Ahhh grasshopper

I've never really been very interested in Orthoptera. It's a small group so theoretically not much of a challenge but the identification criteria for a lot of species always seem to be a bit vague and comparative. This is all well and good when you're familiar with them but not much help to a beginner. Even the 'experts' seem to struggle with some species, I have a couple of cockroach specimens which are either Tawny or Dusky but I've shown them to various people and no-one has been able to definitively identify them.

Despite this I have managed to pick off most of the common species over the years, but Stripe-winged Grasshopper had eluded me. The opportunity of a meeting near Dorking on a warm, sunny day encouraged me to pay a visit to Box Hill. The grasshopper was very easy to find (although not a very cooperative photographic subject) but there was little else of interest on the slopes.

Stripe-winged Grasshopper

Back at the Zigzag car park I noticed a couple of groups of an unfamiliar plant. It really should have been easy to identify as the leaf-shape was very distinctive but the flower wasn't right. Eventually it was resolved as Buckwheat but I maintain that the picture in the Collins guide is very unhelpful. Buckwheat is a member of the sorrel family and they illustrate very sorrel-like flowers, not at all like this:

Buckwheat

A quick stop in at Chiddingfold Forest produced little of note apart from the larval case of the moth Coleophora discordella on Common Bird's-foot Trefoil. This is not a rare species but I've only found it in the larval stage on a couple of occasions.

Coleophora discordella

There has been news recently from Dungeness of two very unusual Orthopterans. The Sickle-bearing Bush-cricket which was resident for a while at Hastings and the Italian Tree Cricket which has not previously been recorded breeding in Britain as far as I know. I had a couple of work related things to do in Kent so an evening visit to Dungeness seemed in order. I had fairly detailed info on where to look for the Italian Tree Crickets but the best chance of them was when they start singing at dusk. I did have a grid reference for the Sickle-bearers but it was worked out from aerial photo's rather than being taken at the time. I spent some time looking for these without success, a couple of hoppers and an interesting looking beetle may be new for me when I get them identified but the only new species for me by dusk was New Zealand Spinach - a plant so boring I am not going to post a photo.

As dusk fell the Italian Tree Crickets started to sing. It was really rather bizarre to be standing at Dungeness in a cold wind, listening to noises that would not be out of place in the tropics. There were a good couple of dozens crickets singing but actually seeing one was proving to be rather difficult as most were hidden deep in brambles. I did get one brief view but the photo's that I took were all horribly out of focus. At this point the warden of Dungeness Bird Observatory arrived and he kindly took me to see the Sickle-bearing Bush-crickets (well, cricket singular while I was there). It turned out that the grid reference I'd been given was a good 100m+ out.

Male Sickle-bearing Bush-cricket

  I returned to the tree cricket area and eventually they became more cooperative (or I became better at finding them).

Italian Tree Cricket

Also of Orthopteran note was a mating pair of Lesser Cockroach.

Mating Lesser Cockroach

The (re)awakening

It's about time Gilbert put in a reappearance, if only to stop his brother from nagging him. I'll backtrack a couple of weeks so that I have a few posts lined up.

I've been aware of the presence of Wild Clary in Emsworth for some time but have only made one previous attempt to find it. This was after a period of drought and I could find no sign, so news that it was flowering again prompted me to call in. The site is a road verge in a residential area and a 'wildflower verge' has been designated to that the area is (theoretically) not mown repeatedly during the summer. Of course, the clary ignores the designated section and grows out of the mown verge further down.

Wild Clary with scenic kerb in background

My colleague had found a couple of plants near our new office that he wanted my opinion on. Yes, bizarre as it may seem, someone actually asked me about plant identification. One of the things he wanted to show me was an amaranth growing on an area of dumped soil. This was too immature to be identified at present but in the same area we found half a dozen specimens of a mysterious goosefoot. It looked like Nettle-leaved but that is far too rare so surely it couldn't be. I took a small piece to examine closely at home but that still pointed to Nettle-leaved. I returned a couple of days later to get some photo's which were sent to the county recorder and he confirmed that our identification was correct and that it was the first record in vice-county 12 for 31 years.

Nettle-leaved Goosefoot

On the way back to our office we found several enormous fungi. These were Giant Puffballs. It is not a rare species but I have never seen it before. Giant Puffballs can weigh as much as 5kg!

Giant Puffball

Lung relief

My reader claims that there is actually a second person who reads this nonsense and that that person has been complaining about the absence of postings. So for their benefit here's something that I got up to in April.

