We've just got back from four days in Teesdale but before that we spent a great few days at Rachael's folk's new house in Whitley Bay. I hadn't prepared myself for how much wildlife, literally just on their doorstep, we were going to see. Within fifteen minutes of arriving we were sat in the garden when a Spoonbill flew over flying north! the next morning I was up early for a sea watch in the hope of a skua or two but sea watching into the Sun isn't much fun. I was rewarded with a Hen Harrier flying north out to sea being mobbed by terns. Close in Eiders remind you of how far north you are.
I soon discovered that the rocks around St Mary's Lighthouse are pretty good for rockpooling and on Monday at about lunch time a very low tide was due. We headed out and found quite a few goodies but the net that I bought on the sea front lasted me about 5 minutes. The above Common Sea Urchin Echinus esculentus was a new species for me. I caught a Shanny which bit me. We also saw Long-spined Sea Scorpions and Butterfish.
The strange Broad-clawed Porcelain Crab put in a show.
And the first squat lobsters I have seen in almost a decade, this one is Galathea squamifera and looks like the ones I saw on Anglesey in 2003.
Strangest of all though was this 'armoured worm'. I have keyed it out tentatively to Lepidonotus squamatus. The plates are referred to as elytra in Hayward & Ryland.
Next time I go though, I will be prepared for some serious rock pooling as I suspect that Lumpsucker is not out of the question. It's pretty amazing having all that on your doorstep!
This year Chris Bentley and I are carrying out an invertebrate survey at Old Lodge and today I finally managed to catch up with a species I have wanted to see for some time. It's a female Micrommata virescens. It's not all that scarce and is known from the Ashdown Forest but it is one good looking spider, it almost appears luminescent. It certainly caught me by surprise as I was sweeping Bilberry and didn't see it in my tray hidden amongst the Bilberry leaves at first. Despite the cold weather, we still managed some good records with some good looking species like Sericomyia lappona and Ampedus sanguinolentus. We have recorded over 130 species so far there this year and I suspect it will be closer to 200 when all of today's specimens have been identified. Here are some more shots of Micrommata.
But the spider action doesn't stop there! I was packing some equipment away in the garden when I spotted what looked like a pirate spider. I potted it up and had a look through the microscope and it was indeed a mature female Ero furcata, a species I had not seen before. Pirate spiders actually predate other spiders, paralysing them before sucking them dry through a hole in their leg. What a way to go! It might be small compared to Micrommata but it's pretty cool up close.
Last Wednesday I went down to the rock pools off of Saltdean as part of another Shoresearch event. I find it hard to learn seaweeds when there is bigger game to catch so I didn't try and learn any plants and spent the whole time catching fish and crustaceans. I didn't see any that I hadn't seen before but I did catch this cool Shanny which changed colour and pattern after a bout five minutes in this white tray. It's hard to believe it's the same individual fish! I also caught a Corkwing and a Long-spined Sea Scorpion. Crabs included Edible, Shore and Velvet-swimming. Gerald Legg showed me a tiny brittle star called Amphipholis squamata which is the first starfish on my list.
These polychetes were quite unusual too. Known as Sand Masons Lanice conchilega, I would easily recognise these species again.
My list is currently stands at 4245 species. I'm not spending as much time out in the field this year, instead I'm trying to process a huge backlog of records into my Recorder 6 data base. There are 1655 records in there so far, but there are tens of thousands to be entered! Better get back to it then...
Many of you will be familiar with the common Green Tiger Beetle Cicindela campestris but it has a much scarcer cousin, the Heath Tiger Beetle Cicindela sylvatica which probably went extinct in Sussex several decades ago. This species is a Biodiversity Action Plan species and is nationally scarce (Na) with the major population centres being the New Forest and Surrey Heaths. The last unconfirmed sighting in Sussex was at Iping in the 1980s, so it was decided that this would be a good place to reintroduce it. Often confusingly called the Wood Tiger Beetle, this species is very much restricted to lowland heathland and is not really a woodland species. Here it is again in all its glory.
And the smaller and more brightly coloured Green Tiger for comparison.
Prior to the reintroduction, the reason the species went extinct on the site needed to be addressed first. This was loss of bare ground and pioneer heathland. We create this at Iping in a number of ways such as burning, scraping and turf-stripping but it is the turf-stripping that seems to produce the best results for the Heath Tigers and a suite of other scarce invertebrates. In 2007, six females were introduced followed by a further 16 in 2009. The species has been recorded annually in small numbers each year since then and would appear to now be established on site. Turf-stripping is carried out annually to ensure that there is always some suitable habitat and the turf is sold on to golf courses whereby new heathland is created there. Everyone is a winner! Here is the small turf-stripped area I saw the Heath Tiger on, immediately adjacent to the original release site.
