The Lyons Share

I did the lookering yesterday at Butcherlands and had a quick look for spiders as I went. I was keen to check up on the Pardosa paludicola that we found there back in 2017. It took about 30 seconds to spot one. They are HUGE compared to the wealth of commoner Pardosa that are everywhere. I saw two females and a male (all adult). They are very leggy and spiny compared to other members of the genus and have another skill up their eight sleeves; they're surprisingly good jumpers and unlike the other species, can jump clean out of the tray!

And a male.

Other species new for the year included a few young female Sibianor aurocinctus (I took this photo of a female last year).

Pardosa pullata

Walckenaeria antica

Pelecopsis parallela

Dictyna arundinacea

I found the cows. All good.

Then I had to service some of the dataloggers in Ebernoe and thought about what Matt said about searching Amaurobius webs for Oonops. On one very dark and shady oak in deep Holly shade there was a huge web (which in hindsight was probably a Tegenaria's). I shook this into the tray and found an amazing five specimens of the nationally scarce BAP Dipoena inornata (Silky Gallows-spider). Now this is only the second time I have encountered this spider (the other was as new to East Sussex from Eridge Rocks in a very different habitat - shaken from fern litter growing on sandrock) and was really surprised to see it in this habitat. New to Ebernoe and the 10 km square. They are meant to eat ants, I would imagine that this would just about be suitable for Brown Tree Ant Lasius brunneus but why were they in this web and in such numbers?!

And the male under the microscope showing the novelty front end. So funny.

Then today the weather wasn't any good for a lunch time jaunt until I saw Matt Prince was on 132 species too. So as I was leaving work I beat the soggy Box bush outside the office window and got THREE species new for the year in ten minutes, putting me on 135 species for 2019.

Clubiona comta (my 6th Clubiona for 2019)

Neriene peltata

Padiscura pallens

A Tramp Slug Deroceras invadens in fact. You can tell it by the pale patch around the breathing pore. I think it was 'compost bin assisted' in its provenance though. 

The reason I am posting this is I have finally got round to putting my garden on the PSL location rankings. You can see it here. The garden is currently ranked 63rd out of 66 (albeit 64 to 66 have no records yet, so effectively I'm at the bottom). You have to start somewhere though. I need to add 28 species to go up a rank. I bought the flat back on the 13th November and made my first records that day. Today I have added a few bits just by being on the phone in the garden and finally got Sparrowhawk on the list. So as of today I have recorded 61 species in my 36 square-metres of garden. There is no lawn by the way and until very recently it was mostly covered in palms and non-native ferns. This is all changing though.

Probably the commonest invertebrate at the moment is Girdled Snail. My highlight though so far has been a Stock Dove that landed on the shed for 15 second and the obligatory Psilochorus simoni that seems to follow me around in boxes of books. I am yet to add a beetle or a moth to the list! the garden STINKS of Red Fox. Here is the breakdown:

Birds - 27

Plants - 12

Molluscs - 5

Spiders - 5

Mammals - 3

Crustaceans - 2

Springtails - 2

Bryophytes - 2

Butterflies - 1

Bugs - 1

Hymenoptera - 1

So why not start a list for your garden? It's a great way of getting records in. You can do this in iRecord and set up your list total by joining the pan-species listing website here.

I forgot this. I was Googling Tramp Slug as I forgot the scientific name and this came up...

I had the day off on Wednesday and went and helped Steve Teale and Tony Hutson do a survey in the tunnels under Newhaven Fort. Steve's been doing moth surveys there for a few years and I love any opportunity to get underground. Now most of these tunnels are not open to the public so it really was quite exciting getting in there.

First up, a Pholcus phalangioides spider that has been infected with some strange fungus! Hanging in the air in the torch light, this really was a creepy site! Loved it. Here is our team entering the first tunnel.

Probably the highlight for me was seeing 13, yes that's 13, Bloxworth Snouts (above)! Counting these moths whilst listening to the unnerving sound of an air-ride siren was a rather odd experience. last time I heard one of them I was running for my life in a forest fire in Australia but that is a different story. I saw the 7th record for this moth in Sussex back in 2008 and then again in Waterstone's in Brighton in 2009 but I have not seen it since. Great to see so many of them there, they must be established close to the Fort. This moth must be a candidate for the most stupid name of any animal in this country, just brilliant. I do hope that we name less species in the future after people and places and instead leave behind a legacy of English names that have some use to aid identification. Bloxworth Snout is OK though for its outright daftness.