One rainy day I decided that I had to get out of the house and Narrow-leaved Lungwort was calling me so I researched a couple of sites with recent records and headed off to the New Forest. The Collins Guide claims that they have basal leaves up to 60cm long in autumn so I reasoned that even if it wasn't in flower yet, I'd be able to find the plants.

After scouring two sites and the surrounding areas throughout the afternoon with just a single Brambling to provide some interest, I had to admit defeat.

The following week I was back in the Forest looking for the first Wood Warblers of the year. No luck there but I had a chat with a guy who, it turns out, is a very active naturalist in the Forest (but like many of the best naturalists, tends to keep himself to himself). He mentioned that he had seen Narrow-leaved Lungwort in flower in the same wood I had visited the week before and gave me some directions but I've got a head like a sieve so no chance of remembering where to go.

I spent a couple of hours freezing my nuts off, trying (and failing) to find a Stonechat nest and decided that I needed to do something more active to warm up so I might as well go and have another crack at the lungwort. Despite my very vague recollection of the directions I soon found a dozen or so by the edge of a track.

Narrow-leaved Lungwort is a rare species, being confined to the New Forest and the Isle of Wight. In the Forest at least, it seems to be declining quite badly for reasons that are not immediately apparent. I am left with one question: where the **** are the 60cm basal leaves Collins?

The disappointment of the shiny black slag, and other stories

The Easter weekend provided a rare opportunity - a day with no commitments when I could do absolutely anything I wanted. Rather than spend the day locally I thought I'd take advantage of the chance to go somewhere further afield. But where could I go so early in the year where there would be interesting things to see? For no reason other than the fact that I'd noticed that Bristol Rock-cress was flowering at this time of year, I decided upon the Avon Gorge. I mentioned the plan to the Sussex posse and they were all up for it.

Warm sunshine greeted us upon our arrival at Durdham Down and one of the first things that we saw was a Hummingbird Hawk-moth. Before the trip, one of my friends had asked if there was any chance of seeing any of the rare whitebeams that occur in the Avon Gorge. I rather scathingly replied 'only if they've got labels on as they won't be identifiable without leaves'. So what do we find? Yep, the whitebeams had got labels on! The first one we looked at was the critically endangered Sorbus wilmottiana although all the subsequent ones were just Common Whitebeam.

While we were still trying to work out whether we were in the right spot, we came across a number of flowering Bristol Rock-cress.

Bristol Rock-cress Arabis scabra

In true pan-species style, we recorded a number of other species across a range of taxonomic groups that were new to one or more of the group, including the Nationally Scarce Lygaeid bug Rhyparochromus pini, the ant Temnothorax nylanderi, the pill woodlouse Armadillidium depressum, the moth Mompha miscella (larva mining the leaves of Common Rock-rose), Dwarf Mouse-ear, the rust Phragmidium sanguisorbae which is found on Salad Burnet and the galls on Red Valerian that are caused by the psyllid Trioza centranthi. It was also good to see the Dotted Bee-fly Bombylius discolor.

Dwarf Mouse-ear Cerastium pumilum

At lunch we decided to move on to another site. We had info on various (mainly non-native) plants that we all needed but the vote went to the Snake's-head Iris Hermodactylus tuberosus so we headed off to Sand Point. Whoever named this site needs to check the particle size of the soil here. Sand? What sand? Try Mud Point. We found the iris easily enough but it had finished flowering so we decided to head down to the point to see if there were any decent rock pools. There weren't but we did find Common Scurvygrass on the way.

Common Scurvygrass Cochlearia officinalis

The site didn't hold anything to inspire us so we decided to head off to a final site. On the way back from Sand Point we stopped for a mystery plant that we'd seen from the car on the way in. This proved to be Spring Starflower and we also picked up Sweet Alison Lobularia maritima at this stop.

Spring Starflower Tristagma uniflorum

Our final destination was a former lead mine where the target was Alpine Penny-cress Noccaea caerulescens. The directions told us to walk up from the car park and look for the shiny black slag from the old lead workings. We found this easily enough but the predicted 'plenty' of Alpine Penny-cress eluded us.

The shiny black slag, not looking very shiny in this photo

Nevertheless, a great day out to kick off the field season with some great company and some good cracks.

The road to 5000

At the end of 2014 my Pan-species list stood at 4881 species. Over the winter it crept up slowly as I worked through insect specimens from last (and previous) years and added the odd moss or fungus. This left me a few 10's short of the 5000 mark. The start of the new field season meant it was all systems go to hit the magic number.

The first excursion was to Ambersham Common with a couple of friends, one of whom specialises in groups such as spiders that I know little about. This inevitably resulted in quite a few new species, the best spider being the Red Data Book Uloborus walckenaerius.

