The Tale of the Broken Finger

 Day 4 (Tue 13th October)

I awoke to find that, by way of a change, I wasn't massively hungry. Then I noticed the destroyed pillow. Ah, right. So that would explain the dry throat and fluff stuck between my teeth...

Naturally, I was once again the last to rise. The Ghost was grumbling on about how folks nowadays are all useless twats, apart from the f*cking morons obviously, and that's why this generation's birders are all a bunch of clueless muppets etc etc. Hurray! He was back to normal again! The headache had at last passed and we had our dearest grumbling friend back! I could have kissed him, except I'd never have heard the end of it. I was so happy, in fact, that I made us all my (in)famous scrambled egg mish mash on toast. The Ghost took one look and declined, but Tiny and I packed away a fair lump of the stuff, swilled down with coffee so strong I actually had to chew it. Bloody marvellous.  

It looked to be a fine day outside, so we planned to catch the 10:15am boat to St Martins and look for its endemic ant plus a few plants. The Ghost had some specimens to pin and for once we didn't have to worry about finding food, hence we had a bit of time to kill. What to do? I took Tiny on a whistle-stop tour around The Garrison, finding Chasmanthe ("Chas, man?" "Yeah man, Chas!") Wild Leek, Tall Tutsan and a few other bits and bobs including a calling Yellow-browed Warbler at Morning Point. By the time we returned to our accommodation, The Ghost was ready to rumble and we struck off towards the quay for our boat to St Martins.

I've never really fallen in love with St Martins, despite enjoying some decent birds out there. I suspect this goes back to the time I twitched an Arctic Warbler on the early morning jet boat, possibly the wettest thing I've ever done in my entire life. The chap holding log call the previous evening said he'd "rather walk across than take the jet boat as it will be drier". Holy shit but he wasn't kiddin! We arrived, absolutely saturated, and stared at some trees. Meanwhile, back on Marys, the ID was retracted, pics showed it to be a "funny Chiff" instead. Which we still dipped. After shivering for an eternity, the scheduled morning boat arrived to save us and I promptly returned to my cold tent on The Garrison to change into dry clothes before hypothermia set in. Somehow, I managed to leave the wet clothes on top of my sleeping bag, so that night was almost as much fun too...The finder of the 'funny Chiff' is a well-respected birder, and has found some very decent stuff over the years. I'll probably forgive him one of these days. Probably.

But today we were taking a nice, slow, comfortable and leisurely tripper boat across. No risk of drowning, no risk of hypothermia, no risk of wanting to set fire to my own clothes without taking them off first just to stay warm. Not this day. We landed by the cricket pitch end and headed east through the dunes. Tiny had brought his suction sampler and put it to good work in the marrams, finding several Lesser Cockroaches and a good number of very small spiders, mostly "Linys" which, despite being very small, are surprisingly easy to get to grips with even in the field. Well, they are when Tiny's there telling you what to look at. I have various annotations in my notebook against the names, for example Hahnia nava has 'four mudflaps for spinnerets' and Parapelecopsis nemoraloides will forever be known to me as 'the bobble-headed liny'. Poor pics of the latter below. Bear in mind the whole thing is only a couple of millimetres long, and it was stuck in a dirty glass tube too

Parapelecopsis nemoraloides to the experts. 'Bobble-headed Liny' for the rest of us

Other spiders (the ones I studied well enough to tick, at least) include this lot. There were an awful lot of names thrown at The Ghost and myself, most of which made little sense at the time and make even less sense now. I didn't tick any of those. These are all 'macro-spiders' as opposed to linys (money spiders)

Episinus angulatus - weird body shape and obviously white-banded legs - very distinctive!

Tiny's most exciting spider find! This is an adult male Porrhoclubiona genevensis

This is a very range-restricted species and, although already known from the Scillies, is still a great find. You can read about it by clicking here.

My Ero! (coz I found this one) this is Ero furcata, I believe.

Scotina gracilipes - like a lovely velvety Pardosa, according to my notes 

There were loads more spiders, though I didn't catch the name of most of them. BUT...off the back of all this Linyphiidae shenanigans, I'm going to start tackling spiders more this winter. Many money spiders are winter active as adults (and with spiders you do generally need an adult to determine species as immatures don't exhibit the full complement of identification features) hence they are an ideal family to study at this time of year. Except I don't have literature for them.

What I really need is The Spiders of Britain & Ireland (the 2 volume compact edition), the best price for which appears to be £120 as available here. However, I think I've managed to sort things so that I have all I need for free. How? Well, Tiny has a trashed copy of Vol 2 (the linys) which he says I can have (it has no cover and is in many, many parts - but it's all there) and I already own a copy of The Spiders of Britan and Northern Europe by Roberts which deals with all of the non-linys. Between them I'm sorted! There's a print shop here on Skye, I'll see if they can rebind Tiny's Vol 2 when it arrives, maybe put a cover on it too. Sweet, 2021 may be more arachnid-orientated than I previously envisioned. There are roughly 670 species of spider known in Britain with around 400 of them occurring up here in Scotland. Plenty to keep me interested should I feel inclined to tackle them in earnest.

Edit: I went ahead and treated myself to The Spiders of Britain & Ireland...

