The Lyons Share

May was an excellent month for me for natural history, despite the weather. I saw 124 new species, the highlight of which was Pellenes tripunctatus. I ended May on 3999 species and all the additions are shown below. Spiders have overtaken mosses to become my sixth most speciose group. I have really enjoyed getting more into spiders, they are a lot easier than I thought they would be. I hope that June will be as exciting...

Last week I received an email from Paul Brock saying he had seen a rare longhorn beetle, Pyrrhidium sanguineum, on a log stack at Rewell Wood. Now, this would make for an exiting addition to my list as not only is this a smart RDB2 species, it was also new to Sussex as far as I could tell. So I did my best to engineer this as my 4000th species. I identified specimens from a survey at Iping two days ago to get me up to 3999 and held it there, hoping to make 4000 something exciting like a longhorn. I was right about one thing, my 4000th species was a longhorn beetle but not the rare one. I couldn't see that one at all. This is Pogonocherus hispidulus. I have seen all three Pogonocherus now but only ever one of each. Considering that hispidulus does not have a conservation status, it can't bee ll that common if this is the only one I have seen in three years of beetling. 

I saw a few other longhorns including two Anaglyptus mysticus, this one was an ovipositing female.

And Wasp Beetles were everywhere.

This Lesser Stage Beetle posed well for me at the gate.

So, it took me about 20 months to go from 3000 to 4000. I expect the next 1000 will take a little longer. Pan-species listing has definitely made me a better naturalist and I look forward to continuing with it for the rest of my life (I'm already on 4004 species!). Here are the three Pogonocherus, from top to bottom hispidulus, hispidus and fasciculatus.

A couple of days ago I carried out a bird survey at Waltham Brooks. There was a mist first thing and it highlighted all the webs. Orb weavers are mostly fairly large spiders, many are identifiable in the field and are often represented by only one or several species in a given genus. They make for a good family to get into when you start on spiders. I don't often look at the webs, so it was interesting to see how different they are. Larinioides cornutus is everywhere there in long vegetation, particularly rushes. It has a nearly horizontal web which sags in the middle and is very scruffy.

Quite the contrast to the meticulously crafted vertical web of Agalenetea redii. It was easy to spot the two spiders by their webs!

I'm still on 3999.

You may think it foolish of me to quote a film I have not yet seen. I remember feeling this excited about a film once before, way back in 1999. We all remember what happened then. Yeah, Jar Jar Binks or whatever it was called. Enough said.

Anyway, why the quote? I started work early this morning with a bird survey at Butcherlands. I saw Hobby, Cuckoo, Spotted Flycatcher, Turtle Dove and a Marsh Tit feeding young. I then stayed on to continue monitoring regeneration there in a series of circular 300 square-metre plots. Oak is regenerating well, particularly in the field known as Hilland. In one plot I recorded 54 oak seedling and saplings. I was impressed by the diversity too within this field with plenty of Bramble, Field Maple, Hawthorn, Hazel and Blackthorn. I even recorded a few Wild Service Tree seedlings! Not bad for what was an arable field about a decade ago hey? It got me thinking. I wonder if any of the trees I counted or measured will still be around in 500 years time? If we truly create a wood-pasture/parkland like landscape, there is no reason why not. I wonder what human endeavours these trees will pay silent witness to. Maybe we'll get our collective act together by then and be living in some blissful utopia. I bet it's more like Mad Max though.

Anyways, on every gate post at Butcherlands there are a few Marpissa muscosa. I never get tired of these and this was the biggest female I have ever seen!

As was this huge Lackey moth larvae.

Finally, on the way to the corner shop by my house I spotted this Rose Chafer!

Now, I'm off to the cinema. There are few things that get me as excited as natural history but a return to science-fiction after a 30 year break by the director of Alien and Bladerunner is one of them! Oh, yeah I'm still on 3999 too.

