Rusty Rocks

Wednesday dawned cold but vastly improved on the previous day. We planned on a quick look at Uig bay before I dragged Seth kicking and screaming out of his beloved 1km square to explore a bit more of the island. The tide was quite high in the bay but Seth's intimate knowledge of the site soon produced some new species for me. It has to be said that some were more impressive than others. I thought we had plumbed the depths with the miniature full stop on Egg Wrack that he had shown me on the first evening (apparently a fungus called Stigmidium ascophylli - see this photo and be truly amazed). Today though he surpassed himself.

Seth modelling the most impressive species I will ever see - not

It's a rock right? Well have a closer look.

Still a rock. But a rock with some reddish stuff on it. This is a marine alga called Hildebrandia rubra. I bet you're impressed.

I've seen the centipede Strigamia maritima a few times before, it is fairly common on beaches around the UK but I usually see the odd one or two and the numbers on Uig beach are astonishing. These were just a sample from under one rock.

Another species that was in unusually high numbers was the Beadlet Anemone Actinia equina.

We left Uig and headed south. Seth got very excited about a possible Mute Swan on a small loch which, much to his disappointment, turned out to be a Whooper. It's a weird place Skye, I think if I'd found a Coot I'd have been in danger of being kissed. We ended up in Dunvegan Woods. A strange place and the first section we walked round was uniformly dense, dark conifers; not a ride to be found anywhere. Seth tried to show me a weevil that you can find under dead bark on fallen conifers but the only one he found was dead. He questioned whether it was really dead as 'they can play dead really well' but was convinced when I showed him that it's head had fallen off.

Perhaps the most interesting find in the woods for me was the fungus Phytophthora ramorum.

This is known as Sudden Oak Death in the US where it is responsible for the death of millions of oaks. It was first found in plant nurseries in Scotland in 2002 and in the wild in 2007. There was the usual hype in the British media about how it was going to wipe out all our oaks but it seems that the native oaks in Britain are immune. It does infect a range of woody plants and in Britain its most serious impact has been on larch, resulting in the clear-felling of many larch plantations before the value of the timber is lost. Rhododendron is a major host of Phytophthora and this has caused the Forestry Commission to make attempts to eradicate this pernicious weed which has caused so much damage to the wildlife value of many woodlands, especially in western Scotland. It is of course possible that Phytophthora might start to infect other tree species but on the basis of its effects so far - the clearance of non-native conifer plantations and Rhododendron - it is a disease which I welcome with open arms.

Charismatic megafauna

An update on the ants. As I feared, they weren't what I keyed them to. Never mind, too many species new to Skye in one day would just be greedy.

Tuesday dawned wet and windy, and with little prospect of improvement during the day. Sensible people would have found a nice sheltered woodland but we decided to test how good our waterproofs were on top of the Trotternish Ridge (in case you're interested, the answer was not very). The main reason for going up there was to look for the moss Sphagnum skyense which is virtually endemic to Skye. One of Britain's best bryologists lives just down the road but unfortunately was too busy to join us. He did give us the useful tip that unlike most Sphagnum species it does not grow in wet areas but on grassy ridges.

Shortly after leaving the car park we found some potential skyense but continued up the ridge looking for anything different. Going by the criteria in the book we got some samples that looked promising so, thoroughly soaked, we headed back to the car. Seth had something else for us to look for before we returned to the hotel however.

We drove to a secret site where he had been told there were Freshwater Pearl Mussels Margaritifera margaritifera. Sites for pearl mussels are usually kept strictly confidential due to illegal collecting and this species wasn't even on my radar. If we could get this it really would constitute charismatic megafauna - for this trip anyway. Seth had only tried this site once before and a combination of high river levels and dodgy directions meant that he had failed. Ten minutes or so of searching though and

success!