But we weren't on Martins for cockroaches and spiders. Hell no, there was an ant to be found! Bob Dawson, as well as being pretty damn good on his birds, moths, stick insects, harvestmen and spiders, is also heavily into his ants. St Martins has an endemic ant, Formica rufibarbis aka the Red-barbed Ant or, more simply, St Martins Ant. Until recently, this was probably mainland Britain's rarest animal with the entire population reducing to single figure numbers of queens each winter. Sadly, the mainland colonies have now been lost, meaning that the only place to see this species in Britain is on the eastern side of St Martins. And that's it. Tiny was busily suction sampling any and all suitable looking south-facing stretches of maritime turf in the search for more spiders and quite possibly in with a chance of finding the ants. I decided that the nearest rock to my left looked as likely a spot as any to begin my own search for the ant. I lifted the small rock - shit a brick, there were  loads of Formica ants beneath!!! - and quickly lowered it again. "Err, chaps? I've found the ants!" I yelled. Clearly they thought I was kidding, I mean under the very first stone lifted? No chance. But kidding I wasn't. They hurried over, I raised the rock, and sure enough there was a nest of the St Martins Ant ready to be oohed and aahed over. We quickly took some pics before I gently lowered the rock back into place. Well, that was rather unexpected!

Formica rufibarbis - the St Martins Ant

We were in a lovely bit of coastal grassland with an incredible view across the Eastern Isles. Even I, stalwart St Martins-aphobe that I am, had to admit it was quite incredible. Tiny and I quickly decided it would make an ideal spot for a lunch break. Now, where was Ghostie...

The Ghost was quietly huddled by some big rocks. He didn't seem very happy, but then he never really does. "You alright mate?" asked Tiny. "Not really, no. I just dropped a rock on my finger. I think I've broken it" came the reply. I wondered how he could possibly have broken a rock with just his finger, before I realised what he meant. "Shit, for real?" I asked. The withering look he gave me told me he wasn't making it up. Holy crap, he was only just over three days of headache, and now he'd broken his finger. "Can you bend it? Does it hurt if you prod the tip? Can you put pressure on it? Has it gone numb? Can you feel any bone sticking through?" I asked. "I can still do this with it" he proclaimed, holding it aloft and aiming it in my direction. It had to be his middle finger, didn't it. Just had to be... Feeling a bit kind of helpless, Tiny and I quietly ate lunch and hoped The Ghost didn't expect us to carry his bag for him. Or need to be airlifted to a hospital, obviously that too. His bag did look heavy though. 

Lunch duly finished, and with the pressure off (apart from in The Ghost's fingertip...), we continued up to the heathy areas below the Daymark, suction sampling all the way and finding a selection of small beetles, spiders and a few groundbugs too. Our main plant target was Lesser New Zealand Flax, which has gone absolutely berserk down in the Great Bay area. The Wildlife Trust have given up trying to control it now; every time they removed a section, seedlings immediately establish in the cleared areas. I suspect napalm is the only sensible way forward now. So we wandered the track, idly chatting about broken bones and stuff, when I suddenly realised we were bypassing Great Bay itself! Happily (or not...) there were a couple of Lesser New Zealand Flax to be found growing amongst the nearby gorse. Tiny needed this for a lifer, but soon decided he didn't need it so badly that he was going to push through 200ft of deep gorse and back to see it properly. Such a wuss...

All that was left to do was to pop into the stores for ice creams and then head back to the boat. Far smaller and yet far more efficient than either the co-op or Tresco Stores, St Martins Stores gets my winning vote hands down. Every once in a while I caught The Ghost checking his finger. Poor fella was certainly going through it this week.

Back on St Marys, Tiny was keen to see more of the island. We had a quick look along the top of the beaches for Scilly Shrew but couldn't find any. Plenty of time yet, I was certain we'd see them soon. I decided we should head down the track that leads to The Dump and then on to Dump Clump, as I call the small woodland nearby. There are plenty of weird and wonderful plants to be found on the huge earthen bank that surrounds The Dump and the woods could hold migrant birds. But first we watched Tiny shove his suction sampler into a huge tussock (oo-er missus!), which he then emptied into his tray. A very small moth flew out, evaded Tiny's attempt to knock it back into the tray, and landed on his collar. I found myself looking at a very distinctively marked micro-moth, one I instantly recognised from the images we'd been looking at just a couple of nights back. "Grab it!!!" screamed The Ghost. "Don't move" I told Tiny, as I expertly potted it from his coat. And then rather inexpertly took it's picture

Oinophila v-flava aka the Yellow-V Moth

This tiny moth occurs as an occasional and accidental import to Britain where it ordinarily occurs indoors, reputedly in cellars and warehouses and suchlike. Apart from here on the Scillies, where it occurs both indoors (Bob gets them in his porch) and outdoors too. The Ghost had this as possibly his number one target for the entire trip (or maybe Blue Shark) and the MVL at our accommodation had thus far failed to attract any (moths, that is, not sharks). Hence his rather frantic "Grab it!!!" scream was quite understandable. Well, grab it I did, team effort and top result! It was far smaller than I was expecting, more like a Phyllonorycter size than the Endrosis sarcitrella size I was expecting it to be. After we'd passed it around between ourselves, The Ghost asked the obvious question, "So why isn't it called the Yellow-W Moth?" Fair comment, well made. 

Moth sorted, we continued towards The Dump, home to acre upon acre of Nasturtium and some really rather odd shrubs too. The bad news was that none were very close. The good news was I already knew what they were.

Digi-binned shot of a large purplish flower!

The lower pic is taken from outside the perimeter fence, looking up at the top of the earthen mound maybe 50 feet away. Amongst the veritable sea of Nasturtium leaves is a bush with elongated greenish ripening to orange berries. Not easy to see, I admit. But anyway, both images are of Kangaroo-apple Solanum laciniatum, which was a lifer for both The Ghost and Tiny(Lister). A very short distance away we found more odd plants including lots of Pale Gallingale Cyperus eragrostis and some larger, darker headed Cyperus which botanist extraordinaire John Martin tracked down as being Giant Umbrella-sedge Cyperus ustulatus, the latter being a lifer for all of us. Other throw out plants here included Bear's Breech, Russian Ivy, Giant Viper's Bugloss, a whole host of Osteospermums and the largest Toothed Medick plants any of us have ever seen. I suspect they must be a giant form used as a nitrogen-fixing crop or for fodder, they are far too robust to be naturally occurring plants.  

