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On a visit to Langley Park on 24th March, I was tempted to have ‘a quick look’ at a heap of stable waste; a mix of hay, woodchip and horse dung. It was an unseasonably hot and sunny day and the heap was swarming with beetles. I tried to be selective and not create too much homework for myself but even so, there were a lot of good things: five beetles I’d never seen before and several more which I’ve seen only once or twice.
Some highlights, illustrating how many recently arrived species can be found by searching in muck-heaps of various sorts.
Edaphus beszedesi (Staphylinidae, Euaesthetinae) was discovered new to Britain c.2006 by Peter Hammond from two heaps near Windsor, and published by Lott and Anderson (2011). I found it at a stable in south Bucks in 2008 but it still doesn’t seem to have been turned up by many other people.
Euconnus duboisi (Staphylinidae, Scydmaeninae). This was new to me and had me really puzzled. Given the very real chance of discovering beetles new to Britain in this sort of habitat, I was already thinking along those lines when I couldn’t key it to any of the knownÃ��Ã�¢Ã�¯Ã�¿Ã�½Ã��Ã�¦ … read the rest
Where there’s muck … »»I’m back from a 10-day trip to Shetland with Gareth Richards in search of rare birds. We knew when we planned this trip several months ago that we were taking a gamble on the weather. The prevailing autumn winds from the western sector make for pretty dull birding but to be on Shetland in one of the magic periods when the winds go southeasterly is the stuff of dreams. Birders on Shetland were living that dream in the week before we went with Foula alone turning up Sykes’ Warbler, Swainson’s Thrush, Blyth’s Pipit, 2 Blyth’s Reed Warblers, Olive-backed Pipit, 24 Yellow-browed Warblers, etc! But alas, we knew even as we packed that we were in for 10 days of westerlies.
First stop on day one (Friday 28th Sept) was the Swinister Burn, to relive day one of my trip in 2010 when Juan Brown found a White’s Thrush here. Would our trip get off to a similar start?
The trip got off to a great start with close views of PG Tips Locustella certhiola in Tesco.
Our plan was to stay on Bressay, a grossly underwatched island. It doesn’t seem that many rare birdsÃ��Ã�¢Ã�¯Ã�¿Ã�½Ã��Ã�¦ … read the rest
Shetland 2012 »»I found myself in the Brecon Beacons on Sunday after a family gathering. I’ve always thought of the Brecon Beacons as a biodiversity coldspot but I realised prior to this trip that I could potentially tick six species of Whitebeam including three which are restricted to this part of Wales. I didn’t have time to purchase Tim Rich’s BSBI Sorbus Handbook but I was able to get some Sorbus gen from Dave Gibbs, albeit from maybe 20 years ago before Google maps and GPS.
I have been talking vaguely about going to see all the British (and Irish) Sorbus for years but this is the first time I have actually done anything about it. What appeals to me about the idea is that they almost all grow in nice parts of Britain that I’ve spent very little, if any, time in: North Devon, Avon Gorge, Brecon, Monmouthshire, Montgomeryshire, Wye Valley, Anglesey, West Lancs, Westmorland, and Arran.
But after Sunday’s experience, I now realise that seeing all the Sorbus would be a major undertaking. My main problem at Craig y Cilau was that the trees only grow where sheep cannot reach them. And I amÃ��Ã�¢Ã�¯Ã�¿Ã�½Ã��Ã�¦ … read the rest
Tree-spotting »»The House Longhorn Hylotrupes bajulus is something I never thought I’d see. Until very recently, I thought it was a very rare indoor pest in a few houses breeding in old timbers, with only a single post-1970 dot in the cerambycid atlas. I’ve actually been contacted a couple of times with reports of possible House Longhorn infestations but they’ve turned out to be outdoor longhorns emerging from firewood.
So when I heard that House Longhorn could be seen outdoors, on some standing dead pines on a Surrey Heath, I thought I’d better mobilise and go to take a look. I was told that on a sunny day I’d be able to see them without having to peel any bark off, and so it proved on Sunday last weekend. I found one on the third tree I looked at, and saw three in total, all active in the sunshine.
House Longhorn Hylotrupes bajulus
I wish it well in its bid to colonise the British countryside.
No longer Housebound »»Discoveries begin with bafflement. I thought I was reasonably familiar with all the British species of Olibrus; I’ve certainly seen all 7 of the species on multiple occasions. But I found myself baffled when trying to identify some Olibrus specimens collected at Sandwich Bay on the night of Friday 31st August going into the early hours of Sat 1st September.
The key to Olibrus species relies heavily on the presence or absence of microsculpture on head, pronotum and elytra. The microsculpture can be hard to see when it is present, so it is often difficult to be sure that it is absent. So ‘route one’ for me is to dissect, hoping for males, and match up to the genitalia drawings in the RES Handbook. I had four specimens and when I dissected them on Tuesday, they all turned out to be female, clearly of two species, and could not be identified by matching to the genitalia illustrations alone. So I keyed them out and they all came to Olibrus affinis. Bafflement begins. Presumably I’ve made some mistake somewhere, perhaps failing to see microsculpture? I put them aside to come back to on the following day.
I must admitÃ��Ã�¢Ã�¯Ã�¿Ã�½Ã��Ã�¦ … read the rest
Olibrus norvegicus new for Britain »»
Left to right: Jo Hodgkins (+1), Mark Telfer, Simon Horsnall, John Paul, Tony Allen, Kevin Chuter, Roger Booth, Grant Hazlehurst, James McGill, Peter McMullen, Julie Collier, Martin Collier, Graham Finch and Eric Philp.