One of the most interesting finds of the day though was of these galls on a Scot's Pine.

These are caused by the mite Trisetacus pini. I have spent a lot of time on heaths over the years and have never seen these before but this one tree was riddled with them.

The next trip was a Shoresearch event run by Sussex Wildlife Trust at Beachy Head on one of the lowest tides in decades. I have done very little marine stuff so new species a plenty were in order. There is still a major shortage of identification literature on marine species though so quite a few finds remained nameless, or at least could not be named with absolute certainty. Despite that, it was great to see loads of new things.

Butterfish Pholis gunnellus

The Green Paddle-worm looks like a massive green millipede.

Green Paddle-worm Eulalia viridis

Green Sea-urchin Psammechinus miliaris 

Long-spined Sea-scorpion Taurulus bubalis - not a new species but so ugly I just had to include a photo

a Sea-fir Dynamena pumila

Sea-firs are related to corals, sea anemones and jellyfish and this species is widespread and common around the coast of Britain, although seemingly scarce in the south-east.

Squat Lobster Galathea squamifera

I presume that I can still count this, even though a big chunk of it was missing!

Velvet Swimming Crab Necora puber - stunning and vicious! 

Finally, the commonest fish of the day was the Tompot Blenny. I feel a bit bad about this as it is one of the most-wanted species of the person who told me about the Shoresearch event - and he wasn't there.

Tompot Blenny Parablennius gattorugine

A few more insects from last year and a couple of fungi courtesy of Penny at the Knepp Estate left me on 4999 the day before a work trip to the Isle of Wight. I haven't been to the IoW for about 30 years and to be honest I won't be in a rush to get back, but it did give me the chance to get number 5000 from a taxonomic group that you probably wouldn't expect at this time of year.

Glanville Fritillary larvae

Four hours stuck on the motorway on the way home meant that I wasn't in much of a mood to celebrate but I've made it. Here's to the next 5000.

An interesting lacewing

On Saturday I went to get my hair cut but the queue in the barbers was so long I decided that I couldn't be bothered to wait and went off to have a look for insects in some local woodland. Despite the intermittent sunshine it was too cold for anything to be flying so I spent a bit of time sweeping spruce scrub. I got a few hoppers and bugs but the most interesting thing was a lacewing.

Even in flight it looked small and upon capture it was bright green which excluded Chrysoperla carnea which is the commonest species at this time of year but turns brown over winter. The other obvious feature was the bright green stigmas on each wing.

Attempts to run it through the AIDGAP key quickly ran into problems but further investigations revealed that it was Peyerimhoffina gracilis, a species which was added to the British list in 2001. Colin Plant who wrote the AIDGAP key has supplied the following amendment to Key H on page 222:

RE-NUMBER EXISTING COUPLET 3 AS 3A and then insert an extra couplet BETWEEN EXISTING COUPLETS 2 AND 3 to read:

3 ... Inner gradate series of forewings with at least twice as many cross veins as in the outer gradate series (usually 5 inner, 2 outer). Tip of abdomen finely pointed - Peyerimhoffina gracilis

- ... Inner gradate series with fewer cross veins than the outer series ...3a

Best find of 2014

There is little at this time of year to encourage me outside, especially in a winter when most birds seem to be incredibly short supply. That doesn't mean there's no natural history to be done however as there are all the specimens from last year to work through.

Many people these days disapprove of the taking of specimens, perhaps influenced by the fact that it really isn't needed for the groups that they are interested in. I have neither the time nor the inclination to go into the importance of retaining specimens but perhaps the story of my best find of 2014 will illustrate one of reasons why it is worthwhile.

On 26th June I was on a beach in north Kent looking for the eggs of a particular moth. I came across a small, dark shieldbug that I was unfamiliar with so I brought the specimen home for identification. As usual, I didn't have time to do anything more with it until the winter when I keyed it out as Odontoscelis fuliginosa. This species is however only known from two sites in Britain and both are major sand dune systems. Not only was my specimen not from either of these sites, it was not from a sand dune (major or otherwise). I felt that my identification therefore needed checking so I passed it to a friend who felt that it was probably the commoner Odontoscelis lineola. He did however send a photograph of the specimen to a national expert who erred towards my identification but wanted to compare my specimen against those in the national collection at the Natural History Museum. I had the following message back today 'Comparing it to the British Collection, it is undoubtedly a male O. fuliginosa and as such, is a very significant record indeed.'

If I had just taken a photo, it would probably have been discounted as O. lineola. Now I can return to the site in order to confirm the presence of a colony and then make sure that it's presence is made known to the Environment Agency so that any works on the beach do not cause damage.