Gigantic form of Toothed Medick Medicago polymorpha ssp blimey!

The woods were quiet, so we broke through at Nowhere and eventually found ourselves heading towards the lighthouse at the end of 'Panini Head', as Tiny initially thought it was called. The rare and surprisingly spectacular lichen Teloschistes flavicans, aka the Golden Hair Lichen, grows on several of the huge granite outcroppings on Peninnis Head and Tiny(Lister) obviously needed it. Luckily, I know the very rock that holds loads of it, quite a spectacular rock it is too. Here's Tiny papping the lichen, with The Ghost in the foreground for scale

Hey, Ghost! So does your finger still hurt? (heh heh heh...)

Back indoors that evening we figured that it was high time we caught the boat across to St Agnes in search of the near-mythical Least Adder's-tongue. We all three of us needed the plant, and St Agnes is the only place in Britain you can find it. That's unless you include the Channel Islands as being part of Britain which, biogeographically and for the purposes of my PSL, I don't. I don't count Gibraltar either. Tomorrow we would do precisely that. With a bit of luck we could cross onto Gugh at low tide, thus we will have visited every inhabited island on the Scillies in one week, something I have never before achieved (or tried, to be fair). Tiny was up for that, The Ghost was up for it too. Happy days - all we needed were sharp eyes and a bit of luck. What could possibly go wrong?

Scilly Boys - Part 2

Day 3 (Mon 12th October)

After enjoying far too many hours beauty sleep, Tiny and The Ghost were up at the crack of seven and keen to head back to Bryher where the Swainson's Thrush had been seen again last night. They both wore grim expressions (The Ghost still had a sore head and Tiny hadn't had a lifer for almost ten hours). I finally emerged from my pit some five hours after entering it at 3am, and spotted a moth in a pot sat on the table top. It was a Feathered Ranunculus, but it had thrown The Ghost by being of the endemic subspecies scillonea which looks quite a bit different to the mainland race. 

We desperately needed a food plan. I had half a bag of nuts left over from Tresco stores. Tiny was in mid-catastrophic meltdown due to insufficient coffee intake. I suddenly remembered that I hadn't finished my second bag of chips from Saturday evening's chip shop session. I soon found them laying in a rubbery, greasy heap beneath the table. So, with our breakfast dilemma solved (excepting The Ghost who refuses to eat before 8pm), we planned our day. Food. Chips and nuts duly wolfed, we now had none left. Three days on the island and we'd yet to make it inside the co-op. Saturday's queue was too horrific to contemplate (hence chip shop to the rescue). Sunday we were on the boat before it opened and it had closed again by the time we returned, Bob's soup had saved us that time. Today we would hit it early and raid the aisles, then run straight onto the 10:15am Bryher boat. The co-op opened at 10am, we designated Tiny to do the supermarket sweep, he started the queue at 9:20am. Proper hardcore. I headed to the toilet block to address an issue, presumably resulting from finishing Saturday's cold chips as Monday's breakfast... 

I returned to the co-op to discover that Tiny had left his post at the front of the (now well-established) queue. What the hell??? Turns out the first hour is only for old folks, even though they use it throughout the day. I tried to convince them that I was actually 95 years old, but they weren't falling for it. Old bastards. Luckily for us the corner shop was open, so we stocked up on emergency provisions (Mars Bars, Lucozade, Red Bull, crisps) and headed for the Bryher boat. Lots of birders, hmmm, lots and lots of birders. Our plan, once landed, was to hustle straight to Popplestones and beat the crowds, just in case the Swainson's proved to be crowd shy. And hustle we bloody well did! As it transpired, Tiny and I were first on site, just one birder already in attendance, my old mate Steve who I've known for years and was staying on Bryher for the week. We waved to each other in recognition and settled down to scan. A few minutes passed before Steve gave a quick whistle - he had the bird!!! We carefully hustled over to his side and there, in all of its glory, was an empty hedge. Huh? Then a small thrush flitted into a Coprosma and began picking off the small orange berries - SWAINSON'S!!!!! Fuck yeah, where was Ghost??? Ah, he was here too - excellent! We all enjoyed great views as it flitted between the Pittosporum and Coprosma, often alighting on a curved twig. We watched it until it suddenly flew off - pretty much as the boatload of birders descended. I reckon maybe half of them saw it, if that. I even managed a couple of digi-binned efforts. 

And when I say efforts...

...I wasn't kidding!

Pressure off (for we three at least), we indulged in some mild on the spot dancing, punching of the air, fist-bumping, high fives and subdued whooping. After all, it's not often you see a new bird. Not for The Ghost and myself, at least. Tiny(Lister) probably gets new birds most times he goes out, but not so we old farts. I got chatting with Steve, who mentioned that he hadn't seen me for a while and had heard that I was banned from the island. Whaaat? I had left in an awful hurry, it's true. But I reckon I was blamed for something I didn't do. Anyway, I was cleanshaven and with a ponytail back then, no Bryher residents would recognise me now. Nevertheless, I kept my head down as best I could. Some folks have long memories...

I'm now thinking the coffee-swilling big fella is Tiny's photographer as well as his hair stylist

We were done with the Swainson's Thrush. It hadn't shown itself since we'd last seen it fly into cover (I'm fairly sure our celebratory dancing and singing had nothing to do with it's absence, regardless of the slanderous mutterings emanating from the stony-faced crowd of twitchers). The Ghost was suddenly very keen for us to make an attempt at Orange Bird's-foot on Heathy Hill. I'd seen it once when I lived here in 2016, but never before or since. It's an extremely diminutive plant on a large hillside, and only found in a couple of very discrete patches. Hmmm. I hoped I wouldn't let the boys down and that my TinyRecall would remember the correct rock it grew beside. And the correct trail across the correct part of the hill to get to that correct rock. Hmmm indeed. We set off, crashing through the bushes as we left...

