The Lyons Share

This year I have been carrying out an invertebrate survey of Shoreham Beach LWS on behalf of the Friends of Shoreham Beach and on the 30th June I carried out another visit. I was shocked at how much the vegetation looked like the Mediterranean but it was full of stuff. The bugs were quite good fun and it was really nice checking them against the new Sussex Shieldbug Atlas. In fact I had three species from the atlas new to the 10 km square and one of those was new to me!

I'll start with my favourite shown above, the delightfully weird nymph of the Rhombic Leatherbug Syromastus rhombeus. This is always a pleasure to see and I think it's the first time I have recorded the nymph before.

I even managed a bit of footage of it.

Next up was this stick insect of a bug which I swept at the time as the Rhombic Leatherbug. It's not that scarce but was a lifer for me, Chorosoma schillingi. Now it looks like a grass bug but it's not actually a mirid, it's a rhopalid bug! It's also huge! Not entirely sure if this blurred image is of a nymph or a micropterous female in hindsight. As I swept a male in the same net I am guessing it's a female. It needs an English name this one. I propose Dune Stick-insect!

This nymph wasn't new to the 10 km square but was new to the site. It's Denticulate Leatherbug Coriomeris denticulatus nymph. I think this is probably the commonest squash bug after Dock Bug (if you don't use a sweep net you'll probably say Box Bug though). I see it on dry grasslands quite frequently.

The third species new to the 10 km square was the Bishop's Mitre Shieldbug Aelia acuminata but I didn't get a photo of that one. Other highlights included a few Garden Tiger larvae!

And lots of a spider I expected to find there. Sitticus inexpectus, a nationally scarce shingle specialist. It's known from the site but the record has no date!

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.

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 Plumes Oidaemetophorus 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...

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?

Yesterday morning, about 8.30 am I was getting to the end of a bird survey at Limpsfield Common in Surrey. No net, no pots. Just my binoculars and Weatherwriter, nothing else. And clothes obviously. When before me a golden orb of light appeared on a sunny ride. It wasn't a religious experience or a UFO, it was far more impressive than that. This hairy nugget of a hoverfly with magic wands for antennae got right up in my grill and I had an idea as to what it was but I needed to catch it to be sure. I stood motionless as the fly descended from eye level and landed in the eye cups of my binoculars! I had one chance and amazingly managed to grab it between my thumb and forefinger before transferring it to a pot. It was indeed the nationally scarce Callicera aurata and an impressive beast indeed. 

I have wanted to see this for some time so it was a great way to end the survey. It actually flew off as I was taking this photo (after cooling down in the fridge) but amazingly I did it again, catching it between my little finger and palm. So when I caught a Syritta pipiens in the kitchen just now, I was feeling rather blase about my fly grabbing skills.

A year or two ago I mentioned to the SxBRC & Adastra that I'd like to do a shieldbug atlas for Sussex. Something like what Shropshire has produced. Having no time or coding abilities, that's as far as I got. Before I knew it, volunteer Mark Robey had created (with Bob's help at the SxBRC) an online atlas. So with a few photos from myself and Derek Binns, a few lines of text from me and some minor tweaking of the look of the thing, SxBRC have launched the online atlas. (I know it was MUCH more work than that but I was impressed at how quickly the test version appeared). The site can be found here https://www.sxbrc.org.uk/shieldbugs/mapping.html.

So many thanks to all of you have been submitting records via iRecord, they're all in there already so you can look around the map and find your records. As well as gaps in recording effort. It includes all the shield bugs, squash bugs, rhopalid bugs and the other usual suspects (such as Fire Bug).

You can start off by displaying all records across all of Sussex and see where the hot spots are and where the gaps are.

Here for example is the 1 km square I live in with eight records of six species.

And if you click on that square the species list for the square pops up.

I was looking around for the most well recorded square. It looks like this one has 145 records of 21 species!

Here they are. Including the incredible Scarlet Shieldbug Eurydema dominulus. I would love to see that. I think this square must have something to do with Patrick Roper.

Now if you click on the species list from the drop down menu at the top left, you can focus in on individual species. Such as the Green Shieldbug here, perhaps the commonest species. Frustratingly I have just noticed that these images have squashed up a bit (that's why they're called squash bugs ha ha) but I haven't got time to change that right now. It gives you an idea anyway.

You can change the scale.

And if you click on the 'i' button some more text about the species, where you can find it in Sussex (or where it's likely to turn up if it's not yet in Sussex) and how you might find it.

Here is a scarcer species. I put this in as there is already a new dot on the map but it was great to be able to instantly know it was the third county record and the most easterly one too, a great benefit of having an atlas. An attendee on a heathland invertebrate training I ran at the RSPB found Dalmann's Leatherbug Spathocera dalmani at it's most easterly site in Sussex at Wiggonholt Common. SxBRC will update the records at regular intervals so the records are as up to date is practical. Given that I haven't even entered this record into my copy of Recorder 6 yet, it's not going to be for a while!

And here is the individual. Only seen this three times now. Once in Hampshire and once in Dorset so this was the first Sussex one for me and only the third Sussex record. Is it slowly spreading east?

And I leave you with the map of a species I am yet to see, the Vernal Shieldbug. Tantalising stuff!
A massive thank you to Mark Robey, Bob Foreman, Clare Blencowe and Derek Binns as well as Pete Boardman from Shropshire and Tristan Bantock for being inspirations.