When I came to write up this work over the winter, it became clear that we hadn't been keeping track of where and when this management had occurred so I went out there on the 1st May to digitally map and 'age' the scrapes. I also wanted to see what else was benefiting from the management. Heath Tiger emerges a little later in the year than Green so I was surprised to see one. I kept hold of it for an hour or so to cool it down and show the volunteers and it kept still enough to allow the above shots. Proof that the Coolpix 4500 consistently produces good macro shots! Not bad for a ten year old camera.
I picked up a few carabids on the turf-stripped areas but it wasn't until this morning that I realised that the Pterostichus I had picked up on one area only put in this winter was in fact the Heath Short-spur Anisodactylus nemorivagus! This generic looking carabid has as many letters after its name as the Heath Tiger Beetle (BAP and Na) and would appear to be only the third Sussex and second West Sussex record! I trapped it in a pitfall trap at Graffham Common in 2009 and Mark Telfer identified it. Peter Hodge also pitfall-trapped it in Ashdown Forest. This means that I am the only person to have seen this beetle alive in Sussex!
Anyway, after mapping and monitoring 55 turf-stripped scrapes, I recorded about 90 Green Tigers to my one Heath Tiger but it is still early in the season so I hope to see more spreading around the site later in the year.
Birds were good too with a singing Redstart in the same place it was recorded last year and a Hobby catching bumblebees on the wing.
The river restoration project at Woods Mill continues to produce interesting invertebrates. Last year I started to see Bembidion illigeri, Bembidion articulatum and Elaphrus riparius running around the exposed mud. I thought that this assemblage of species would be short lived as the vegetation encroached but after the floods of the winter, even more sand and silt has been deposited. If anything there is even more habitat and this was reflected in the additional species Penny, Bob and I recorded today during a lunch time walk. I recorded three carabids new to my list including this striking Chlaenius nigricronis which is a nationally scarce species (Nb). Bembidion tetracolum and Bembidion dentellum were both new to me. Additionally we recorded Pterostichus nigrita/rhaeticus, Paranchus albipes, Notiophilus substriatus and Agonum marginatum. So maybe this assemblage will get better and better each year as new deposits are put down each winter and new species accumulate over time?
In addition to the three beetles, I added a spider I found in the sink in the gents toilets! A male Neriene clathrata. With four new species on my list and some great records for the project, I end the day and probably the month on 4228 species.
I can't believe it's been nearly a year since I did this last. A recent resurgence in activity has spurred me on to pull this all together, as have a few comments from friends that I'm no longer listing. How wrong they are. So between 1st June 2012 and the 27th April 2013 I have added 223 species putting me on 4222 species. It would seem I have been ousted
out of the top ten into 11th place. Anyway, lots going with surveys at Filsham and Old Lodge this year. Highlights this week were an
Oodes helopioides I sieved out of reed litter in the fen at Filsham, a
Dromius angustus that Chris Bentley found at Old Lodge and this huge female
Amaurobius ferox which I found at the end of my street in Brighton. April has been a good month with three new vertebrates and dozens of invertebrates, I wonder what species 4223 will be?...
| Vascular
plants |
1186 (+30) |
| Moths |
873 (+15) |
| Beetles |
544 (+61) |
| Birds |
347 (+2) |
| Fungi |
209 (+3) |
| Mosses |
171 (+34) |
| Arachnids |
160 (+21) |
| True
bugs |
108 (+17) |
| True
flies |
106 (+8) |
| Molluscs |
79 (+4) |
| Aculeates |
70 (+3) |
| Butterflies |
53 |
| Mammals |
45 (+4) |
| Liverworts |
43 (+7) |
| Fish |
40 (+1) |
| Crustaceans |
32 (+2) |
| Dragonflies |
32 |
| Lichens |
31 (+1) |
| Crickets
& grasshoppers |
19 |
| Seaweeds
& algae |
7 |
| Reptiles |
7 |
| Amphibians |
6 |
| Anemones
& jellyfish |
6 |
| Mites |
6 (+1) |
| Lacewings
& allies |
6 (+2) |
| Caddisflies |
6 (+3) |
| Leeches |
5 (+2) |
| Millipedes |
5 |
| Cockroaches |
3 |
| Slime
Mould |
3 |
| Springtails |
2 |
| Parasitica |
2 |
| Centipedes |
2 |
| Mayfly |
2 |
| Lice |
1 |
| Silverfish |
1 |
| Earwigs |
1 |
| Aphid |
1 |
| Flatworm |
1 |
| Sponge |
1 |
It's that time of year again when sightings are happening faster than I can get them on here! Just a quick one as I have had two very full-on days invertebrate surveying at Filsham Reedbed and Old Lodge. On Tuesday I popped out to Church Norton at lunch time to see the Western Bonelli's Warbler which was behaving quite well. Thanks to Paul Snellgrove for sending me through this shot he took when I was there. This is my 2nd new bird so far this year and my 4218th species.