It didn't start well. The Ghost insisted that I was heading in the wrong direction, that Heathy Hill was to our right. I agreed, but pointed out that I personally could not walk across water and so would have to veer inland a tad before striking right. Eventually, after Tiny had pointed to the big bay of water on the map, he relented and followed. Sheesh, this was gonna be tough going! And then we were on Heathy Hill itself. I hoped. I took a wrong track, luckily realised this early on, took another track and suddenly was stood in a spot that looked familiar. "It's on the left side of this track with Common Bird's-foot growing bang opposite on the right side of the track. There's a couple of stones I'll recognise when we get there, but it's really close to here" I said. Then everything stopped looking quite so familiar - where were those stones??? I fell to my knees and crouched over the sward in search of our target, I knew we were close. Tiny and The Ghost did likewise. I changed to a spot a little downhill, nope, went back to where I'd been. Then Tiny yelled "Got it!" just twenty feet downslope from my position. Darn! I say darn, but it sure took the pressure off my shoulders and he had indeed "got it" too. Happy days, we'd successfully located the Orange Bird's-foot! 

Orange Bird's-foot found in vegetative state (the plant, not the finder)

My fingertip for scale. Skilfully located on an open hillside (the plant, not my fingertip)

Shown here with a hairy sprig of Common Bird's-foot added for comparison

We quit Heathy Hill in high spirits and cut through some fields towards a shortcut I knew. Or would have done if not for the fence lines that had sprung up to keep folks away from the large flock of free range chickens. Eventually we meandered our way through, finding some nice arable weeds on the edge of one bulb field including several Weasel's Snout and a lone Statice in the exact spot I ticked it in 2016! My shortcut up a rubble track enabled Tiny to repeat his Red Cage Fungus finding antics, this one located amongst woodchip in a flowerbed of all places!

It's just so very bloody weird!

Lesson learned, I declined to take a sniff of this one. I ain't falling for that again anytime soon! I was on a mission to take The Ghost to a couple of plants I'd previously given him gen for, but he'd missed. One site had been turned into a driveway, the plant just wasn't there any longer. The other site had become so overgrown and full of tipped concrete blocks that I think that plant had gone too. But we did see a whole lot of this, which none of us recognised

I cheekily suggested Cape Daisy (it's my default setting for any big flowers on Scilly that I don't know) but a bit of internet detective work that night resulted in my nailing it as Arctotis aspersa, otherwise known as the White-flowered African Daisy. Heck, I was almost right after all. We noticed this plant growing at several sites across the islands over the next few days, the crinkly almost pinnate leaves being particularly eye-catching. 

We had an abortive stick insect hunt, I've seen the brown morph of Prickly Stick at this precise spot before, but again lucked out (we'd previously spent a bit of time peering into bramble patches without any sign of the beasts despite finding lots of feeding damage). We decided a night assault was required, and soon. 

By now we had worked our way back to the quay where we jumped our boat ride back to St Marys. We ventured into town, the co-op was queued back almost to Old Town, sod that. Happily a deli was open, so we ate healthily for a change before heading uphill via the Sally Port entrance. From here it was just a few metres to Hugh House where we scoured the garden borders for a small plant the boys needed. All I could see was shedloads of Lesser Swinecress and the odd Groundsel. Arse. Then Tiny yelled "Is this it?" and sure enough he had found it. 

Annual Buttonweed growing through Lesser Swi...oh, wait. Doh!!

Yep, all that wall to wall Lesser Swinecress in the flowerbed borders? That's it, that was the Annual Buttonweed we were looking for. I'm glad we found a few in flower else that would have been an embarrassing balls up on my part! We were barely back in the cottage when the pager burst into life, Red-breasted Flycatcher on the Lower Broome Platform, Garrison. I knew a shortcut through the bracken, TWITCH ON! Five minutes later we arrived to find maybe twenty or so birders strung out along the path, all looking in different directions. That's never a great sign. Happily one fella spotted it from the raised path towards the Morning point Battery and we all enjoyed great views of the RB Flicker doing it's thing from the tips of dead elm twigs and from the top of a Tamarisk bush. A very nice bird, the first any of us had seen for a while (four years for me) and Tiny's best views ever! I love these little jams, it's part of what makes Scilly so special. 

There were still a few hours of daylight left and we had it in mind to hit some rockpools. Tiny was keen to see the plants at Tolmans Point, particularly the Ake-ake which he seemed to enjoy repeating endlessly in a funny voice... so that's where we headed. Other botanical delights at Tolmans included Deltoid-leaved Dewplant, Red Crassula, Shrubby Orache, Coastal Daisybush and Western Clover - which neither The Ghost or Tiny would tick seeing as it wasn't in flower. Fair play, I knew what it was though, it blankets this spot in flowers during the summer months.  

Rockpools. Finally. Well, they were pretty decent. I even managed a couple of lifers for myself which was nice. What I didn't do was take many photo's, so you'll just have to take my word that fun was had and that we found loads. Here's one beastie that I did pap, seeing as I knew it was something I'd never seen before

This is the scaleworm Lepidonotus clava

We were all thoroughly enjoying ourselves in the rockpools, but there was definitely a slight restraint shown, a quiet sense of anticipation that things could be better. The tides were huge in a few more days and we planned to hit the lowest remaining tide of the year on Friday. In a sense, this was just a practice run for that mega session. Technically, the very lowest tide occurred during the hours of darkness early on Saturday morning, which was the day we were due to depart Scilly. We'd all brought headtorches with us... Hmmm, slippery rocks, incoming tides, utter darkness, miles from anywhere, all alone and with zero phone reception. I mean, what could possibly go wrong...

