So, for beetle survey work, when you want to maximise the number of records you can make for each day’s fieldwork, May, June, July and August are the best months, especially May.

But there’s more to beetling than survey work. What would be the best time of year for me to go out and get a beetle tick? Over the 20 years, most of my ticks have come from May, June and July. But that’s largely thanks to a massive amount of recording in those months.

Surprisingly, when I’ve gone beetling in October, November, December and January it’s been much better for ticks. And August has been the worst month. A beetle found in November is over three times more likely to be a tick for me than one found in August!

Compared to most other branches of entomology, one of the great things about being a coleopterist is that it is a genuinely year-round activity. Admittedly, winter beetling tends to be pretty grubby work: tussocking, and sieving through compost heaps, manure, wood-chip piles and flood debris. But I’m obviously going to have to man up and do a lot more of that sort of beetling in my next 20 years as a coleopterist.

Sieving wood-chip at Dinton Pastures, with Tony Allen and Andrew Duff.

Sieving manure at Denham Marsh Wood with Tony Allen.

Even this list only tells part of the story. There are quite a few other people missing (e.g. Max) who have helped with suggesting or confirming identifications that I’ve ultimately computerised as my own.

Getting into British and Irish beetles is a hard journey. I realise that I couldn’t have made as much progress as I have without the generous help of those who have cleared the trail ahead.

In twenty years of beetling in Britain and Ireland, I’ve made 33,453 records of beetles, from 525 different 10-km squares and on average seen a new beetle every 3.3 days. So it doesn’t feel like I’ve been mucking about at it! But take a look at this graph:

There are two really surprising things about this graph. Firstly, I’ve only seen just over half the British and Irish beetle fauna (the red line marks the half-way point). And secondly, my list has grown in pretty much a straight line for 20 years and I’m still seeing new beetles at about the same rate as when I started. Clearly I am still on the steep beginners’ part of the learning curve with no sign that I’m approaching the broad, sunlit plateau of being a beetle expert!

It just shows what a big job it is to get to know all the British and Irish beetles. I once had the chance to pick the brains of veteran coleopterist Alex Williams during a car journey and got onto the subject of aleocharine staphylinids and the many obstacles that have to be overcome to be able to identify this group. I was looking for advice, or at least sympathy! But Alex’s simple yet profound response was “Well, we wouldn’t be coleopterists if we didn’t enjoy a challenge!”.

Alex is right. Coleoptera is a big, challenging group, guaranteed to last a lifetime and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But I’m glad that it is getting easier to identify beetles. And anyone taking up the challenge of beetles now should be able to hit the half-way mark in much quicker time.

I’ve got all my beetle records from the first twenty years in a MapMate database: I suspect very few other coleopterists have been in that position. So I’ve taken the opportunity to look back at the records and do a bit of analysis. I’ll be giving a talk about the results at Coleopterists’ Day next weekend so I won’t spoil the talk by revealing them here now. But for a taster, here’s a map of all the 10-km squares where I’ve recorded beetles in the last 20 years.

My beetle records - 1992 to 2012.

male Phratora polaris

I had picked a day with a dry forecast but normal weather forecasts don’t apply in the mountains. I set off walking at 07.35 and it started raining 10 minutes later. Within another 40 minutes, I was out of mobile signal for the rest of the day. After a couple of hours of slog, I entered the fearsome Coire Mhic Fhearchair and picked my way across to the steep scree fan in the far corner, passing a few mangled bits of plane wreckage where some poor aviator met his doom. The scree was treacherous underfoot and I was ascending into cloud, with worsening rain and an increasingly strong wind. At the top of the scree, the route steepens into a narrow chute of shattered rocks, exposed and channelling a wicked gusting wind. No place to miss your footing. Step by careful step I got to the top. But there was no relief there – I found myself on a knife-edge ridge in ferocious gusting wind and driving rain. On hands and knees I found a cleft in a boulder and wedged myself half in. Put some dry layers on and decided I’d better abandon the survey and descend. But actually couldn’t face the chute again straight away so I decided to stroll up towards the summit plateau for a bit of respite before beginning my descent. Conditions had worsened further and I was soon reduced to lying full-stretch on the ridge-top path, clinging to the ground and holding my rain-spattered specs on to my face. I realised the ridge had broadened out and I could safely drop off the path to the leeward side, where I could get about in a crouch rather than a crawl.

The chute.

I soon realised I was treading on quality turf: dolomitic limestone grassland with Racomitrium moss, Sibbaldia Sibbaldia procumbens, Dwarf Cudweed Gnaphalium supinum and, more importantly, some patches of Dwarf Willow Salix herbacea, the foodplant of Phratora polaris. I found fragments of a dead Phratora polaris under the first stone I lifted, and a live one under the third stone. Flushed with success I carried out a standard 30-minute timed search but didn’t see any more of the leaf-beetles. All I saw were three Oreostiba tibialis (Staphylinidae), a common species of montane habitats, and one Patrobus septentrionis (Carabidae), found feeding on a pill-beetle Byrrhus fasciatus (Byrrhidae).

Habitat of Phratora polaris.

