found a healthy colony of this incredibly rare and impressive wolf spider at Butcherlands, Sussex Wildlife Trust's rewilding project, this being only the 8th site in the UK for this species. I have since found it another site. Read more here.
9). Columbus Crabs
In February 2016, after watching reports online, I had a hunch that I might find these crabs on Brighton beach after a storm and low and behold, there they were. This species lives in goose barnacles and floats across the oceans. These were the first records for the county.
8). Portuguese Man o' War
As above, there were reports about these washing up along the south west coast after storms in October 2017 and I really wanted to find the first Sussex one. I wasn't quite quick enough but did find my own one on Portslade beach.
7). Melodious Warbler
Last June, when I was finishing up a bird survey at Butcherlands that I had been doing for nearly a decade, I had a WTF moment when I heard a warbler singing I didn't recognise. After nearly losing it, I got a good view and a sound recording. So exciting. The fastest bird song I have ever heard. I loved that site and that survey. Butcherlands features twice in this list!
6). Philodromus fallax
The spider year listing challenge of 2019 was extremely fun and by October I had almost given up. Right at the end of a day of recording in Camber Dunes, a spider I had long given up hope of finding popped out! What a beautiful spider.
5). Polycera quadrilineata
2019 was probably my best overall year for natural history, so it's not surprising that four of the top ten are from this year. In March at the spring tide, I usually try and get down to the Pound at Holywell. This time Evan Jones and I had an amazing evening with four sea slug lifers, Evan found most of them but this one I found by netting sea weed, the tropical looking Polycera quadrilineata. See the rest of the blog for the other species.
4). Crimson Speckled
The oldest post here from October 2011. Michael Blencowe and I trapping at Beachy Head. We very nearly never even saw this moth that was resting in a bush, not the trap. I will never forget shouting CRIMSON SPECKLED!!!
3). Large Tortoiseshell
A lunch time walk at Woods Mill in March 2018 produced a Large Tortoiseshell. It's a terrible photo but just enough to clinch the ID. Another one that almost didn't happen as it flew off so quickly.
2). Coptosoma scutellata
My first first for Britain and an entirely new family of shieldbug at that. This was from Marline in July 2019, Where DO the wings go?!
1). Calosoma sycophanta
Stumbling across this beauty in an arable field at Bishopstone in June 2016 is going to take some beating. It really was mind-blowingly lucky. Big, beautiful, rare. It ticks all the boxes.
So that's it. Ten years reduced into one post. What a decade. So now what for the Lyons Share? Is it time to call it a day?
Butcherlands. The most exciting, unpredictable and consantly changing Common Bird Census I have ever done. This is the eighth year I have carried out the four visit CBC there and it's amazing how much it's changed. Eighteen years ago this was all arable on Wealden Clay and was fenced and left to be restored to something more natural with pulse grazing by cattle currently pretty much the only management. No planting occurred and there are at least 30,000 oaks out there alone. Before looking at some of the detail though I am gonna cut right to the chase and tell you about what happened yesterday morning. First though a recap from my first visit on the 3rd April 2019. I had a Hawfinch fly over (my first since the previous winter's influx) and then surprisingly a male Dartford Warbler called repeatedly from a bramble bush. Not all that unusual to pick them up in bramble scrub away from the heaths outside of the breeding season (I've seen them in Sheepcote Valley on the edge of Brighton for example).
Yesterday morning, the warblers were in full song. Whitethroats were EVERYWHERE. I recorded 44 singing males across the site. So when I got to the exact same area and heard Dartford Warbler calling again, I was pretty shocked. "It's holding territory!". I bungled the video last time so I got a quick video of it calling and you can see it fly from the bush to the left.
I thought I really should try and hear it singing, so I headed a few bushes away and crouched down out of view. It didn't work and the bird came towards me, scolding me from just a few metres away. I grabbed another video as it did so and it started singing a tiny bit. However what happened next was incredible. A female popped up out of the same bush! "THEY'RE HOLDING TERRITORY!". Some context here, there isn't any heather at Butcherlands, there is however hectares of low bramble scrub. This part of the site is on the edge of a sea of undulating bramble. It's also south west facing with a slightly sandy soil (more Common Bent/Cat's-ear than Heather). So it's hot, dry and with a structural component close to heather/low gorse. I never thought that this would be a thing at Butcherlands but these birds are much less fussy abroad. It may well be that this structural type and temperature envelope is rarely provided outside of the heaths in the UK.