Back to today though. I'm usually pretty clued up on the life to be encountered in rockpools, admittedly it's often tricky to tell if you're looking at a sponge or tunicate or bryozoan on occasion, but I can usually suss it to Class at least. However, the splodge on the rock in the image below has me beaten. I suspected sponge at first, then tunicate, then space snot, then marine algae and then pollution. And there was lots of it! The red coloured area is exposed to sunlight, the orange area is on the underside of the boulder. It's clearly one organism that flushes red when exposed. But what is it? Answers/suggestions muchly appreciated!

Alien space snot, or something of this earth (unlikely...space snot for me!)

These particular rockpools were quite hard to work, big boulders interlaced with large areas of rusted metal and engine pieces from the wreck of the S.S.Brodfield, a British steamship which ran aground here 104 years ago next month. I messaged Bob and asked where he reckoned the very best rock-pooling was to be found on St Marys. He came back with Porthloo, Pelistry and Porthcressa Bays, not a word regards Old Town Bay! Bit of a shocker really, I always thought Old Town Bay was THE spot to hit, but Bob knows about these things so we listened. I've rock-pooled at 'Cressa Bay and Pelistry Bay before, but never Porthloo. That would be new turf (well, surf) for me. 

By now we were properly starving. Options are limited at Old Town. There's Old Town Cafe (it was closed), Tolman's Cafe (changed name and hands and closed for the season!), the shop (never bloody open at the best of times. It was shut) and Old Town Inn, which from memory does damn fine pizza. It too was closed. Fook. Happily it was due to open soon, so we loitered and, after choosing an outside table (which amazed the landlord even though it wasn't that cold) we sat there for about an hour until the realisation that we'd been forgotten finally dawned upon our weary minds. Happily, Tiny stepped up to the task and reminded the landlord that we were sat outside in the dark, slowly growing numb in the wind, and that we still wanted food. In the end it was decent scoffage. Except for The Ghost who had some daft numpty knock a near-full glass of cider all over his burger and chips before he'd even taken a first bite from it. I won't mention who was to blame, but it wasn't The Ghost and Tiny's hands just aren't big enough to be that clumsy...  Somehow, the booze went to our heads and we were all giggling like schoolgirls as we wisecracked daft names and situations at each other. The 'Tony Frogmouth' one was an absolute classic, but it makes no sense out of context. Just trust me it was fkkn great. As was the 'Help us Tony Wanker Nobi' hoodie quip. And 'Old Tony's Incontinent', that was a goodun too!

Anyways...

By the time we'd demolished our assorted burgers avec/sans spilled cider it was pitch dark. The only sensible thing to do was drop in to Old Town Cemetery in search of stick insects. Now, as an aside I'm quite into ghost stories and stuff (and FFS don't get me started on sasquatch!) and I once accompanied my mate J from Epsom all the way up to Borley Rectory one August evening many years back. For those of you who don't know, Borley Rectory was probably Britain's most haunted building, until the owner burned it down in a botched insurance scam. The churchyard is now the place to head in search of ghosts. We didn't see any that night, though I did have a weird moment caught in a definite coldspot which was...er...weird! Point being, I've wandered churchyards in search of ghosts, but I've never searched churchyards for stick insects accompanied BY a Ghost. Oddly, almost as soon as we entered the churchyard, he vanished. He just wasn't there any more! Sod it, probably chatting with old pals, I figured. Tiny and I scanned brambles for stick insects. 

The annoyingly familiar "Got one!" cry came from Tiny. Blast it but he's good, is Tiny. I bumbled my way through headstones, hoping none of the occupants were friends of The Ghost, and found myself looking at a Laboratory Stick Insect. "That's a Lab Stick, not a Prickly! Check the missing cerci and red armpits!" I blurted. I had no idea Lab Sticks were in the Old Town area, I thought they were restricted to the Normandy area which is where I've seen them before. Here it is, a full adult at 2.4 metres in length

Carausius morosus the Laboratory Stick Insect 

I gave a piercing whistle and The Ghost was suddenly and quite mysteriously stood there in our midst, the spooky fecker. Apparently he'd found an unattended MVL trap and had been looking around for interesting moths (a likely story). Anyway, he duly oohed and aahed at the Lab Stick, there was also a Common Frog nearby (the only amphibian known on Scillies, I think) which we duly papped like the good little PSLers we are. Quitting the churchyard, we ambled along the lane towards the road. Loads of head-height brambles were growing along the top of the wall and suddenly I spied a small stick insect

What the birders call a record shot, I believe

And this is what it looked like once removed from the overhang and photographed properly

This is a young Prickly Stick Insect, which is the commonest stick insect across Scillies. Note the tiny 'thorns' down its back and obvious cerci. I went on to find two or three more (nice to get one up on eagle-eyed Tiny for once!) and then I looked down at the bare soil by my feet. What the...?

Now, you may call me weird (and you'd be right), but I have rather a soft spot for terrestrial flatworms and Scilly has a fantastic range of flatworms on offer, mostly alien species it has to be said. The upper image shows the Australian Flatworm Australplana sanguinea, which nationally is actually fairly widespread yet has eluded me all these years. Bizarrely, I was with The Ghost when I finally found my first New Zealand Flatworm, maybe he could be my lucky platyhelminthes mascot? I looked into his eyes...erm...yeah, maybe I'll just keep that thought to myself. The lower image shows Kontikia ventrolineata, there were easily a few dozen of these strewn across the track. I've seen this species before, though only here on Scillies, but never in such numbers. Clearly I need to spend more time wandering quiet churchyards after dark! 

