The Lyons Share

I just spent an hour trying to key out an ichneumon wasp I found in a moth trap at Woods Mill last week. I was sent a key by Dr Gavin Broad of the NHM to nocturnal ichneumons (in other words, the ones that turn up in moth traps!). I think this is Netelia virgata but I cannot be sure, I can't even find any pictures of it on the Internet. I'll send it off and we shall have to wait and see. I don't think though I will be getting huge numbers of ticks this way...

I am going to start a new feature, a monthly update on the 1st of each month showing what I have added to my all-taxa list in the preceding month. It became too time consuming to update it each time I saw something new. Once a month it is then. And what a month! Firstly, I should say that some of the ticks this month are actually things I saw years ago and had forgotten about, hence the huge jump since the last update.  I was on 2834 on the 10th September, by the 1st October I reached 2951! So, where have most of the ticks come from? Fungi, I have been really lazy with fungi until recently and I am really starting to get the bug.

Vascular plants	1044
Moths	761 (+23)
Birds	331 (+2)
Beetles	195 (+12)
Fungi	127 (+58)
Mosses	83 (+6)
Butterflies	50
True flies	49
Mammals	38
Molluscs	37 (+3)
Fish	36
Spiders	32
Dragonflies	29
True bugs	28 (+7)
Crickets & grasshoppers	18
Aculeates	18 (+1)
Liverworts	18 (+6)
Crustaceans	17 (+3)
Lichen	10 (+6)
Amphibians	6
Reptiles	6 (+1)
Seaweeds & algae	5
Anemones	4
Cockroaches	3
Caddisflies	2
Earwigs	1
Ant-lion	1
Lacewings	1
Leeches	1

And what did it take? A ride in a convertible with the top down. Mark Anscombe's to be precise. We pulled up at the lights just east of Arundel where the dual carriageway of the A27 comes to an end. I had my bag (and therefore my bins) in the foot well as there was no room in the boot. A dark Honey Buzzard drifted south over the car with wings held flat just as we stopped and I had a great view as it drifted into the sun, flapping only once. Mark was embarrassed when I started birding from his open topped car. I have never found a Honey Buzzard on migration and after years and years of checking every buzzard I  have ever seen, I finally get one when I am in an open topped car. How awesome is that?! We closely followed it up with a chicken (on a verge) and whilst parked, a deadwood invertebrate entered the vehicle, the hoverfly Myathropa florea.

Look at this unlikely line-up! Despite last night's weather, there were around 10 species in the moth trap at Woods Mill last night. At this time of year, there are a whole suite of moths with yellow/orange markings, perfect camouflage to hide against the yellowing leaves of autumn. September moths are something special, a welcome break to the boring brown underwings and rustics of August. It also reminds me of the first moth trap I ever ran, it was on my school roof way back in September 1990. It was so cold at Woods Mill this morning, I was able to arrange the moths (with enough time for just one photo!) on a yellowing dock leaf. So, from left to right the above suspects are: Frosted Orange, Pink-barred Sallow, Sallow, Barred Sallow and Beaded Chestnut. So who's guilty? It's the Barred Sallow, I told him he wasn't allowed in the moth trap again.

Not much happening today, a very grey day at Woods Mill. I am struggling to fit back in to a more office based life-style, I always get that this time of year. I went a walk around Hoe Wood and didn't see very much at all. I found what I was looking for though, this fungus which is known as Aniseed Funnel or Blue-green Clitocybe Clitocybe odora that I thought I saw yesterday. I prefer Fennel Funnel though, they missed a trick when naming that one. It does indeed smell of aniseed but not as strongly as it suggests in the book, perhaps these were older specimens. Another new species to my fungi list that has almost doubled this September!

Last night a friend of mine, Nick Hunt, posted a picture of an oil beetle that he had found in Woodvale Crematorium in Brighton. I became excited and asked if we had got time to go and look for it but as the gates were closed, I didn't fancy scrambling over a fence with a slipped disc. I had to wait till morning then. Nick then told me he had found it under an old piece of cloth and had put it back there. This made me think it was highly likely to still be there in the morning. 