Well chuffed, we headed back to the hotel to dry out and do some serious Sphagnum studying. Of the three books that we had, two don't cover S. skyense because it wasn't recognised as a separate species when they were written. That leaves the British Bryological Society book. This gives some information about similar species and we were able to conclude that at least some of our samples were not one of the main confusion species. The trouble was, nothing was said about how to separate it from one of the other species that, at least to us, looked very similar. It's a bit like telling you how to separate Ring-necked Duck from Scaup but making no mention of how it differs from Tufted Duck! Never mind, we'll use the Sphagnum key in the book. Or rather we won't because the key doesn't include skyense! So, would someone from the British Bryological Society care to explain what the point is of producing a key that doesn't include all of the species? Attempts to identify other mosses later in the week produced similar frustrations with this book. It looks impressive when viewed superficially but when it comes to serious use, not impressed. After a couple of hours of struggle we gave up and moved on to other things.

Sphagnum skyense? Probably not but we will never know

Seth squeezed a few drops of water from the Sphagnum sample and from those few drops I got seven new species! What? How? Freshwater algae, that's how. This was a whole new world to me and I love 'em. I don't have any photos but you can see some of the funky shapes you get in Seth's blog from last year. I was going to be saying that I'm considering getting the identification book but I am weak and earlier today I ordered it!

Skye - Monday

My first full day on Skye but Seth had to work so I headed off to look for Purple Saxifrage Saxifraga oppositifolia as he didn't need to see it and it was the one flowering plant that should be looking its best at this time of year. I had a recommended 1km square, supplied by the County Recorder, so headed up the mountain towards some likely looking bare rocks. I hadn't quite bargained on how steep the ground would become and my fear of heights started to kick in. I sat down to contemplate my next move and spotted a sawfly crawling through the grass, then another one. I suspect they were Poodolerus aeneus as this is a spring species that I have found at high altitude before but I haven't had time to key it yet. Even given previous experience of this species, I was still stunned to find a sawfly at altitude at this time of year, especially as it was too cold for it to fly.

The only flowering plants I had seen so far were the Hazels at the base of the mountain.

Hazel flower

Given that, and the fact that I hadn't seen a hoverfly yet this year in southern England, I really wasn't expecting to get my first by sweeping along a little stream half way up a mountain on Skye but that is what happened. It was Melangyna lasiophthalma which we went on to find at several other sites during the week.

Melangyna lasiophthalma (Photo: S. Rae - Wikipedia Commons)

An indication of the level of under recording on Skye is that our records of this species during the week more than doubled the total number of records on the island ever according to the Hoverfly Recording Scheme.

Despite checking out loads of rock faces and scree I failed to find any Purple Saxifrage, although it was good to reacquaint myself with Fir Clubmoss Huperzia selago.

Fir Clubmoss

I headed down the mountain but as Seth was still working I stopped off at a river to look for stoneflies. One Leuctra hippopus on a fencepost by the river appears to be the second Skye record but I then swept the very common planthopper Empoasca vitis from some young conifers - new to Skye.

Empoasca vitis (Photo: Tristan Bantock www.britishbugs.org.uk )

Leaving the river to head back to Uig, I had a Flying Barn Door (aka White-tailed Eagle) over the car. Back at Uig we headed down to the woods where I added 13 new species; lichens, fungi, a snail and a liverwort. 

The lichen Pyrenula macrospora showing the black lines along the boundaries between the colonies.

Perhaps the best find of the day was still to come though. Seth had told me how rare ants were on Skye. I think he said he'd only seen ants once during his 15 months on the island - fairly amazing for someone who spends so much time turning over rocks, logs, etc. Walking back down the road behind the hotel, he turned over a rock and there were some ants. I took one specimen, it's a bit tricky to interpret the key with this one but if I'm right it will not only be new to Skye but only the third record for Scotland. I await verification or correction.

In search of spring

So what do you do when you're fed up with this cold, late spring and you really want to get out and do some fieldwork. You go to the north of Skye because it's bound to be better up there right?

Never mind though because I was heading for Uig; world famous home of Seth, chief finder of things under rocks, micro-fungi the size of pinheads and other things that you can still find in arctic weather.

After 17 hours on the road with little more than two hours sleep, I was pretty wasted when I arrived but we went out for a couple of hours in Uig Woods anyway. I forgot to take my camera with me but I was awake enough to get 24 new species. The highlight for me was undoubtedly the Water Cricket Velia caprai, probably the species I most wanted to see in advance of the trip.