Our last notable species of the night was this rather splendid spider, found clinging to the underside of a boulder that I'd just lifted in search of yet more flatworms

Segestria senoculata - also known as the Snake-back Spider

As we wandered  up the hill I suddenly stopped in my tracks. We were stood next to a roadside charity stall, the type that sells jams, potatoes, plant bulbs and eggs. This one held several eggboxes - holy cow! We quickly counted all the change we had in our pockets and managed to buy a dozen eggs and some apples, happy days!! By the time we'd wandered down into Hugh Town the co-op queue had disappeared - double holy cow!!!! We stormed down the aisles like possessed devils, three days we'd been here and this was our first time inside the shop. Three!!  Needless to say, Tiny aimed for the coffee aisle, I aimed for the vino and The Ghost headed straight for the chocolates. Our rucksacks bulging, we headed back to our cottage on The Garrison and ate. Happy days, what on earth would the morrow bring, we wondered.  

TeamTiny Hit Scillies - Part 1

Apologies straight away, for this is not a Skyecentric blogpost in the slightest.

I'm going to share with you an account of my week on Scillies earlier this month. Because what a week it was! In truth I'm not certain I could handle another similar week anytime soon. But I dither, on with the tale...

Rewind back to sometime in early September, I think. I was idly chatting with The Ghost regards work, lockdowns, our ongoing Beetle and Fly Challenge, the need for a break etc etc. I suggested we meet up for a week before the world as we know it ends and we're all consigned to our rooms for the rest of eternity. He agreed, a break was very much needed right now - but where? I gave it a few minutes thought and suggested Scillies in October. To my utter surprise and delight, he instantly agreed and, after a quick phonecall to my old boss Ted at Garrison Holidays on St.Marys, I had secured us a three bedroom cottage with a full £500 knocked off the going rate - huzzah!!! This meant we had space for one more nutjob hardcore pan-species lister... We both agreed as to who that third person should be so I sent him a FB message and waited with baited breath. If this worked out we were guaranteed a week like no other. Amazingly, the third nutjobber came back with a "count me in" and our adventure was on!

Prelude and Day 1 (8th - Sat 10th Oct)

I worked an eight day shift and, with day eight duly completed, jumped into my car and hit the road. I entered England just before midnight and kipped in a layby somewhere just beyond Carlisle. The following afternoon I was in Penzance where I found a parking spot close to the quay and spent a comfortable second night kipping in the car. In the morning I spotted my fellow adventurers whilst I was waiting to board the Scillonian, much socially-distanced merriment ensued as we jubilantly boarded and found ourselves seats on the open deck. The Ghost and I are old hands at Scilly visits, but it was a first time for our travelling companion. Okay, okay, I've left you in suspense quite long enough. The third person involved was none other than (are you sitting down?) the one and only TinyRecorder! I first met TinyRecorder, or Tiny as his friends call him, in February of this year. It was a memorable occasion, and I'd been quietly hoping to spend time in the field with him again. To be taking Tiny on his first tour of Scillies was definitely a bit special (curiously, many folks looked at us as though we all three of us were a bit special that week...) and I hoped my bragging of securing him half a dozen plant lifers before reaching our accommodation would prove to be true. Heck, we weren't even out of Penzance harbour and already I was starting to feel the pressure building (should have gone before we left, I guess).

As it happens, Tiny had his first Scillies lifer before we'd even berthed at Hugh Town. We approached St Marys from the north end, thus passing Bar Point and allowing Tiny decent views of his first Cabbage-palms Cordyline australis several of which are naturalised in the dunes here. En route to our cottage, he added Cliff Pasty, Four-leaved Allseed, Cineraria, Giant Viper's-bugloss and witnessed the first example of my overall ineptitude when it comes to naming the various 'cape/seaside daisies' that proliferate throughout Hugh Town. "So are they all Cape Daisy?" he enquired. "Yeah, but er... different ones... umm... ooh look this is Mind-your-own-business, do you need that too?" came my rather evasive response. I probably should have revised my Scilly plant ID skillz before we arrived. 

We arrived at The Garrison and, whilst I booked in with the staff, Tiny bagsied the only double bed (I mean, WTAF) and The Ghost set up his MVL trap in the garden. Then it was TWITCH ON! as we hurried down to the quay and off to Bryher for an elusive Swainson's Thrush in Popplestones fields. This would be a bittersweet moment for me, my only previous Swainson's attempt was on Bryher some years back. The bird failed to show that particular day and was subsequently found dead beneath a bush. Would this be second time lucky for me? The Ghost and Tiny needed it too, no pressure then.

Sadly, we dipped. The bird hadn't been seen after showing well at 1pm. We'd caught the first available boat across after our arrival, but were already a couple of hours too late. We gave it a while, Tiny signed a few autograph books, then we moved off in search of alternative goodies. As was often mentioned throughout the week, birders miss out on so much! Our pan-species approach meant we were never far from making amazing discoveries and finding new species. Tiny had by now discovered "Piptosporums" (Pittosporum) and leaves with breathing holes on the underside (Tree Bedstraw) and The Ghost was grumbling about the tickability of Melianthes major at the dump. The Ghost did a lot of grumbling, in fact, but then we realised that he'd developed a headache which went on to last for nearly three days. I guess I can do that to some folks....

Birders not seeing a Swainson's. And not looking at/for anything else...

Day 2 (Sun 11th October)

Today we decided to hit Agnes in search of Least Adder's-tongue, then changed our minds once at the quay and decided to go to Martins instead. So The Ghost was understandably baffled when at the last minute we boarded the Tresco boat! Poor chap had gen for an island we weren't visiting in his pocket, zero gen for the extensive array of plants to be found on Tresco that we were visiting and a continuing sore head. I guess at least he hadn't physically injured himself else he'd have been insufferable...