Phratora polaris was added to the British list (under the former generic name Phyllodecta) by Morris (1970) on the basis of specimens he found near the summit of Ruadh-stac Mòr, Beinn Eighe in 1966 and 1967. Morris (1970) also reported a specimen collected by A.M. Easton near the summit of Tom a’ Chòinich, Inverness-shire in 1968. Owen (1983) added two further sites in 1981: Sgurr Mor and An Teallach, both Wester Ross. Lyszkowski (1988) found the species in 1984 some 60 miles to the south of these sites near the summit of Beinn Achaladair, Argyllshire. Cox (2007) was able to map the species from 9 Scottish 10-km squares of the national grid and commented that the species is “probably under-recorded”. Quite frankly, it’s no wonder!

Once I’d made it down to the bottom of the scree, I found some shelter from the dreadful weather and took a break. Astonishingly, a Mountain Bumblebee Bombus monticola flew past my nook as though it were just a normal summer’s day. I was also filled with respect for the elderly Munro-bagger I passed on my way down – he was heading up in shorts!

Acknowledgement

These observations were made during SSSI condition monitoring work for Scottish Natural Heritage.

References

Cox, M.L. (2007). Atlas of the seed and leaf beetles of Britain and Ireland (Coleoptera: Bruchidae, Chrysomelidae, Megalopodidae and Orsodacnidae). Pisces, Newbury.

Lyszkowski, R.M. (1988). Phyllodecta polaris Schneider (Col., Chrysomelidae) in Argyllshire. Entomologist’s monthly magazine, 124, 71.

Morris, M.G. (1970). Phyllodecta polaris Schneider (Col., Chrysomelidae) new to the British Isles from Wester Ross and Inverness-shire, Scotland. Entomologist’s monthly magazine, 106, 48 – 53.

Owen, J.A. (1983). More about Phyllodecta polaris Schneider (Col., Chrysomelidae) in Britain. Entomologist’s monthly magazine, 119, 191.

Owen, J.A. (1988). A note on the life history of Phyllodecta polaris Schneider (Col.: Chrysomelidae). Entomologist’s record and journal of variation, 100, 91 – 92.

Rhidorroch Woods SSSI

This isolated veteran pine, above the modern-day treeline, was the best tree I found. Scarred by lightning strikes and ripped by the weight of winter snow, but still living, it was a magnet for saproxylic beetles.

On a fine, sunny day in Scotland, when big beetles like clicks, chafers and longhorns are buzzing past on the wing, there is no better place to be. As long as you’ve got a midge net (and are prepared to abandon all personal dignity and actually wear it)!

Undignified headgear

You also need to keep one hand free for swatting horseflies. And a little time is required each evening for tweezering off all the ticks!

It pretty much goes without saying, but the warning colours of this Bee Beetle Trichius fasciatus (a chafer) failed to frighten me. Very few of these Batesian mimics seem to be good enough at mimicry to fool the human eye.

Bee Beetle Trichius fasciatus

But, as I was investigating the hollow interior of a decaying birch, a bumblebee started harassing me at close quarters. I immediately backed off and legged it away for about 20 metres, reckoning I must have disturbed a nest. As soon as I stopped, I realised it was still buzzing round within a few inches of me. I carry an adrenaline injector with me at all times in case of bee stings: I’ve had a couple of bad allergic reactions in the past. But, even so, getting stung in such a remote spot could be difficult. I legged it back to the birch tree to grab my net, still with the bumblebee in pursuit, and netted it. Safe. Phew!!!

It was only then that I realised it wasn’t a bumblebee! The size, shape, flight and especially the buzzing tone were all spot on and had me completely fooled. But this was a fly, and like nothing I’d seen before. Much later, with help from Dave Gibbs and Andy Grayson I was able to identify it as Cephenemyia auribarbis.

Cephenemyia auribarbis

Cephenemyia auribarbis is a bot-fly (family Oestridae) and it was not looking to bite me or sting me but to lay eggs on me, so that its larvae could develop in either my nostrils, mouth or throat: a truly horrifying prospect! It should have been chasing after Red Deer, the usual host.

Acknowledgement

These observations were made during SSSI condition monitoring work for Scottish Natural Heritage.
 

This is Peter Hammond at Langley Park demonstrating his Pat-a-Cake method with fine sievings from red-rotten heartwood.

Here’s a technique for finding the sort of tiny beetles that are so small or well camouflaged that you can’t see them until they move. Try it next summer:

1. Tip the sievings onto a sheet in full sun, preferably on a hot surface such as sun-baked tarmac.
2. Pat the sievings down into a very thin layer.
3. Lay aside your pipe.
4. Take up your pooter.
5. Get comfy.
6. Wait for rare beetles to break cover as the heat starts to bother them.

We were looking for the tiny pselaphine Plectophloeus nitidus, which we didn’t find. But we did see the very distinctive larvae of Scraptia (Scraptiidae) with their bulbous tails that they autotomise (self-amputate) under duress.

Tony had kindly given me one of his specimens so I knew what it looked like and had hoped I might find it in our compost bins one day. So when I lifted the lid on Wednesday 12th October and saw the back end of a hydrophilid heading down into the goo, I had no hesitation in thrusting my hand in to catch it! And Dactylosternum abdominale it was! I soon learnt of two other recent records. Martin Collier and Andrew Duff found it in a rotten hollow poplar log in a plantation near Mundford, West Norfolk, on 29th September, and James McGill found half a dozen on a well-rotted bracket fungus in Swell Wood, South Somerset on 2nd October. It sounds like it is getting established this year, especially as it is being found in more natural microhabitats. I have since found more in my compost bin.