The Lyons Share

If you're reading this, chances are you've seen quite a bit of what I get up to, the wildlife and the amazing reserves I work on at Sussex Wildlife Trust. I have decided to head out on my own as a freelance consultant entomologist and ecologist - well three days a week at least. I am moving on in the next couple of months to a new part time role at the Trust too. That means my current job will be up for grabs. Part of my new role will be mentoring and supporting my replacement, so I'll be around some of the time. I'll also be continuing with some of the more complex surveys and tasks, such as the invertebrates etc. The Land Management team are a great bunch and the Trust is a great pace to work. And what can I say, East and West Sussex are just the best counties with some amazing wildlife.

If this sounds up your street, have a look here and good luck!

OK enough mucking about, this spider though. Could it be any cuter?! I have only seen it twice before, back in 2014. In Sussex, it's known only from Camber Sands and Climping Dunes. It's nationally scarce and a dune specialist (mainly) and hasn't been seen at East Head since 1971 as far as I can tell. We saw three yesterday, all found by suction sampler. If you think the above photos are cute, you might just lose it when you watch this video of it cleaning its face. You have been warned!

Yesterday I started a survey for the National Trust at East Head with Lee Walther and a team of trainee volunteers. I said we should look out for Phlegra fasciata as I know Chris Bentley found it on a bioblitz a few years back. We found five! Having only seen one before at Rye Harbour, I was very pleased by this. This females of this nationally rare dune specialist are like a furry little humbug.

And another one that Chris had there a few years back, Crustulina sticta. We had one of these in the dune slack. Another nationally scarce species.

I actually had nine new spiders for the year and two were lifers! I didn't identify these until I got home. They were another coastal specialist which we recorded on the saltmarsh by sieving tidal litter, Zelotes electus (nationally scarce) which was recorded on the site back in 2007.

And also known from the site was Ceratinopsis romana, a nationally rare coastal species. This sieved from Marram litter on the mobile dunes. 

But there's a lot more than spiders there! The commonest bee by far was Colletes cunicularius which Mike Edwards tells me is likely to be a first for West Sussex! Here is a male, they were feeding on gorse and willow.

My third lifer for the day though was a real surprise. We sieved this huge Broscus cephalotes from a pile of tidal debris, it's more of a surprise that I could see 1300+ species of beetle without seeing one of these to be fair. We do have very little of this habitat in Sussex though. What a beast though!

Later on in the mobile dunes, I sieved another one from Marram litter. I was convinced that it was dead but it wasn't! It's front two pairs of legs were clamped together, holding tightly to a Marram grass stem, while its back pair of legs were held backwards at 45 degrees. The head was back and jaws were wide open. It was utterly motionless as we took photos. Then it dropped off and ran away, an amazing experience!

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

Yesterday, as well as four species of ladybird beaten from one branch of a Douglas Fir, there was also a sub adult male Araneus (either triguttatus or sturmi). Now sturmi usually favours evergreens and trigutattus deciduous trees according to the texts. So you would think that it's more likely to be sturmi. Being a young male though, it wasn't possible to tell. I fed him some springtails from the garden today to see if he would grow. An hour later I checked to see if he had eaten any of them and it appeared dead. No, wait, it's just started shedding its skin. So I dashed to the microscope and set up the camera and recorded it shedding its skin! So cool...

Turns out it is Araneus triguttatus which is much commoner in Sussex than sturmi. I have never seen one with this particular colour pattern as they are usually much more orange with a distinctive pattern, not these three pale dots. My 125th spider for the year and another new species for Burton Pond. I would have missed this if I had looked 10 minutes later, so feeling pretty lucky.

No, that doesn't work or make any sense but it's too late now, I've said it. I'm ashamed of myself. I think I've been watching too much Alan Partridge. Jane Willmott and I spent half an hour recording at the Warren today, part of our Burton Pond reserve. I saw a beatable branch of Douglas Fir and thought it worth a tap. A girl band's worth of ladybird species popped out instantly. Three of the four ladybirds above were new to the site! From Left to right we have Eyed, Cream-streaked, Larch and Pine Ladybirds. Pine was the only one we had previous records for.

We had a quick go with the suction sampler in a recently cleared and scraped area that is regenerating into a heathy/acid-grassland glade. We were amazed to witness a song fight between THREE singing Marsh Tits that descended into a massive rumpus. Agonum sexpunctatum, Arctosa perita and Anoplius viaticus were all present.

This nationally scarce spider was new to the site, Euryopis flavomaculata. I have very few records of this spider. It has the English name of Ant-tiger, which I really like. The 'wild card' names that don't fit a formula really appeal, it is in a genus of of its own though. It doesn't make a web and predates ants.

Also new to the site (and the year for me) was Enoplognatha thoracia. Another spider that wouldn't keep still.