For the last two days I have been at Iping, Stedham and briefly, Graffham Commons showing two trustees around and carrying out an invertebrate survey. Needles to say, there was lots to see. Firstly though, I should add I am currently on 3999 species! I stopped identifying specimens for the evening so that species 4000 can be left totally to chance!

Anyway. Graffham Common. I stopped by the road and had a look at a fallen birch log that was covered in Razorstrop. I lifted one up to look for Diaperis boleti (as I have been doing for the last three years since Scotty Dodd told me to look out for them) and there was one! An RDB2 saproxylic. Tick! Graffham keeps coming up with good invert records. We had a very brief walk around the site. I swept once and found a male of the nationally scarce jumping spider Evarcha arcuata.

I went back to the birch log to photograph the Diaperis after saying goodbye to the trustees. Melandrya caraboides were buzzing around in the clearings. I knelt down to take a photograph and saw the nationally scarce wolf spider Xerolycosa nemoralis. A tiny Bitoma crenata crawled on the log and a deawood hoverfly, Xylota segnis, flitted about. This was one interesting log. It gets better. I turned an old Razorstrop over to find a decent background. There was another Diaperis and low and behold a Colydium elongatum! This is an RDB3 species.

Just as all this was happening I looked down to see crawling on the ground between me and the log a big red Ampedus which I suspect is the RDB3 Ampedus cinnabarinus. It took minutes to find three RDB deadwood beetle on a fallen birch. That really is something that doesn't usually happen. Here is the tree.

Earlier at Stedham, James spotted this dead dor beetle and I managed to identify it as the Na Heath Dor Beetle Trypocopris pyranaeus. A species I have not seen alive!

During the survey today at Stedham and Iping, I didn't get many opportunities to take photos but the male Xysticus that I found which was clearly not the super common Xysticus cristatus did allow one half decent shot. This species, a new one for me is Xysticus lanio. Up close, he is as ugly as the jumping spider is cute. I don't like his face, he looks like E.T. These last few years have been great. Throwing myself into entomology and being fearless when tackling difficult groups has paid dividends. I would encourage others to have this attitude towards identification: The only things stopping you is the right literature, the right kit and a little time. The way I see it, if just one other person in the world can identify something, then I should be able to also. My 3999th species was a Violet Black-legged Robberfly Dioctria atricapilla Any guesses what my 4000th species will be?

During a walk around Iping and Stedham today, I spotted two little green plants in an area of wet heath. A particular shade of green that I know very well so I knew instantly we were talking about Marsh Clubmoss! This is not a common species and the plant was last seen towards the far south eastern side of Stedham, some ten years ago. Scrapes were put in in this area but as yet, we have not recorded the clubmoss in this spot. So it was a complete surprise to find two plants growing close to each other at the opposite end of the reserve. It's great to see that the poaching and bare ground caused by the cattle will have helped this early-successional species get a new lease of life at Stedham. Brilliant news!

The rest of the day followed a similar pattern, with several RDB beetles and nationally scarce spiders turning up at Graffham but after a long day, that will have to wait until another time...

Day two. A few less people but also one extra in the form of Steve Gale who I finally got to meet. There is a bit of a walk to get to Heyshott and when you are there the terrain is pretty hard going. We had been on site a matter of minutes when we started recording Grizzled and Dingy Skippers, smart green Cryptocephalus aureolus, Bracken Chafers and then Duke of Burgundy! The coolest thing about this particular Duke was that not only was it Mark Skevington's first, it also landed on his net! Then I looked down at my net to see a really cool Cryptocephalus which was a tick for me. Cryptocephalus moraei.

Clive Washington got his suction sampler out and I was amazed at how well it worked in short turf. We saw all sorts but the Devil's-bit Scabious Jewel Beetle Tachys troglodytes was perhaps the coolest. Another tick for me was the nationally scarce crab spider Ozyptila nigrita. There are very few records for this little crab spider in Sussex. I was hoping it was gonna be a county first. Never mind!

