On a farm survey yesterday I spotted this crazy looking lichen. I didn't expect to be able to identify it from a photo but I am pretty sure it's Ramalania fastigiata according to 'Dobson'. It's quite common apparently on nutrient-rich bark but I can't remember ever seeing it before. I think it looks like something off Star Trek. I also found a couple of carabids under a tray for feeding Pheasants and the species was also new to me, Trechus quadristriatus. That puts me on 3126, just past 1/8 of the way to 4000! Not having my laptop has been very liberating and frustrating in equal measures. It has made me realise how much I use the damn thing though.
My laptop battery has died so I have limited access to the Internet. Yesterday I had a very interesting day on a course looking at 'Bats and trees'. It was very much geared at protected-species consultants but it was still very useful to my work. I was amazed when the instructor got out some old bat droppings, they smelled a bit like Oxo Cubes, not all that unpleasant. If you squeeze a dropping between your finger and it crumbles very easily and twinkles (I assume because of all the invertebrates bats eat) it is more likely to be a bat than an another small mammal apparently. Anyway, here are some Natterer's Bat turds.
And here is a whole mess of Serotine Bat droppings. Just add milk!
Whilst we were out in a clearing in the woods a Crossbill flew over but most bizarrely I spotted a small bat flying around in broad daylight. I saw a similar thing about this time last year at Ebernoe. No photo I am afraid but the instructor was pretty sure it was one of the pipistrelle species.
I managed a survey today despite the weather and had a really good result with high numbers of Skylark and Yellowhammer compared to usual as well as four Hawfinch. Due to leaving my binoculars in Oli's car after the failed twitch on Sunday I have been using my old binoculars today that have not left the house in ten years. Suffice to say that I don't think they will be going out again ever. Back on the shelf you go.
There was little else to see today but I did have a look under some old fence posts and spotted this striking wolf spider that I think is a male Alopecosa pulverulenta (will have to confirm this though). There are only about 40 species of wolf spider (Lycosidae) in the UK from nine different genera. Their eyes have a very distinctive pattern. If I have got this one right, I will have seen three of them. Another bat course tomorrow up in Surrey, this time 'Trees and bats' with IEEM.
I had a look around Hoe Wood at Woods Mill this lunch time and found a few things. I saw a single Dromius quadrimaculatus but it got away before I had chance to get a photo. I then found a fresh Spring Usher which also managed to give me the slip. In fact, the only thing I did manage to get a shot of was a snail. This is the Plaited Door Snail Cochlodina laminata and is common on trees and amongst wood. It is sinistral and smooth and lacks the ribs of other similar species.
You can probably tell from my expression that it wasn't a Slaty-backed Gull! We were a little late getting galvanised today and literally missed the bird by minutes after sauntering onto the scene at a leisurely 2.45 pm (I wasn't hung over, I was working earlier in the day). Serves us right for leaving it so late. It was such a miserable day that the bird probably went to roost early, it seemed as dark at 3.00 pm as it was at 5.00 pm. Everything was flushed ten minutes before we arrived apparently and the bird was seen to fly out of view. Twitching sucks! Thanks to Oli for driving all the way there and back. We did see some Avocets and a huge flock of Lapwings that was put up by a Peregrine.
All was not lost however. We poked around in some drift wood by the banks of the Thames for a few minutes and I looked under the sum total of three logs. Under the second one I found a new species for me and it seems like it was quite a good one! I recognised it as one of the squash bugs that I had not seen before and thought I could probably ID it from a photo alone.
It's
Ceraleptus lividus and is a local to scarce southern species that likes dry places according to '
A Photographic Guide to the Shieldbugs and Squashbugs of the British Isles' and was easy to identify. So, who needs a Slaty-backed Gull? Erm, well, me for one but I have learned two things today:
1) Don't leave the house at 1.30 pm to go twitching on a dark gloomy day in winter.
2) I prefer going out looking for invertebrates than I do birding these days.
So, will I go back for another shot at the bird? Almost certainly, I really wanna see the ugly brute and I do have a thing for gulls...