Bathyphantes approximatus and (finally!) Erigone dentipalpis make my spider year list up to 124 and the site up to 107.

So after work yesterday I went straight back to the Pound for an even lower tide (the lowest of the spring). It was however at 18:40 and was pushing dark. Torches were essential by this point but it was mild an calm. I met up with James Harding-Morris and Robert Jaques, both pan-species listers that I had never met. Everyone was buzzing after last night's haul but it was the Snakelocks Anemone photo that gets pride of place. This is taken under water with the TG4 with James' UV torch shining on it. The title of this post comes from a quote by Robert that I had to rip off. I really appreciated the amount of nonsense these guys came out with, a really fun evening. And I didn't have to turn any rocks again.

Now I think Polycera quadrilineata was on top of everyone's list after my post yesterday so we started sweeping sea weed with pond nets. On my first attempt, I got another lifer!!! Not a nudibranch but still a sea slug, and more closely related to terrestrial molluscs than sea hares (thanks to Cynthia Trowbridge for this info!), here is the incredible Solar-powered Sea Slug Elysia viridis.

And whilst I was taking these photos, James found Polycera quadrilineata effortlessly. Four in all in fact. And another two Elysia viridis! A really nice shot of the rhinophores here showing the detail, these are the 'chemoreceptors' of nudibranchs. You've got no chance of seeing this detail unless the animal (and camera!) is under water. The Olympus TG4 is just brilliant for this stuff. Just remember this and the above specimen were about 5 mm long.

Check out this shot of a Sea Lemon found by Robert crawling through weed.

Early on we spotted a few Dahlia Anemone.

And a Wentletrap!

A couple of White Tortoiseshell Limpets.

And a huge crustacean which must be Common Prawn Palaemon serratus (and not Crangon crangon as I originally labelled it - thanks Evan).

As for the fish, we wracked up (see what I did there) a whopping seven species (or eight in two days). Long-spined Sea Scorpion showing the diagnostic spines at the side of the mouth which are so easily visible when the animal is under water.

And beyond the kelp zone, Ballan Wrasse and Tompot Blenny were the commonest fish. This huge wrasse took some team effort to catch. It was cathartic because in this same area two years ago I bungled something that looked exactly like this and given how many we saw here last night, I was convinced that that was also a Ballan Wrasse but now I am not sure it's not a huge Corkwing thanks to Evan. The wrasse is the one on the left. Not sure what the other vertebrate is.

So in favour of Ballan: Smooth preoperculum, huge size (25cm), no black tail spot, lots of smaller Ballans present beyond the kelp zone. In favour of Corkwing: black kidney mark behind eye, larger scales that do not appear pale centred, blue fins beneath.  OK, a third opinion is needed but Evan has started to sway me into thinking this is actually a massive Corkwing...

UPDATE: It looks like this is a big Corkwing male. Thanks to Evan and people from the Seasearch Facebook group for commenting. I'm amazed how different it is to all the other Corkwings I have seen, I really take the point that divers must see these animals much more frequently than I do. Amazing!

One the way back in I turned over a tiny rock (that's literally all I can do) and I found a clingfish! Now we have four clingfish species and I knew it wasn't Cornish Sucker or Connemara Clingfish. So it's either Two-spotted (the common one) or Narrow-headed (the scarcer one). I am not convinced I can tell which from these photos or even if it is possible at all. Using the Handbook of the Marine Fauna of North-West Europe it's about the relative placement of the fins but this doesn't seem to be a character used in more recent field guides. If it had two big spots then that's easy to ID as a male Two-spotted. Females are apparently not separable in the field. I think the head is about 1/3rd the length of the body and not the 1/4 required for it to be Small-headed. So I think this is likely to be a female Two-spotted Clingfish. And in hindsight, I believe all the individuals I have seen of this species pair are likely to be that too.

Beyond the kelp zone, I spotted a piece of red sea weed dancing around in a rock pool. It was clearly a crustacean. What a strange creature. I have just keyed this out and I believe this is a type of skeleton shrimp called Caprella linearis. Other marine crustaceans new for me were Siriella armata and Gammarellus angulosus.

Another incredible evening's natural history. I was amazed that there wasn't a soul there again yesterday. If you want to get a big list of species it's really key to hit the lowest tides of the year.

A real highlight was walking back up the cliffs into the back of Eastbourne. The Alexanders was covered in moth and beetles. Upwards of 20 Oedomera femoralis feeding on the flowers but also Common Quaker, Satellite, Dark Chestnut, Bloxworth Snout, Double-striped Pug, Agonopterix heracliana and Digitivalva pulicariae, better than the moth trap at Woods Mill on Thursday morning. And I got two new spiders new for the year. Amaurobius ferox (116) and Dysdera croccata (117).