Velia caprai (Photo: S. Rae - Wikipedia Commons)

The Tree Lungwort Lobaria pulmonaria wasn't new for me but was impressive in its almost weed-like abundance on trees and anything else that stood still for long enough. I reckon if you sat sea-watching for long enough it would grow on your wellies.

Lobaria pulmonaria

We wandered down to the beach and amongst other things, found the ground beetle Aepus marinus. This has a bizarre lifestyle in that it lives under rocks on the beach that are submerged by the sea for several hours at high tide.

Aepus marinus (Photo: U. Schmidt - Wikipedia Commons)

Spring? Not really

Prior to the latest batch of snow there was one day when it actually felt a bit like spring. After a long winter of staring down the microscope at specimens from previous years, I was desperate for some fieldwork so I stopped in at Stedham Common for a couple of hours. The sun was shining but there was still a cold wind. I had hoped the odd early sallow might have been in flower but the only flowers to be found on the site were gorse - a species which I always find to be poor for nectaring insects apart from honey bees.

However there were a few birch trees that had been felled during the winter which were oozing sap from the stumps and this was attracting a few flies. Surprisingly, despite the cool temperature they were quite agile and difficult to catch. The most common species were Scathophagids, mainly the 'Yellow Dung Fly' Scathophaga stercoraria but a few more interesting species were seen.

Sepsids are small, shiny, ant-like flies. They have varying amounts of dusting on the sides of the thorax which are important identification features and the males have interesting armature on the front femurs. Species in the genus Sepsis all have a small blackish dot near the apex of the wing.

Sepsis species

Male Sepsis sp. showing spines and tubercles on the front femur and silvery dusting on the side of the thorax

Surprisingly, the three specimens that I took were all different species. Sepsids generally breed in nutrient enriched places and they can often be seen around dung or enriched mud. They wave their wings around in a characteristic way.

Also around the stumps were a number of cluster flies or blowflies (Calliphoridae). Species in the genus Pollenia were most frequent. These can easily be recognised as belonging to the genus as they have crinkly golden hairs beneath the black bristles on the thorax (although these do wear off and can become confined to the sides of the thorax only).

Pollenia sp. The golden hairs have mainly worn off the top of the thorax but can still be seen on the sides

Paul Brock's photographic insect guide is highly misleading in respect of this genus. He illustrates Pollenia rudis and states that it is easily identifiable on account of the chequered abdomen and golden hairs. In fact there are 8 species of Pollenia in Britain, most of which are fairly common. All have the golden hairs and all bar one have a chequered abdomen. These can only be separated by examining microscopic features. The larvae of Pollenia species are predators of earthworms.

Aside from the Scathophagids, Sepsids and Calliphorids, I saw a few Drosophilids (fruit flies) which will have to await identification when I have more time, and a Mycetophilid (fungus gnat) which evaded capture.

There was little else around. A couple of the birch-feeding Lygaeid bug Kleidocerys resedae were active and two Yellow Horned Achlya flavicornis moths were found at rest on an old birch stump.

Slim pickings and the subsequent weather has resulted in a return to the microscope.

Some thoughts on a Pondweed Leafhopper

There is of course no such thing as a useless biological record but some are undoubtedly more useful than others. I seem to average one really good record a year these days and I've just had my one for 2017. Having spent most of my spare time so far this winter dissecting moths for other people, I have finally cleared the backlog and been able to make a start on my own specimens.

I started with the plant- and leaf-hoppers as this is a group I want to prioritise in 2018. One specimen keyed to Erotettix cyane, sometimes known as the Pondweed Leafhopper. Now I knew that was a UK Biodiversity Action Plan Priority Species which is known from very few sites so it couldn't possibly be that. I re-keyed it but couldn't make it in to anything else. I had recorded around the pond at this site on one occasion in 2017 but upon checking, I found that this specimen came to MV light several hundred metres from the pond. I sent some photo's to the national recording scheme organiser, asking if he could point out my schoolboy error but instead he confirmed my identification.