At Tresco we experienced a ludicrous lack of efficiency at the store (previously we'd abandoned plans to hit the co-op in Hugh Town due to the ridiculously long queue to enter) but eventually we all managed to purchase food and drink without resorting to violence on my part. Cocky twats. We headed into Abbey Woods with a plan to find weird plants naturalised from the Tresco Abbey Gardens. We also needed to visit the bird hides at Great Pool in an attempt to find a spider that occurs there. We then intended to hit the dunes in search of more ridiculous plants and in order to vacuum sample the marram tussocks and open maritime sward. Finally, we were keeping loose tabs on John Martin, birder and botanist extraordinaire who was also on Tresco, and Bob Goldenballs Dawson was planning to come across on the afternoon boat. Bob was keen to catch up with the big fella that travelled with Tiny. I think he was in the wardrobe department, or in camera work maybe. I never actually caught his name, a weird kinda scruffy chap really, but Tiny put up with him, so we did too. We let him carry most of the heavier stuff like the suction sampler, nets, sieving tray etc. Useful, even if he did constantly reek of cheap coffee. Anyway, Bob is into spiders and harvestmen amongst other things, and wanted to chat with the big hairy lump. Fair enough. 

We started off by stringing a bizarrely-calling Wren for an American warbler inside a dense thicket which we actually crawled into. We then spotted this plant which I've yet to identify. In fact, I'd forgotten all about it until reviewing which pics to insert here! Any ideas folks? Remember, this is Tresco so it could be pretty much anything...looks to be a Senecio ragwort though? Stood about three feet tall if memory serves (though I did earn the nickname TinyRecall halfway through the week, so it could be two inches tall for all I know....)

We passed along the edge of Great Pool, scanning the bushes for signs of the Black and White Warbler that had been here up until a few days ago. No joy, sadly. The bird hides here are still open, unlike those on St Marys which have been closed due to the ongoing covid propaganda. Inside the hide we found a few of these

This is the spider Cryptachaea veruculata, discovered new to Britain on Tresco in 1960. It's originally from New Zealand, hence was undoubtedly introduced with plants from that country that were brought into the Abbey Gardens. It has more recently spread from Tresco and occurs on St Marys as well as parts of western Cornwall. It's a pleasing, if probably romantic, notion to think that visiting birders have inadvertently carted them from site to site in their hair/rucksacks/whatever. Certainly these spiders occur mere inches above folks' heads in the bird hides, but I suspect the actual mechanism is ballooning, that's how most spiders travel distances. 

With the spider safely in the metaphorical bag (Tiny used a glass tube), it was time to hit Abbey Wood in search of various alien plants that have been dispersed beyond the Abbey Gardens. Whether via birdsown seeds, windblown pappus or just pure magick, as long as the plants haven't been deliberately planted (wooden support stakes and plastic name bearing tags being a big giveaway) they're generally good to tick. To be fair, there's a bit more to it than that, but essentially there's a big long list of plants that have naturalised that we hadn't seen. The Ghost had all the gen. Unfortunately, it was back in our cottage because we'd been heading to Agnes when we left.... something The Ghost pointed out to we numpties just once or twice (for 'just once or twice' read 'lots'). 

Obviously, we still found loads of stuff including one plant that remains a complete baffling mystery. First up, Tresco is utterly fantastic for ferns. Here's a quick few for you, all growing happily in Abbey Woods. We simply wandered along newly created rides where Rhododendron has been clear-felled and stopped whenever we found something clearly non-native. Such as these

These are Chilean Hard-fern, big buggers!

This is Kangaroo Fern scrambling up a...damnit, we didn't check the tree!  

This beast is Australian Tree-fern, many 'sporlings' occur throughout the woods here

We found a massive number of  seedlings/saplings of a tree that exhibited pale, wrinkled-edged leaves. It's abundant throughout the woods yet doesn't appear in the Flora. This year I was determined to suss it to species. And I did! 

There's a Pittosporum that looks a bit like this, there's an Oleaster that looks a lot like it too. But this is Myrsine australis, aka the Red Matipo. It's endemic to New Zealand, is not listed in Stace and isn't on the BSBI database. But that's what it is! It's used for hedging inside the Abbey Gardens where it self-seeds prolifically. Much detective work was required for that, including reading blogs from folks who worked in the gardens. Got there in the end though. Wish I could say the same for this 'creeper'

Absolutely NO IDEA!

If anybody reading this recognises this plant, or knows somebody who may, please comment below! The leaves are glossy and almost plastic-like they're that tough. In fact, I did briefly wonder if I was being pranked and it was a replica plant! But it's real. And baffling. 

Edit - today, 5th Dec 2025, I have sussed it. This is Semele androgyna, which is grown in the Abbey Gardens. Can't believe it's taken FIVE YEARS to name this! It's not listed on the USKI or BSBI Lists.

We also found a commonly self-seeding tree in the undergrowth. We clocked the leaves but it wasn't until we found one in flower that we could figure the identity. Although even with flowers it was quite a puzzler, as can be seen here

This is African Hemp (Sparmannia africana) and widespread in the woods

According to the BSBI Maps, Sparmannia africana has its sole British outpost on Tresco. That's it! There are plenty more alien plants I could bore you with that occur in Abbey Woods. Sod it, if you're still here at this point you may actually be interested. Here goes for another bucketload of alien oddities

Woad-leaved Ragwort - sadly without the purplish flowerheads

Tasmanian Fuchsia - nice pale velvety undersides to the leaves

Crassula multicava - a recent escapee that is starting to form carpets on the woodland floor

These bottom two pics are the same tree - is it a Melaleuca perhaps???