Last night I dug out Volume 14, Number 1, October 2002 edition of British Wildlife which has a key to the oil beetles in. I was pretty sure by last night it was Rugged Oil Beetle Meloe rugosus and low and behold it was still there this morning and that was what it keyed out to. Peter Hodge tells me the beetle is spreading but this may be the most westerly record in Sussex. They have a fascinating life history and are very bizarre looking things. A bit like a fat-ant but quite slow and ponderous with it. They are flightless but the larvae hitch a lift with bees before parasitising them in their burrows! A great find by Nick and it has certainly drawn my attention to Woodvale again. Here is the habitat of this rare animal, an old abandoned sleeve from a goth's shirt?!

Nick also found this smart blue carabid hanging around a gravestone, which I keyed out as the Prussian Plate-jaw Leistus spinibarbis, it's quite common but has some pretty cool feeding adaptations. It has a setal cage (a cage of hairs below its face for dropping over springtails, the only way out is via the expanded mandibles!).  I might try that with my dinner, I could well use a pair of expanded mandibles. These features are just about visible in this photo. 

I found a fungus on my way out that also might be of note and the county recorder has asked me to send some material off to Kew Gardens! Not bad for an hours natural history before work, thanks Nick!

OK, I made a mistake. I originally labelled this fungus as Earthfan Thelephora terrestris a few days ago after a field trip to Graffham Common but it's actually Tiger's-eye Coltricia perennis. We did see both species in fact, although with hindsight they look nothing like each other! I also saw Rosy Spike Gomphidius roseus but I dismissed it at the time as a funny looking Russula.

A friend in Brighton has found an oil beetle in a local cemetery today so I am going to meet him first thing and see if we can relocate it, how exciting, watch this space!

I twitched my first fungus today and it was totally worth it. An amazing photograph posted by Ian Seccombe of Devil's Fingers or Octopus Stinkhorn at Chailey Common was enough to get me hooked. We headed to Pound Common and Oli found them first, three specimens looking a little tired and dry compared to the specimens in Ian's shot. This alien species does indeed smell like a rotting corpse, I made the mistake of sniffing it at close quarters which resulted in me nearly hurling up my lunch. I saw many other species today including Bay Bolete, Blushing Bracket, Brown Birch Bolete, Orange-peel Fungus more Fly Agarics than I have ever seen before and some Bearded Milkcaps (bottom photo). Thanks to Oli for lending me his camera today as I left my memory card at home again!

Alice and I moth trapped Selwyn's Wood on Thursday night but sadly it was a very poor night for moths. What truly stole the show was this male Minotaur Beetle Typhaeus typhoeus that came to light. This impressive dung beetle is more often detected by its burrows which I seem to see on heathland and sandy ground more than anywhere else. The males uses the protrusions on their pronotums to fight with other males. 

The moths were very few and far between, Pink-barred Sallows and Pinion-streaked Snouts were the highlights, I think we struggled to get ten species of macro despite warm and calm conditions. It did clear though soon after dark and there was a very bright moon that probably had a part in it. Here is a Pink-barred Sallow from the Woods Mill moth trap last week.

Today I have been carrying out a lower plants survey of Graffham Common with Bruce Middleton, Jacqui Middleton and Howard Matcham. We saw lots of good stuff including Violet Crystalwort Riccia huebeneriana, a liverwort and only the second county record. There was LOTS of it around the edge of the pond.

Fungi are everywhere on the site, the commonest being a sticky bolete which is Bovine Bolete Suillus bovinus. Tawny Grisette is also very abundant. I saw a few fungi I had not seen before including False Chanterelle Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca. All in all, I have added 17 species to my all-taxa list today! Oh, I totally forgot there is a family of Hobbies in the area and we saw at least four mid air food passes from adults to young today. Also, singing Firecrest nearby.

On the IALE conference field trip to the Cuckmere last week, Jim Latham from CCW took some nice shots of the White Stork and kindly emailed them to me (thanks Jim!). Just a quick one today as I am off to moth trap at Selwyn's Wood tonight...

And here is the poor thing getting mugged by the local chavs...the day after the sighting a White Stork was found in a moribund state and taken into care by the RSPCA. It may have been a different animal though as more sightings have occured since in the west but I think that is unlikely as it was not that far away.