When I left Newhaven on Sunday morning to go to France for a couple of hours, I wasn't expecting to get a new species of cetacean on my British list. The first dolphins we saw turned out to be White-beaked Dolphins. This is hugely significant in the English Channel as this species is associated with more northern waters, particularly the North Sea. They were quite large dolphins with obvious pale markings but their most striking feature was the frequency with which they were breaching, sending splashes of water high into the air, almost looking like the blow of a whale. This was my 11th species of cetacean but only my 5th in British and Irish waters. We also saw Bottlenosed Dolphins and Harbour Porpoises.
The trip was arranged by
MARINElife as part of a two day course and was well attended. I was impressed by the knowledge of the instructors and I will definitely be signing up to do some volunteer surveys.
Gannets were as ever the most frequent and abundant species. We did see a few nice things too, which included a Bonxie, a couple of Little Gulls, Black-throated Diver and Arctic Tern. It was amazing that we didn't see a single Swallow. Even during the two hours we spent in Dieppe, we didn't see a single one.
A big thank you to Adrian Shephard and Carol Farmer-Wright for organising this course. Thanks also to Adrian for allowing me to use his photo of the White-beaked Dolphins dorsal fin above.
Picture the scene. You've just spent your birthday ill in bed with a rotten cold and have taken the following day off sick too. Having finally dragged yourself out of a steaming hot bath at about 3.30 pm, you notice a missed call from Paul Marten. He tells me these is a Corncrake showing well at Beachy Head NOW! My head is spinning, I feel like death warmed up BUT Corncrake is THE only regular British bird that I haven't seen. There is no way I am letting a cold get the better of me. Then 30 minutes later I was looking at this, a ludicrously tame bird. I never thought I would see this, many of the birders present who were older than me were also saying the same thing. It seemed like a once in a life time opportunity.
The bird was feeding actively on very large earthworms the whole time I was there. It was so close that if filled the entire view finder on the scope. You can make it out on the track in these pictures. Thanks to all the birders whose scopes I borrowed to take these shots with the Coolpix 4500 but a huge thanks to Paul Marten for ringing me! What an awesome belated birthday present!
Here is a map of all the records of
Canthophorus impressus that have been recorded in the UK since 1990. Many thanks to Tristan Bantock for letting me use these maps, If you haven't seen Tristan's website,
British Bugs, then take a look. So suddenly my record at Southerham on Sunday is more significant. Being the first in Sussex since at least 1905 and the the first ever in East Sussex. It's also the furthest east since 1990 and is considerably east of what appears to be a species that is contracting in range, especially the east of its range. Take a look at the pre-1990 records!
Although I couldn't see any Bastard-toadflax there on Sunday, it is known from the site (thanks to Frances Abraham for the info). I will go back during the flowering period and have a look for it. It's scattered throughout Sussex so it will be worth looking for the bug elsewhere (Mount Caburn and Beachy Head for example). This might not be the most easterly record. Tristan also told me that he has assessed this species as 'Near Threatened' under the new IUCN criteria. So here is the beast again.
Bugs are my 15th most frequently posted label. So I figured it was about time I pulled together my shield bug list. Of the 33 shield bugs listed in Evans and Edmonson I have seen 19 (plus nymphs of one of the Odontoscelis species at Lakenheath last March). Of the ten squash bugs, I have seen four. Here are a few that have featured on my blog over the last three years in reverse order of appearance.
Box Bug. One of the squash bugs with their 'brick-like' texture. Now widespread, this was outside reception at Woods Mill.
Turtle Shieldbug. So far the only one I have ever seen was under a log last spring at Southerham.
Woundwort Shieldbug. Common enough in the right places.
New Forest Shieldbug. I only saw this because I saw a load of people with nets by the side of the road and stopped! It pays to be cheeky!
Juniper Shieldbug. I have seen this only at Levin Down.
Gorse Shieldbug.
Slender-horned Leatherbug. Only ever seen this once under a log on the edge of the Thames at Rainham.
Spiked Shieldbug. I see this occasionally on heathland.
Parent Bug
Red-legged (or Forest) Shieldbug
Dock Bug
Oh, I forgot. Of course I have FIVE squash bugs. The one that is NOT in Evans and Edmonson. The Western Conifer Seed Bug!
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