Erotettix cyane - the Pondweed Leafhopper

He also pointed out that the most significant feature of this record was not that I had found it at a new site but that it was the first evidence that this species can disperse and therefore potentially colonise new sites. So, a very rare species found at a new site and with some useful additional information about its dispersal ability, happy days, end of story right? Well not quite. I think it is worth examining how this record came to be made.

The first point is that I was moth-trapping and this isn't a moth! If I had ignored all the 'by-catch', the record would never have been made. Another point in favour of the pan-species listing approach. But why was I moth trapping at this site in the first place?

Back in the latter part of 2016, the Senior Ecologist for Sussex Wildlife Trust undertook a process of collating all the records of every species on every Trust reserve. He put all this information in a spreadsheet and offered to send a copy to absolutely anyone who was interested in recording on Trust reserves. What is this heresy? Surely the reserves will be over-run with collectors, twitchers and all manner of other people who are up to no good? Of course not, although such views do seem to be prevalent these days. The reality is that there are very, very few cases in which there is any justification for keeping quiet about where species are found.

Having received my copy of the spreadsheet, I spent many hours studying it, looking at gaps in recording where I could contribute something useful, etc. Like most people, I have a competitive streak. One of the first things that I looked at was which reserve had the biggest species list. Oh dear, it's Rye Harbour. That isn't even in proper (i.e. West) Sussex but in the frozen wastelands of East Sussex. It's virtually in Kent for god's sake! Second place was held by Ebernoe Common. Now that is in proper Sussex and is a reserve that I like and have done some recording on. Worse news was to come when I looked at the family that I know most about; moths. Once again Rye Harbour was in first place with Ebernoe second. This really wouldn't do and I made it my personal mission to get Ebernoe into first place! Ok, it's all a bit pointless and silly but it gave me motivation to go recording at Ebernoe which in turn led to the discovery of a very rare leaf-hopper.

I know that the Trust Ecologist hoped that his initiative would be copied by other conservation organisations but thus far there is very little evidence of this happening. Why is this? I fear that an awful lot of people responsible for nature reserves really don't care what species occur on their sites apart from the 'charismatic mega-fauna', and orchids. Worse still, I am increasingly finding wardens who don't want you to find rare species, especially from 'obscure' groups, because it might complicate their simplistic, text-book management. Don't believe me? Go and tell your local warden that you've found a rare spider, leaf-hopper or moss on their reserve and that it needs a particular type of management and see what reaction you get. Of course there will be some who are delighted and happy to engage with you but there are an awful lot who will be rather less positive. I sincerely hope that this situation will change but the signs are not great at the moment.

Malham wrap-up

On the Saturday we spent a couple of hours at Goredale Beck, ostensibly to look for a rare stonefly under stones around calcareous seepages. None were found, probably due to the continued foul weather. The highlight for me was finding the tiny soldierfly Oxycera pygmaea under a stone. This species is associated with calcareous springs so the habitat was right but under a stone is the last place I would look for a soldierfly. Presumably it thought about the same of the weather as I did.

Oxycera pygmaea (Photo: www.diptera.info )

There were few plants flowering which was rather disappointing, perhaps the hot weather earlier in the summer had pushed things through quickly. I did manage to pick up a few new species:

Knotted Pearlwort Sagina nodosa

Bloody Crane's-bill Geranium sanguineum

Green Spleenwort Asplenium viride

Not new for me but I haven't seen it for many years and had to look up what it was as I had no idea initially:

Grass-of-Parnassus Parnassia palustris

The flower in the background of the photo above was a particular highlight though. I had written off any chances of seeing Bird's-eye Primrose as the books say it flowers in May and June and the fact that most flowers seemed to have gone over didn't increase my expectations but there were loads of them. No idea why this species should buck the trend, maybe the books are wrong, not that I'm complaining on this occasion.

Bird's-eye Primrose Primula farinosa

The roadside verges in the area had frequent clumps of Giant Bellflower.

Giant Bellflower Campanula latifolia

Finally, a mystery object. Anyone got any ideas what this is?