There were lots of spiders but no Cave Spiders sadly. Amaurobius ferox (below) was perhaps the most common with Nesticus cellulanus and Steatoda grossa also present. A couple of Tegenaria silvestris were a surprise away from the woods.

Always nice to see this beauty too. It's the subterranean bristle-tail Trigoniophthalmus alternatus.

Only slugs I saw were Limax maximus and Limacus maculatus. One Brown Long-eared bat was the only bat action. Apparently it's THE only bat there which seems odd.

Here is some primitive cave art.

I got one lifer, the little moth Agonopterix purpurea. Thanks Steve for organising this, it was a great day!

Ever since I got my new handy Black & Decker GWC3600 L20-GB 36V Blower Vac suction sampler that is! Now, we've got a petrol driven machine at work and it's very strong and powerful. It does have its draw backs though. One, if you don't have a shed and a fuel store, it's a pain. It's also not so easy to chuck in the back of a car. It's also quite heavy. So, I was quite pleased to see you can get a fairly strong electric one. I bought this for £140. It runs off a 36V Lithium battery. I've temporarily rigged it up with an old net before my bag arrives from B&S Nets.

I took it up to Ditchling Beacon, a chalk-grassland site with an area of broken sward with bare ground and carpets of mosses. Firstly, it's really easy to carry. Secondly, the battery lasted longer than I did, which was great. As it's light, it's easy to be a little more focused on where you place it and also, the angle you place it at. I was able to get in at right angles under patches of moss. Where it's not so good though is that it's not so strong. It doesn't pick up the quantity of material that a petrol driven one does. On the kind of loose soils I was working on today though, that was actually a good thing. I've struggled in the past with the petrol driven one for the amount of material it picks up which engulfs the specimens. I believe though that having it in the car/with you all the time is likely to result in far more specimens long term than the petrol driven one will provide. In the hour I was up there I managed two new beetles and one new ant (below is Stenamma debile with its tiny eyes). Plus a few nice records too.

And here is the suction sampler favourite, the Devil's-bit Scabious Jewel Beetle Trachy subglaber. 

The commonest snail was Abide secale, a snail I don't see that often. Spiders were surprisingly poorly represented but I did see the tiny Minyriolus pusillus. The commonest bug was Agramma laetum. Weevils included Orthochaetes setiger, Pseudorchestes pratensis and Ceratapion carduorum. So, it's charged up again and in my car, ready for another blast tomorrow lunch time...

Last Sunday we went to South Wales to see some slugs. Seriously. This part of the world, thanks to Christian 'Sparrow' Owen, has become a bit of PSLers pilgrimage of late, with some people going back three times to get their fix! I actually don't know how many new species I saw on Sunday, I lost count. I do know that I quadrupled my slug list. 

Until last Sunday, I hated slugs. Both physically and taxonomically but thanks to Christian, I am now rather fond of them. I can't state enough how impressive a naturalist Christian is, I don't think he has left a stone unturned in South Wales. He's found two species new to the UK (including the cracking Alsatian Semi-slug Daudebardia rufa above, who wears his shell like a flat cap and is the size of an Alsatian) within a few miles of his house by adopting this approach and his knowledge of myriapods and molluscs is impressive. He was the real star of the day and I am very grateful for the time he gave us, great company and a cracking teacher. Here he is on the left, King of the Edgelands. There I am on the right experiencing my nth new mollusc; bewildered, soaked and slug-blind but loving every minute! (thanks for the photo Tony).

Would you believe it, the photo above is of Ghost Slug habitat. And here is one in all its glory. Impressive hey?! These are actually the spirits of other species of dead slug that have unfinished business in this world. This particular individual was murdered by his best friend and has come back to seek revenge. Heartbreaking and haunting in equal measure, I'm sure you'll agree. The sense of loss is profound.