Edit - this is Narrow-leaved Bottlebrush Callistemon linearis and was first found growing in these woods in 1995. Many thanks to Jonathon Newman for the ID.

We'd managed to lose track of John (turns out he'd seen an American Golden Plover, headed into the gardens for lunch with his good lady and jammed into a Radde's Warbler) and hoped to meet Bob somewhere in the dunes as he arrived on the afternoon boat. So...off to the dunes it was! We had a spot of excitement when Tiny picked up a weakly stridulating bush-cricket that we old duffers couldn't even hear. This was very bad news for me, I know all about folks losing some frequency range as they age, but I didn't suspect that it had happened to me. Sad times indeed. Tiny was leaping about like an agitated grasshopper, trying to triangulate a fix on the hidden bush-cricket. Ghost and I just stood there like lumps, unable to help. Tiny was blethering on about there being at least three of them calling, I was feeling morose and miserable. Suddenly the wind dropped and I could clearly hear one brokenly stridulating away somewhere behind me - joy!!! It went silent as I approached, before kicking up again as I departed. This went on for some time, I never glanced the beast in question, but at least I could hear it! Tiny also failed to track one down. By now I was confident that we were hearing Great Green Bush-cricket and not a species new for Britain. Tiny wasn't convinced, but nothing else fitted. It was about this time that Bob arrived and immediately said he'd be back with a bat detector on his next visit and that Great Green Bush-crickets do occur here. Presumably the stridulating individuals were just having a last blast, this is very late in the season for them and full-blown stridulation probably finished some time back. Mystery solved. Hopefully.

The Ghost was officially fuckered, he collapsed on a dune and opted to sit out any more shenanigans for at least as long as it takes to sneak in a quick nap. To be fair, he did look pretty unhealthy. Even for a ghost, I mean. Tiny and Bob were discussing suction sampling, spiders, surveyworks etc. I cast my eye around, had a brief Hobby go through and found some more plants for that low-listing Tiny fella for when he'd finished chatting. A selection of which follows

Spanish Dagger - Yucca gloriosa

Balm-leaved Figwort photobombing a Jersey Lily Amaryllis belladonna

Tresco Rhodostachys Ochagavia carnea with African Lilies Agapanthus praecox

Tresco Rhodostachys

Common Rhodostachys - also on Tresco!

Back with Bob and Tiny, the suction sampler had turned up the goods with some nice spiders captured, along with various tiny beetles which I collected for later (maybe much later...) identification

Tiny hoped that these would prove to be the hugely range restricted and massively under-recorded Clubiona pseudoneglecta, but they turned out to be Clubiona terrestris which is a common species. I'm rather pleased with the outcome of these next pics, animals in tubes look so...captive!

This is the teensy jumping spider Euophrys frontalis

Looks as though she's sucking on one of Tiny's nuts....

Tiny gave a "Feckin shit, come look at this!!!!" cry and we found ourselves hurtling through the marrams to see what he'd discovered. It was this....

Yet another alien! This is Red Cage Fungus, and a total surprise find

Somehow, and I can't immediately recall the exact details right now, but somehow it was my job to describe the smell emanating from this bizarre structure. See that brown gloopy stuff inside the cage? I think that's the bit that stinks. So, down on my belly, nose to the cage, hoping nobody was taking pics of my exposed arse-crack, I took a deep whiff... PHEW!!!!!! "Smells like someone has sprayed a dogshit with cheap perfume" was my exact description. If ever you find yourself nose to nose with a Red Cage Fungus I can only suggest you sniff carefully and cautiously. Or, better still, not at all.  

As we were heading back towards St Marys, Bob kindly invited us for a quick tour of his garden in the hope of finding Dicranopalpus larvatus, a very small harvestman that he added to the British list just last year. The Ghost politely declined, apparently preferring to gouge his own eyes out with a rusty spoon than to delay his falling straight into bed. Poor chap, we'd never seen him like this before. Tiny was quite worried, I figured the old bugger just needed a decent nap and a can or six of V. Bob asked what was a can of V.

Unperturbed, Tiny and I followed Bob to his multi-level back garden and began turning stones and boards in search of goodies. One of Bob's dogs bit my cuff and tried to rag me, then the other dog started humping it and I was left unmolested from that point on. We didn't find the target Dicranopalpus but we did unearth some nice stuff, ranging from the slug mite Riccardoella oudemansi scurrying across Tandonia budapestensis slugs, female Ochlerotatus detritus mosquitoes landing on our hands to feed, to the leafmining fly Amauromyza verbasci all over Bob's mullein plants, Least Duckweed in the pond to this lovely looking Puccinia on Daisy leaves

This is Puccinia obscura, one I very often see on Luzula and not the lifer I hoped it would be

Nelima gothica - "the Garden Warbler of the harvestmen" as Bob put it, but a lifer for me!

Amauromyza verbasci mines on a mullein - loads of these in Bob's garden

Tiny realised that we hadn't eaten, Bob's lovely lady decided we looked hungry and forced us to accept homemade soup and bread to take back up the hill with us. We politely refused several times, but when she waved a stick at us and mentioned setting the hounds loose... 

Back at the cottage we found The Ghost to be alive and feeling marginally better. Cheeky bugger had even found a pizza for himself! Tiny and I absolutely demolished the soup, best thing ever! So ended our first two days on the Scillies. Tiny was suffering from lifer overload and constantly muddled up species and places names with each other. He's a bit crap after about 4pm and tends to invent words as he goes along. Sheesh, coupla lightweights or what? We (ie they...) decided for an early night. I needed to make a start on the specimens I'd collected before I lost track of which tubes belonged to which sites. What would tomorrow bring us, I wondered....