Bruce Middleton showed everyone the bryophytes the site is well known for. People were pleased to see Rhodobryum roseum and all sorts of scarce liverworts. Having covered these with Bruce on a previous podcast, I concentrated on the invertebrates. That said, it was cool to see a green Fly Orchid!

On the way back, a cool thing happened. I asked if there was anything that feeds on Wild Garlic. Someone said there was a hoverfly that nectars on the flowers. I swept the flowers, we caught the hoverfly. Everyone in the group saw the fly and here is little garlic breath himself: Portevinia maculata. I am really pleased with how things went. I added 25 species to my list. Hopefully the next meeting will be held in a different county and rockpooling seems like a popular idea!
I have already been back in the field today setting up some invertebrate monitoring at Iping & Stedham, where I added a further three species including the odd little saproxylic deadwood hoverfly Microdon analis, the crab spider Philodromus cespitum and the cool little weevil Cionus tuberculosus (which also landed on my net). I am on 3987. Only 13 to go to the 4000 mark. Shall I attempt to make 4000 something good or just let it happen and leave it to chance? I predict I will be there by the weekend...

We did it! It was relatively easy to organise really but several things fell into place to make for a really great weekend. Firstly, the weather was great. Secondly, attendance was high. We had 18 people in the field on the Friday (16 people from Mark Telfer's list of 35 listers) which I think is pretty good. Much more than this and it would have become difficult to manage. Thanks to Sarah Patton for the photo above. From left to right we have Dave Gibbs, Martin Harvey, Mark Telfer, Simon Davey, Mark Skevington, Penny Green, Clive Washington, Michael Blencowe (yes we recorded it for the podcast too!), Matt Prince, Dave Green, Nicola Bacciu, Jonathan Newman, Me and Malcolm Storey, Many people even had a tick in the car park, the mining bee Andrena scotica and/or this Burrowing Clover.

So why Parham Park? Well I have been once to Parham for the last two years and we always find good things (usually saproxylic beetles) and I wanted to target a difficult group like this, and many people were quite new to deadwood beetles. Probably the first mega that most people saw though were the Field Crickets. A species that I am so used to down here that I forgot to tell people they were on site! Oops. It was great to get Dave Gibbs a tick that he had to abort 20 years ago!

It's going to take me a long time to add up and identify all the specimens but interesting saproxylics that we saw included the larvae of the exceptionally rare Variable Chafer Gnorimus variabilis. A Melandrya caraboides that Michael spotted and I netted in flight. Mark Telfer found a great tick for me, the striking little bright metallic blue hairy clerid Korynetes caeruleus. This species is nationally scarce and new for the site. Dave Gibbs found what is likely to be Procraeus tibialis in the same tree I found one on two years ago. I also found new to the site a single elytron of Colydium elongatum, the second time I have recorded this species in this way.

Dave Gibbs also got me a couple of new flies. Perhaps one of the most striking invertebrates of the day was this Criorhina floccosa, a really wonderful deadwood hoverfly that looks quite like a carder bee. It was a popular fly!

And also this little doli fly, Neurigona quadrifasciata. I now have two dolis on my list.

Simon Davey showed the group some rare lichens but I find them very tricky to take in with a large group like this, I think they really need to be taught in a more formal, course-like setting. Sadly, I didn't feel confident at re-identifying any of the lichens so I added no new lichen species to my list. Whilst looking closely at a lichen tree, Mark Skevington spotted this smart little psychid, Narycia duplicella. I thought this was going to be a tick for me but Seth Gibson showed me this earlier this year at Epsom. A shame that Seth and Sami were not able to make it but they are currently on their honeymoon quest to walk the length of the country. Meanwhile, a Spotted Flycatcher did its best to 'sing' for us.