Has anyone else encountered this in the UK before?
Yesterday morning my brain was totally fried from all the warblers. After this encounter I was doubting every Whitethroat that called, after all, if one pair of Darties could nest there, why not more? I really doubt I would have picked them up with so many Whitethroats there if I hadn't found the male three weeks ago. So many questions. So exciting!
I actually recorded over 75 singing warblers yesterday! My rule for difficult species pairs is this: if you're not sure, it's the commoner one. Think I'll call that 'Lyons' Razor'. It certainly came in handy with a few Blackcaps today. A Blackcap AND a Garden Warbler taking turns to sing from the same willow nearly made me lose my mind though.
Whitethroat - 44
Chiffchaff - 11
Garden Warbler - 8
Blackckap - 8
Lesser Whitethroat - 4
Dartford Warbler - 1
That's 76 warblers in all. Plus ten Nightingales and a Cuckoo.
How has this changed over the last eight years though? With provisional data from yesterday's visit (this will change) the warblers look like this. A highly significant increase from linear regression. Only Chiffchaff and Blackcap came out as stable (as they are probably at capacity in the hedgerows and fields edges - for now).
And then like this if you break them down to species.
It's not all winners though. Nightingales have dipped a bit (although this trend is not significant) and Skylarks have nearly disappeared completely (a significant decline), they are still holding on this year though.
But look at the overall number of territories for all species (no suggested data here for 2019) shows a significant increase.
If you break the data down to Red & Amber listed Birds of Conservation Concern and compared to the Green listed, there is no significant trend with the scarcer birds but a highly significant one with the green birds. Showing that the generalists are doing better/quicker than the specialists. You would expect this though. This graph would look very different if Whitethroat was still amber listed but that is not something to wish for!
Species-richness of birds holding territory looks like this from 2012 to 2018 and shows no trend being about as level as it could be.
Linnet and Dunnock are two of the other species that have colonised the centre of the fields and have rocketed up significantly over the period. However the star of the show is yet to arrive. Last year FOUR Turtle Dove territories were noted and this chart shows how they have fared over the period. Wow, wasn't expecting to analyse the whole data set. Got a bit carried away there with linear regression.
I think the success of a project like this is when the site can sustain all of the species that the site has the potential to carry. So losing the red-listed Skylarks to the red-listed Linnets completely doesn't seem right to me just because we don't have an easy way of controlling the scrub. It's always early successional habitats that lose out without a constant effort to keep them open, that's why the associated species are rare. But I am also a fan of not trying to have everything everywhere all of the time. Additionally, scale is a factor here and it may not be possible to have all the successional states in 80 ha in a functional way. It shouldn't stop us trying though. How far back do you go though? After all, soon after the project started some 18 years ago (way before monitoring began) there were breeding Lapwing out there. The site would have to look very different to support them again, not something I would propose at all. You can go round and round with this. One thing is certain though, succession goes in one direction and never stops.
Over the last eight years I have recorded 73 species in the survey but this morning added another one to the list in the form of a pair of Egyptian Geese flying over. Whatever next?!
I have just got back from a fantastic weekend setting up monitoring at an exciting project in Norfolk. The Ken Hill Estate are planning to restore around 400 ha of farmland and woodland, predominantly through rewilding, and thanks to Penny and Dave Green I was able to get involved in setting up a baseline before any changes took place. This month saw the beginning of the invertebrate survey, the start of some BBS transects and of course lots of casual recording. It's really great that the Estate have been able to pull this baseline together in time and that I was in just the right place going part-time freelance too. It will be a great way to measure the huge biodiversity gains that are expected from this change in direction.
But before you can do that, you need to know what's there. You also need to do that in a way that's standardised where possible, simple and easily repeatable.
The highlight for me was finding two Heath Shieldbugs Legnotus picipes (nationally scarce). In Sussex, this has only ever been recorded from the Crumbles, I have looked for it many times (I even have a day this month pencilled in to look for it again). At Ken Hill, the two I found were on an area of open acid-grassland/heathland but both of them were found on small scrapes and it's great that this might continue. One was found in the suction sampler, the other found under a stone.
On the first scrape, I also 'sucked' a single Ant-tigerEuryopis flavomaculata (also nationally scarce), which appears to be only the second record for Norfolk after Steve Lane found one in 2018 at Roydon Common. Overall I recorded 146 species last Friday, which was pretty good as it wasn't all that warm. That doesn't even include most of the beetles and bugs which have gone in vinegar until the winter. Spiders are currently at the number one slot with 46 species (but they have all been identified already), followed by beetles at 29 (this will overtake the spiders from this visit alone though). I'm expecting well over 600 species at this rate from this survey.