Fourteen coleopterists assembled at Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory for the Coleopterists’ Meeting on Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd September, with many people (including Jo and I) having traveled down on the Friday.
The weather stayed dry and mostly sunny for us throughout, which is not how most of the summer of 2012 will be remembered. Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory was a great base for the meeting and I will definitely be back there in future. The social side of entomology is something I miss during the field season so it was great to spend time with other like-minded folk, in the field as well as in the rather good Indian and Thai restaurants of Sandwich village. So I really enjoyed myself and I think everyone else would say the same. As the leader I was relieved that the meeting went off without serious mishap, though not entirely without misfortune – there’s a notebook and a good pair of reading glasses somewhere inÃ��Ã�¢Ã�¯Ã�¿Ã�½Ã��Ã�¦ … read the rest
Beetling Sandwich »»All my consultancy fieldwork is now finished for the 2012 season and the next few months will be spent working through and identifying my samples of invertebrates, as well as writing up reports. These samples contain many specimens which received little more than a glance in the field before being pooted, in the knowledge that they’d need microscopic scrutiny or dissection to be identified. So there’s plenty of potential for surprises, as my sample from an Oxfordshire site on 14th June proved …
This blog profiles the 9 ticks I’ve added to my pan-species list between Friday 24th August and setting off for the Sandwich Bay Coleopterists’ Meeting on Friday 31st (more on that later!). Dave Gibbs has been posting photos of each of his ticks on the Pan-species Listers facebook page which I’ve been following with interest. His 9,967th tick was the Short-billed Dowitcher yesterday at Lodmoor. So here is another instalment of my personal progress through the massive biodiversity of Britain …
Gyrophaena joyi (Staphylinidae: Aleocharinae), 1 male, Alfoxton Wood, Somerset, 19th Aug 2012.
Pan’s progress »»
From quite fresh Dryad’s Saddle brackets. A Nationally Scarce species. Dave Boyce has already found it on several occasions in Somerset.Nearly at the end of my field season so I should be able to reactivate my blog now. I’ve recently swapped my Panasonic Lumix FZ-38 superzoom camera for a FZ-48 so that I can fit it with a macro adapter. After some truly neanderthal attempts to use my new kit, I eventually sussed it out with help from Mark Skevington, so here are some of my ticks from the last fortnight.
Lopus decolor: a common mirid bug of grassland but the sort of drab mirid I’ve tended to ignore in the past. Seen in Luton on 14th August.
Lygus pratensis. Still officially Rare (RDB3) but it has spread and become much commoner. My first meeting with it was in Luton on 14th.
Calosirus terminatus. A Nationally Scarce (Nb) species of Wild Carrot. Found by suction sampling, Luton on 14th.
Paralaoma servilis (aka Paralaoma caputspinulae and Toltecia pusilla). I actually ticked this snail in Kent earlier in the year and then found it again in North London on 16th. The ribbing is reminiscent of Vallonia costata but that species
Ã��Ã�¢Ã�¯Ã�¿Ã�½Ã��Ã�¦ … read the rest
Recent ticks … and a tragedy »»One of my best jobs this year has been a four-day survey of Orford Ness for the National Trust under an EU LIFE programme. The main aim of the survey was to survey invertebrates in and around saline and brackish lagoons, including some which have recently been created as well as some older examples.
I’d never been to Orford Ness before and I was soon wondering why on earth not. The range of habitats is excellent, including some amazingly natural and undisturbed transitions from saltmarsh through to shingle. And although there’s a good list of invertebrates for the site, it still feels massively under-worked for somewhere that is clearly a nationally important site for invertebrates. Despite some dreadful weather in late June, I kept hard at it in the hope of making some good discoveries.
The best spot.
This was the best spot on the whole survey. There were several Saltmarsh Shortspurs Anisodactylus poeciloides under the wood when I turned it over, scattering in all directions. Grubbing about at the roots of the Marsh Foxtail, I also found a single Great Trident Sunshiner Amara strenua.
Saltmarsh Shortspur Anisodactylus poeciloides
The Top Snail Trochoidea elegans is one of the most distinctive British species, and one of the rarest. It inhabits chalk grassland where there is bare ground and chalky rubble, especially on steep slopes which help to maintain eroding, bare ground conditions. A dry, sunny microclimate will make it feel at home here, as it is an introduction from the Mediterranean, first recorded in Britain in 1890. Michael Kerney’s (1999) atlas shows 4 dots for it, in Kent, Surrey and Sussex.
I have always wanted to see it and got a chance to look at Hawkshill Down (TR 3736 4981), south of Deal on Tuesday morning. It was another damp day with occasional drizzle which for once was absolutely fine with me – perfect weather for snails!
Unfortunately, I was only able to find empty shells, after a pretty thorough fingertip search. And none of them even look like they’ve held a living snail in recent years. In fact, most of them were in the spoil-heaps outside abandoned rabbit burrows which suggests they may have been dug up from down in the soil. I reckon Trochoidea elegans is extinct at this site, as already suggested by Ron Carr after aÃ��Ã�¢Ã�¯Ã�¿Ã�½Ã��Ã�¦ … read the rest
Top Snail »»