Hawthorn, although in full flower, was not as productive as we had all hoped but during some routine sweeping I stumbled across some debris in the bottom of my net that had just a little too much symmetry to it. I very nearly discarded it. As I took a closer look, I saw perhaps the strangest and coolest weevil I have ever seen. Covered in pits and warts, this strange beast looked like no other beetle but when Mark Telfer and Dave Gibbs came along and were almost as equally bemused as I was, I knew we had found something a little unusual. This species is likely to be perhaps the only species that was new to everyone. Mark Telfer was able to tentatively identify it in the field as the introduced Fern Weevil Syagrius intrudens (I did indeed sweep it from Bracken, moments later Mark found another three). This was the highlight for me and was a popular beast, being christened Mr Lumpy. By the afternoon, the relentless heat was making people go a little strange. UPDATE: Mark Telfer has since found out this is only the seventh known site for this weevil...in the world! Read all about it here.

Someone also spotted this Dendroxena quadrimaculata. I have only seen this once before at Ebernoe in 2009 so it was nice to see this strange nationally scarce silphid again.
After a pub meal at the Crown Inn down the road at Cootham, we headed back out into the field for some light trapping and torching.

And of course, Mark's secret weapon, the Autokatcher. Mark transformed his car into a beetle catching device and he did pick up a number of tiny specimens this way that are yet to be identified. I wonder if anything good will come out of this method. Amazing!
Moths that came to light were a little thin on the ground but I did actually get one macro moth tick, Rosy Marbled!
Clive found a cracking Carabus arvensis but I didn't get to tick it unfortunately. Helops caeruleus is abundant on big old oaks at Parham at night. As we were searching some really old trunks I found a click beetle that Mark is yet to identify, so I hope that turns out to be something good whilst in the distance, a Nightjar churred away. Mark also spotted an odd looking beetle too high up on an oak to reach and it vanished into a crack in the bark never to be seen again, I am pretty sure now it was Opilo mollis. We finished up at midnight, headed back home to get some sleep ready to start again on day two at Heyshott Down. This is perhaps the biggest post I have ever written so part two will be out tomorrow. At this point, I would add if you think you would enjoy a day like this and be inspired to work on new and difficult groups, then put your list together, sign up to the pan-species rankings and you'll be able to come on the next field meeting which is already in discussion!

I am going to spend the rest of the day identifying specimens and staying out of the sun. It was an exhausting few days but that didn't stop me going to the pub last night and BMF first thing this morning. That said, I am looking forward to an afternoon sat down, looking down a microscope! My list is getting very close to 4000, at the time of writing I'm on 3963 so I might even get there by the end of the weekend. Finally, a big thank you to Parham Park for allowing us to host this event on their site.

Here is Episode Seven: Bank Holiday Seaside Special (and also on iTunes). It was really great recording this one, one of the best days out I have had this year. Lots of noisy birds to listen to, two great contributors and possibly the coolest thing on eight legs! (the coolest thing on six legs by the way are the Natural History of Sussex - you heard it here first).  Have a listen and let us know what you think. 

Now, I have just got back from the first ever pan-species lister's two day field event, which I organised. It went really well, we all saw lots of new species, we made some important records and made a few friends on the way. I have lots of identifications to process and lists to update but I'll give a trip report of day one tomorrow (Parham Park). Now, I need a cold beer and to get out of the sun!

We had a great team day out yesterday looking at invertebrates and their management with Steven Falk. We started off at Pevensey Levels and then went on to look at Southerham and Malling Down. Steven is an exceptional entomologist (Steven illustrated the book on hoverflies and the illustrations are exquisite) and really knows his flies and aculeates. We had walked only a few metres into a field when James spotted a queen Bombus muscorum! A new bumble for me and an impressive beast. Above is Steven showing us the big furry ginger bee and how we could enhance our management for it and other bees.

Round to Southerham and here we have the nationally scarce stiletto fly Thereva plebeja.

I caught this bee which turned out to be the very smart Osmia aurulenta, yet another new species! Amazing what you see when you go out with other specialists. It was hard to take photos of invertebrates in this heat so I didn't get many shots compared to how many new things we saw.

Now, I must get ready for tomorrow's first ever pan-species lister's field meeting! I can't wait, it's gonna be amazing!!!