Oh and Gymnocheta viridis, a new tachind for me (thanks for confirming Tony), was everywhere. Wonder why I have not seen this in Sussex before?
I ended the weekend on 164 species of spider for the year too and added a few nationally scarce species from the dunes there that all seem to be new 10 km square records. Thanatus striatus, and Xerolycosa miniata (those were new for me this year) as well as Zelotes electus and Crustulina sticta.
The birds were really exciting with sightings of Spoonbill, Great White Egret, Barn Owl, Marsh Harrier, Red Kite andmore Grey Partridge than I see in a decade. I was typically seeing around 50 Brown Hares a day and the Lapwings were also very plentiful. Quite something!
Back on the little scrapes where I was photographing the Heath Shieldbug, I noticed a few plants of Field Mouse-ear in flower, always love seeing this. Then I noticed in the same scrape I was literally kneeling on a patch of Shepherd's-cress (Near Threatened). I love the little 'jigsaw-puzzle' leaves of this little crucifer, always a good indicator. Was lovely seeing plants that I used to see much more in the RSPB days like Shrubby Seablite, Mossy Stonecrop and Flixweed too. I can't wait until the next visit.
Oh and a new skull! A Muntjac (minus the fangs though). It looks like they fall out easily.
I wonder if you can guess what this post is about? I have been at Butcherlands today monitoring the progress of the vegetation, I do it every three years. All plants in a circular plot and I measure the woody regeneration. It's an interesting year having had a hard graze this winter and spring. Both fluellens are everywhere (the first records of Round-leaved Fluellen {below} since 2001 when the project started in fact).
And here is Sharp-leaved Fluellen, Scarlet Pimpernel, Mrash Cudweed and Small Toadflax.
Fluellen flowers up close are so cool, love that colour combo!
And elsewhere old meadow plants spread like this Sneezewort.
Whilst working on the veg I disturbed a small white moth that looked interesting, it turned out to be Lesser Cream Wave, a new record for Ebernoe Common. Oh, were you expecting something more feathery? It's not easy to get a new moth for the site you know! This is quite a nice wetland species and it looks to be a new 10 km square for the species according to the Sussex Moth Group page! For the keen eyed, don't panic the discal spots are present on the hind wing.
I carried on surveying and bumped into a young female Wasp Spider.
Many of the oaks are well over a decade old (this one with a girth at ground level of 15 cm but well under a metre tall!) yet are 'bonzaid' by the livestock and Roe Deer. They are surviving well though, growing a little each year. This one has future veteran written all over it.
There were a few Dusky PlumesOidaemetophorus lithodactyla too, they feed on Common Fleabane which does very well under these conditions.
Butterflies were good too with all the usual suspects for woodland and a few Purple Emperors were flying about the tree tops too. I've never seen so many of them as I have this year.
With four Turtle Dove territories this year and around double figures of Nightingales, the site is thriving. I was just getting towards my last plot of the day when I heard the unmistakable call of...
...LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER!!! It was a double bluff the whole time!
It called once and a few minutes later I saw it fly along the tree line in the image below for a few metres (the oaks at the back). Despite 30 mins of waiting, nothing. No more calls, no sign. In fact I was in that field for well over two hours either side of the encounter and only heard/saw it the once.
It's amazing that this is the first LSW I have recorded on a Trust reserve. What's even more strange is that only about four or five weeks ago I bumped into my first Sussex LSWs in East Sussex during a freelance invertebrate survey. Ten years I have been back in Sussex and these are the first I have seen. They happened to be a recently fledged family party (the only known ones in Sussex at the time) but the Butcherland animal was just a single bird as far as I can tell. That said, it's only the 10th July so you would think that they've bred nearby. Talking to Ken Smith it could be very easy to miss them on a CBC without early visits. Might they have been out here for sometime? It's a huge area with a wealth of suitable habitat and they are very secretive birds.
What struck me about the two sites was how similar they were in structure. Big thick hedges, flower-rich meadows and ponds nearby. A long way from dense, continuous high forest. I might have to squeeze an early visit in next March...
Now, a few hours before I found this lot. I had assumed this to be a GSW (and the chances are it probably was just a Great Spotted). I am glad I collected the feathers though just to check...
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