Englandshire - Week 1 of 3

So this post is just a tad overdue. By about seven weeks or so, I reckon (hush now, I've been busy).

Initially I was planning to compose three posts covering my three weeks down in England, but judging by the length of this first instalment I think I'm going to need at least five posts, maybe nearer fifteen. Should complete it by late 2019 at this rate...

Alright, so it's now late September again. Are you sitting comfee? Maybe go grab a coffee - or beer - coz this could take us a while. As an aside, it's important for you to realise that I use this blog for several reasons, one of which is as a nature diary for myself. I fully realise that this post's content is of limited interest to most sane folks, it's more for me to look back on than for your enjoyment. Basically, what I'm saying is feel free to cut and run at any point, I won't be offended :)

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After months of badgering the bosses for time off, they eventually agreed that come mid-September things would have quietened down enough that I could finally take a holiday break. That was in early August and I immediately put the word out to a few naturalist buddies in southern England that I'd be dropping by to visit. My provisional departure date from Skye was September 11th and various folks started making plans for my arrival.

So you can probably imagine my utter frustration (and theirs) when I was forced to delay heading off until the 26th September, a full fortnight later than planned. 'Work duties comes before holidays', said the boss. Yeah, yeah - alright w'eva... My first port of call was Hampshire where I'd be staying with Tony Davis, an old friend and my 'Chief Partner in PSL Crime'. 

So I told him there's this rare moss that grows down wormholes - poor chap believes everything I tell him...

Tony's just brilliant, an absolute top class fella - he puts up with me for starters. For twelve whole days he pulled out just about every stop possible to ensure that I saw as many lifers as was physically possible. The consequence of my late arrival was that a number of moths and plants had already gone over by the time I rocked up. On the other hand, a few extra moths were now starting to come online. I think the actual tally of potential lifers Tony had initially lined up for me stood at an astonishing 253 species! Obviously we had no chance of completely clearing up, but he was determined to show me at least as many new species as I'd shown him up on Skye earlier in the year. But would he manage it? 

Day 1 - 26th September - Picked up the hire car without any issues and headed straight down to Worksop Priory in Nottinghamshire in search of  the enigmatic harvestman currently known as Leiobunum sp. A that occurs there. It was already dark by the time I arrived at Worksop and, despite a few road closures, I was soon pulling into the priory carpark where I found myself eye-balling a mob of about ten youths, all sitting on the bonnets and roofs of their cars, smoking shit and seemingly very interested in my clearly unwelcome appearance. All of a sudden I wasn't quite so keen on the idea of wandering around looking for harvestmen on the walls by torchlight. Bugger, I'd just have to try again on the return journey to Skye. This was not the great beginning I'd been hoping for. I kipped in the car that night, the first time I've done so in far too long. I love roughing it in a car, brings back many happy memories.

Lifers - none. Yet...

Day 2 - 27th September - I arrived at Tony's house feeling ever so vaguely refreshed and rested. But Tony wasn't wasting time with petty pleasantries - no sooner had I chucked my stuff into his spare room than we were off to explore a bunch of Sussex churchyards in search of scarce fungi. Pretty quickly we realised that the drought had scuppered all hopes of us finding our fungal targets, everything was severely parched and crisped, not ideal. Happily Carron Lane Churchyard came to the rescue and yielded several patches of Large Thyme plus the amazing ant-like spider Steatoda phalerata running amongst its prey. Tachina fera was also a lifer for me here, rather overdue I know, but it is what it is. The robberfly Machimus atricapillus was netted at Midhurst Churchyard, another overdue addition to my (frankly laughable) diptera tally. Yes folks, I'm now approaching the dizzy heights of having recorded nearly 3% of the British fly species...woohoo!

Lifers - Machimus atricapillus, Steatoda phalerata, Large Thyme, Tachina fera

Tachina fera - common as muck and a complete Tart's Tick! 

Quitting the churchyards we headed for Burton Mill Pond where we soon spotted clumps of Cowbane, growing here at its sole Sussex site. I suspect it has been widely dug up and destroyed in the past - as the name suggests, Cowbane is lethal to cattle once ingested. Which makes me wonder how Leopard's-bane got its name. We didn't actually see any Leopard's-bane (we didn't see any leopards either, though I did once see a Black Panther in Cornwall) so I guess its powers must work from afar. A Kingfisher was a nice bonus, don't get many of those up on Skye.