And this one that Christian found new to the UK a while ago that doesn't even have a name yet! I reckon Gavin. Or maybe Stacey. Anyways, it was an amazing day and I'm so glad that I finally have a foot in the door with slugs. Happy days!

I'm embarrassed to admit it's took a me a few years to figure out that the super abundant snail at Bible Bottom, part of our Southerham reserve, is the monastically named Carthusian Snail Monacha cartusiana. This is a red listed species but there are hundreds up there. I would say it was the commonest snail yesterday. I was quite taken with them and their understated beauty. Bible Bottom was also full of thousands of Chalkhill Blues yesterday, quite an experience to walk through, go and have a look if you get a chance! 

Adrian and I were carrying out a grazing assessment as well as mapping some of the scarcer plant species such as Basil-thyme and Bastard-toadflax. The Bastard-toadflax has mostly gone over but we did see eight nymphs and one adult of the scarce Down Shieldbug Canthophorus impressus that I recorded new to East Sussex there last April. The nymphs are so bright! Great to see it and the plant doing well there and amazed at how the range of the Bastard-toadflax almost completely overlaps with the Chalk Milkwort (which flowers earlier in the year, there is not a trace of it left by mid summer). I would guess that they require the best chalk-grassland; with the lowest nutrients and/or the thinnest soils, accompanied with adequate grazing. 

10). Pearl-bordered Fritillary dead on a sundew at Graffham Common. When Rachael said 'I've never seen anyone get so excited over a dead butterfly' was the moment she realised her new boyfriend was an obsessed maniac.

9). Six new birds in 2013 which were: Western Bonnelli's Warbler, American Golden Plover, Hermit Thrush, Radde's Warbler, Semipalmated Sandpiper and (see below). The twitching trip to Cornwall in search of the Hermit Thrush with Mark, Neil and Seth was a blast. Despite seeing the Hermit Thrush, I thought the smartest thing that day was this Blue-rayed Limpet. It just goes to show that twitching with a bunch of pan-species listers can go in all sorts of directions.

4). Micrommata virescens and Carabus arvensis, just two of the 584 species Chris Bentley and I recorded at the Old Lodge invertebrate survey.

3). 67 Heath Tiger Beetles at Iping Common using purpose made scrapes put in with a turf stripper. Great to see this reintroduced species not only present on site but thriving. The 1st August was a great day and so glad I was able to share it with Shaun Pryor.

Thanks to a tip off by Steve Gale I was luck enough to catch up with yet another novelty alien fungus up in Surrey, the Red Cage Clathrus ruber. It was however already way beyond its best and was looking a little deflated by yesterday morning. Not all that different to the closely related actor Nicolas Cage Clathrus crapactor, also beyond his best, here he is expressing joy at discovering a rare leaf-miner on the set of the latest David Lynch film, 'Pan-species Listing: The Movie'. Early reviews suggest Cage's performance is lacklustre and that he wasn't even looking AT the leaf in this scene! 

Anyway, I met up there with Seth Gibson and as we both had the day off work, we headed into the field to see all manor of interesting things. We went back to the Aseroe site, as Seth hadn't been over to look at the freaky Starfish Fungi of which we saw many, including this one that was just opening up. It didn't smell at all compared to the ones I saw last week. I agree that Anemone Fungi works better.

Whilst trying to identify a webcap (as if!), I stumbled upon a fungus which was a tick for both of us. The rather smart Earpick Fungus that grows out of decomposing pine cones. Once you get your eye in there are loads there.

Seth is really good on leaf miners, an area of natural history I am ashamed to say I have not really ventured into. Seth showed me this Stigmella tityrella mine on Beech. You can see the larvae still feeding at the end of the mine. I can't believe this is the first Stigmella I have ticked! With very little effort, I saw four new moths, all very common. This is a vast reservoir of species that I am now a little more inspired to access. Thanks Seth!

We also found lots of the alien Girdled Snail which was a new one for me.

And this common but distinctive millipede was also a tick being Nanogona polydesmoides.

I must do more of this sort of thing. So far Seth added 10 new species from the day and I added 11 which I guess is about even. I ended the day on 4559 species. It's good for making me aware of how much stuff I miss right under my nose! I'll happily host next time somewhere in Sussex anytime any of the listers fancy a day out and I'm free!