I've been to a training day at the Natural History Museum today organised by the
Bat Conservation Trust looking at analysing bat recordings from woodland transects that I helped carry out last summer at The Mens and Ebernoe Common. It was really interesting and my physics degree came in handy for the first time in a while! I learned a lot, it was great to see and hear the different calls the bats make and how to describe and identify them. Particular emphasis was put on Barbastelle Bats and that is what is shown on the above photo. It has two calls at different frequencies and of different shapes. You can't identify all bats this way, the
Myotis species for example cannot really be differentiated by call. A long day with a lot crammed into it but I have learned more abouts today than I have probably in the rest of my life put together. An invaluable day and I am looking forward to helping with the surveys (and now the sound analysis) this year on our sites. I had no time to look around the museum and all I managed to get a photo of was of this was this pasty looking fellow waiting for a bus.
As I was coming into work today I noticed these two micro moths getting jiggy with it on the wall. They are Agonopterix heracliana and they are common at this time of year here at Woods Mill but I usually only see them in the moth trap. The larvae feed on various umbellifers and the adults overwinter, re-emerging in the spring. Just a quick one tonight as I am off to give a talk on the Woods Mill CBC for Henfield birdwatch. I'm off for some bat sound-analysis training in London tomorrow too, so a busy weekend but the Slaty-backed Gull is calling and a trip to Rainham may be on the cards for Sunday. Anyway, I'm just glad I got to use a quote from the Chuckle Brothers on my blog.
This little beetle is under 3 mm long and I took this photo down the microscope. It's a bruchid or seed beetle and it's the first one I have come across so far. I am pretty sure it is Bruchus loti and I swept it from some rank grass at Woods Mill. There is a lot of Meadow Vetchling in the summer on the bank and from the literature it looks like that was what the larvae would most likely be feeding on there. The orange front legs and first four antennal segments are very obvious. The shape of the eyes is amazing. I think they are U-shaped to accomodate the antennae. I think it's quite common. It was such a lovely day, I thought I would see if there were any insects on the wing but I had more luck sweeping than spotting anything in flight. I also saw a weevil called Sitona lineatus (another very common species associated with legumes and also new to me) leaving me on 3119.
This is the majority of a flock of around 400 Linnets that were feeding on a cattle grazed stubble-turnip field during a farm visit today. The noise was intense! It started off slowly today with a fly over Lesser Black-backed Gull being the only addition to the list (actually the first I've seen on all the farms). Then this bad boy drifted right over head, new to the site. I have now recorded Red Kite on 3/6 of the farms.
As I was counting the huge Linnet flock, I flushed three Grey Partridge, also new to the site and the first decent view I have had of one since I have started these surveys, a great result and lovely to hear them again at close range. Before I had even marked them on the map a Corn Bunting burst into song about 100 m away, another new record for the site and the bird was still there over an hour later, singing away like a musical hand grenade.
Invertebrate-wise it was very quiet, I noticed about a dozen of these bright red weevils on a rubbing post, the only shot I could get is of it legging it away from me so you can't see the rostrum. I think it is Apion frumentarium after keying it out in Joy but I think I'll need to get this one confirmed. It was about 4.5 mm long.
I turned over a few stones and was surprised to find lots of these very brightly coloured and very active carabids scurrying around! I have only ever seen this species before in a pitfall trap so it was a tick for me, it's Badister bullatus and is quite common apparently. Nice to see a really well marked beetle, there are actually seven individuals in this photo, I wonder what they were doing? That leaves me on 3117.
I went to Filsham Reedbed today and all the work that has been done there over the winter looks great. A miserable day though and I saw very little wildlife. This woody cigar-shaped swelling on a
Common Reed stem, as far as I know, is the gall of the fly
Lipara lucens and is known as a cigar gall (I find it hard to say cigar gall without it sounding like cigargoyle!). I think it is the only species that produces this particular type of gall on reed. I have never seen the fly but there is a grub inside that woody cigar somewhere. They seem to be common in all the reedbeds I have been in but I know next to nothing about galls. The FSC book 'British Plant Galls' is really good and I'm itching to use it more this summer.
I also found this small (c4 mm) carabid which keyed out quite easily to
Bembidion biguttatum. It was hiding in some fallen deadwood, it's associated with water and damp grassland and is quite common apparently. Sorry for the rubbish photo. I struggle with
Bembidions, there are lots of similar species but this one seemed very straight forward. Now, I'm hoping for some decent weather tomorrow!
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