Lifers - Cowbane

Next up was Duncton Hill where Tony traps for Plumed Prominent in late autumn/early winter. We were far too early for that, but there was still stuff to be found including this distinctive beast

Helicodonta obvoluta - aka the Cheese Snail with its weirdly triangular mouth aperture

Tony is Senior Moth Officer (or Mofficer as my wee sis says) for Butterfly Conservation, so it was only to be expected that he show me a decent moth or two. In fact, thanks to Tony, my moth tally made a significant jump and saw me leap-frog several notable naturalists on the PSL Moth Rankings Table. Happy days! Here's one that's already known from the site, preferring young leaves growing in the shade

Tenanted mine of Ectoedemia rubivora in a young Bramble leaf 

Lifers - Ectoedemia rubivora, Podosphaera fusca, Erysiphe circaeae, Helicodonta obvulata, Phytomyza agromyzina, Liriomyza eupatoria

After Duncton Hill, we toured a bunch of sites picking up yet more lifers for me including a small patch of Oak-leaved Goosefoot growing in the thinnest veneer of dirt at the base of a kerb. Tony has no idea how it managed to survive the drought and heatwave in such a seemingly inhospitable spot, but it appeared to be doing just fine.

Oak-leaved Goosefoot happily managing to survive in less than 1cm depth of cracked mud

Lifers - Agonopterix arenella, Enteucha acetosae, Oak-leaved Goosefoot

We waited until after dark before heading off to Portchester Castle in search of Bloxworth Snout on the walls. No such luck, though we did find a nice selection of spiders including a great many Steatoda nobilis...

Flippin massive Teg!

...and quite a few moths at the toilet block security lights, including a dead L-album Wainscot just under the eaves which was a bit gutting really seeing as I've never seen one before. Much to my amazement, despite it being caught in a web, one quick poke and it burst into life and landed near the base of the wall allowing a few pics. Nice, my first new macrolep of the trip. Wonder if I'll get any more? 

Once regarded as a scarce migrant to Britain, L-album Wainscot has now colonised Hampshire

Lifers - L-album Wainscot

Day 3 - 28th September - 

Today was all about Hayling Island. I admit I've never been a fan of the place despite birding it several times in the past, but Tony guaranteed a veritable multitude of decent species and so, with a cheeky glint in his eye, we set off in search of goodies.

I've changed my mind. I bloody love Hayling now!

Crazy 'snail trail' mine of Phyllocnistis xenia on a scrubby Grey Poplar

Phyllocnistis xenia was first discovered in Britain in 1974 but only arrived in Hampshire in 2003. Nowadays it's quite widespread here, we saw mines on many of the small suckering Grey Poplars that we passed.

Our first port of call was a godforsaken place called Gutner Point where acres of gunky saltmarsh and a muddy channel beckoned. It was pretty darn fresh in the cool wind too, for some unfathomable reason I'd forsaken my coat in favour of a thin sweatshirt, fooled by the blue skies I guess. However, I soon forgot about being cold when we began keying through Salicornia, a family of plants I have studiously ignored until now. Happily (?), the plant taxonomists have made life easier for once and recently lumped them from a tricksome seven species (including between 20 and 30 hybrids) into a far more manageable three species. With the help of a handlens we quickly keyed Salicornia europaea and Salicornia procumbens but it wasn't until a while later that we found Salicornia pusilla, though it stood out like a sore thumb amongst the other two species - I'm fairly confident we hadn't overlooked it earlier. I took a barrage of pics showing the size and shape of adjacent flower scales but they all turned out crap. Here's the best of a bad bunch for you

The rather extravagant flowers of Salicornia europaea

We spent time searching for the solitary clump of Sea-heath Frankenia laevis that occurs here, a rare plant that Tony discovered on the edge of a small pool a couple of years back. Sure enough it was still there plus we found a few smaller plants nearby - quite exciting really!

Sea-heath - a real rarity! Clearly I was far too excited to actually focus the camera properly...

We found shedloads of Scrobipalpa nitentella spinnings on almost any leafy plant examined and extracted a few larvae just to confirm the ID. We also found a couple of Coleophora atriplicis cases, though didn't find the larvae until later in the day. Here's a sneak preview for you

Coleophora atriplicis cases on Annual Sea-blite. How many can you see?

And the larva itself, here found feeding on Salicornia pusilla

Tony is a bit of a whizz when it comes to finding the early stages of moths. This somewhat inhospitable looking expanse of saltmarsh was positively hotching with life, much of which I'd have overlooked had Tony not been there to point out the various clues and signs. I learned a lot out on that saltmarsh. But all of that paled into insignificance when he called me over to a certain patch of smelly mud in a deep channel to see my next lifer

Behold! (clue - it's the dark green patch in the centre of the foreground)

This manky patch of green gloop is actually a vascular plant and not a seaweed at all, despite it being surrounded by them. At high tide this expanse of muck is fully underwater, which means that we're looking at a marine grass. Under the handlens it has a clear notched tip to the frond, only three veins and clasping shoots, all of which tells us that this is Dwarf Eelgrass, another rare plant that I'd not seen before. Good work Tony, where to next? Northney Saltmarsh for the Coleophora, which we found in quantity including the larva. Job done, we moved towards the southern end of the island for a different set of habitats and species

Lifers - Phyllocnistis xenia, Dwarf Eelgrass, Sea-heath, Salicornia europaea, Salicornia procumbens, Salicornia pusilla, Scrobipalpa nitentella, Aceria macrocheluserinea, Lobesia littoralis, Coleophora atriplicis.