Now Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.B.U.G.S., get out there and fill those gaps in!!!

This is a difficult post to write but a couple of weeks ago I handed my notice in at Sussex Wildlife Trust. Being an awkward git who never does anything conventionally though, I plan to work a ten month’s period of notice (nearly nine now). I am going to work up until the 31^st March 2019 at which point I will work solely as a self-employed ecologist and entomologist. This feels like the right time in my life to do this, so I’m going to go for it.

 

The last ten years have been an incredible time for me. I have given over a quarter of my life to the role and the 32 reserves and all the thousands of species that live there. It has been the best job a naturalist could ever hope for, given the freedom to write a monitoring strategy for such fantastic reserves from scratch and then implement it has been a dream come true. Yet nothing lasts forever and I feel a new challenge calling me.

 

With such a complex job, I couldn’t leave mid field season, then all that work takes time to write up so even six month’s was looking like a short period of time to give. So in order to do it justice, I needed the longest run up possible to leave the work I’ve done on the monitoring strategy over the last ten years (well 11 by the time I’ve finished) in the best state possible.

  

When I do finally leave, I will be strongly linked to the Trust still, remaining in my role of VRM for Ditchling Beacon on the last Sunday of every month and working closely with the SxBRC as county recorder for bugs & spiders and submitting thousands of records every year etc etc.

So as of the 1st April 2019 I will be a naturalist for hire based out of Brighton but I'll be posting more about that in the future.

I'll keep the blog going throughout though and in the future when I can too. Saying goodbye to those reserves is going to be tough, as hard as saying goodbye to my colleagues even. Today was incredible with a singing Nightjar in broad day light, a Purple Emperor landing in the gazebo and clouds of Silver-studded Blues. Iping is a real gem of a site.

So I reckon I have about #300dayswild left as I plan my exit or 'Grexit'.

And here is that Purple Emperor,  a fitting way to end such a post!

Last Friday I ran a course for the first time. An Introduction to Spiders at Iping Common. This fantastic reserve is Sussex's best site for spiders, with 204 species recorded there and a quarter of these having conservation status, it's one of the best places to see spiders in Sussex (along with Rye Harbour).

The aim was to show how much can be done in the field and also how much needs to be done at the microscope. The very first spider we recorded on the first Gorse we beat was the nationally scarce Araneus angulatus! All in all we recorded 21 species. Only one of these was identified at the microscope. Tibellus oblongus. Despite taking several very spotty Tibellus, we didn't manage to add Tibellus maritimus to the site list, a useful lesson in how some ID features are only a guide with spdiers. In fact, it's getting really hard to add a new spider to this site! Here are the spiders we saw with the year they were last recorded and their conservation status.

That's a whopping 38% of spiders with conservation status! Stars of the show included the jumping spiders and of course Thomisus onustus shown above. We found one adult male and two immature females. It's the male featured in the image above and below. I think it looks like cooling lava against the black heath.

This is the female (although this image was taken some years ago of an adult - wow it was over eight years ago now).

Well done everyone who attended and help find the spiders, if any course attendees have any photos they would like to share on this post from the day I will gladly do so. It was a great day. But it didn't end with the spiders. We had two species new to Iping Common. Both bugs, being Leptopterna ferrugata and Aradus cinnamomeus. The rare beetle Cryptocephalus biggutatus also showed up in the sweep net.

A couple of days ago, Alice and I headed to Marline Valley to assess the meadows and also look for a rare micro moth that feeds on Dyer's Greenweed. We didn't find the Greenweed Flat-body Agonopterix atomella. We did however, find a whole bunch of other quite interesting stuff. First up, we saw this aberrant Grizzled Skipper (I'm thinking taras but as I have seen very few aberrant butterflies I'm not sure).

It wasn't long before we saw another one. Clearly a different animal. These were the only two Grizzled Skippers we saw all day and it's not a common butterfly at Marline. They have almost certainly come in from a change in sward structure that favours the butterfly.

In fact, we recorded at least 20 species new to the reserve. Perhaps the most exciting was a male Long-horned Bee Eucera longicornis on Bramble flowers. This isn't the exact Long-horn Bee but you get the idea. A brilliant thing to find on the site and hot on the heels of Alice's record of them at Pevensey Marshes last week!

The highlight for me though was this trio of big brown weevils. Tanymecus palliatus looks like a large Sitona and we picked two of these up in the suction sampler. It's a Nb species that's already known from the site and is not common in Sussex.

This is Attactagenus plumbeus. Another Nb species with a 'dot-dash' Morse code pattern on its back. It's a new record for our reserve network!

And this one is a bit of an oddity. It's also a new record for the reserve network but is not nationally scarce. It's on the Sussex Rare Species Inventory though. I was only thinking about this as I found one of these years ago soon after I started beetling in 2010 but for one reason or another it didn't get recorded. In the last eight years I have not seen another one. It's Graptus triguttatus. Strange how this happens.

Despite much searching, we didn't find any other Dyer's Greenweed specialist other than the mirid Heterocordylus genistae. This was present on every patch, even the single isolated patch in Lower Meadow. A great day in all. The meadows were looking great. Well managed as ever and with little Bramble and scrub due to the 'little and often' approach of cutting carried out by the volunteers.