We pulled into the carpark at Sandypoint and headed for the beach. This is a great spot for vegetated shingle, at least the bit that's closed to dogwalkers! Plenty of Sea Spurge everywhere and Tony soon pointed out the tell-tale feeding signs of a new moth for me

Note the droopy, withered-looking stem in the middle of this plant

We saw quite a few plants exhibiting this drooping stem and a bit of gentle teasing apart of leaves revealed the culprit - a small caterpillar! This was Acroclita subsequana, an uncommon moth restricted to coastal shingle where its foodplants Sea Spurge and Portland Spurge grow. And another new one for me, good work Tony! However, he let me down badly with our next target. We were after Sea Knotgrass, a plant I've been very keen to see for years. Tony was messing around in the upper reaches of the shingle, I knew that was wrong. I headed down onto the barren beach and soon found a sandy depression full of Sea Knotgrass - huzzah!

Sea Knotgrass - what a terrific plant! I loved this!

I lay flat on my belly, merrily papping away (on the wrong settings, of course...) before keying it through noting all the features that made it Sea Knotgrass rather than the maritime form of Knotgrass or even Ray's Knotgrass. I've wanted to see this plant ever since I first learned that it occurs on The Scillies and, despite living there for six months, failing to find it. So it was pleasing to finally meet the little stunner. As is so often the case, it really is one of those "you'll know it when you see it" things.

Tony found it quite hilarious that I'd never seen Hare's-tail before, it's a rampant grass throughout the dunes and pathways all across this part of Hayling Island. Well, what can I say - I'm a tart! I notched up another Tart's Tick in the shape of Spanish Broom at nearby Black Point and again at The Kench where top plant had to be the large bush of Bladder-senna complete with flowerheads and huge, inflated seed pods. It's a pretty cool plant!

There were also several of these growing near the entrance track. I don't know for sure, but suspect it's one of the sunflowers. Hopefully Tony has gone back and nailed the species by now.

Lifers - Sea Knotgrass, Acroclita subsequana, Hare's-tail, Spanish Broom, Bladder-senna

We were casually driving along a track at Beachlands when I spied a clump of colourful flowers out in the field. I ran out, grabbed a few pics and a bit of the plant and tried to figure out what the heck it was

Definitely not a marigold, which is what I thought they were from the car 

Anyway, after a stupendous bit of detective work later that night, I sussed it - Gaillardia x grandiflora aka Blanketflower and already recorded from this tetrad by the BSBI (as welcome confirmation!)

As an aside, the scatter of beach huts immediately south of this field is the location for Mediterranean Stick Insect. We'd both seen them before so didn't try for them on this particular occasion.

Our next destination on this botanical tour of Hayling was Sinah Common where we bashed a load of Tamarisk, I ticked a couple of hemipterans associated with it, plus some weird-shit plants including Tartarian Honeysuckle and Cock's-eggs, the latter having naturalised all along the side of an overgrown field. Here's a poor pic, taken whilst Tony stayed in the car whilst parked up on double yellows. Such a rebel!

The Tamarisk Hopper Opsius stactogalus

Cock's-eggs Salpichroa origanifolia growing prolifically in an area of rough grassland

Lifers - Blanketflower, Tartarian Honeysuckle, Cock's-eggs, Aceria echii, Opsius stactogalus, Tuponia brevirostris

Our final stop on Hayling was to investigate a weedy corner of a large arable field. Tony has recorded several weird weeds here and I was thrilled to clap eyes on my first ever Amaranth, then I remembered what tough buggers they are to identify. I've often used a handlens to ID plants, but I'm not sure I've ever had to use a microscope before, which is exactly what was required of this beast! Tony had a go first, then silently handed it to me. Our IDs didn't match! I went back through the keys, so did Tony. Turns out that we'd both misinterpreted a (different) couplet and after each having a second go we solidly agreed on an identification. Happily, some intense Amaranth-related internet trawling revealed that online images of the plant we'd keyed it to did indeed match the plant we had in front of us. And the result? The snazzily named Indehiscent Amaranth. All to do with how the fruit covering behaves when you rip it open, y'see...

Amaranth - the scariest alien family in Britain maybe?

Lifers - Indehiscent Amaranth

I managed a grand total of twenty two lifers today - when the heck did that last happen!! :)


Part two (of Part 1) will follow soon...…….