Hotel Safari

The hotel in which I work has closed down for the winter season. I am the sole member of staff living here at the moment, and will be until next March. It's only been a few weeks, but so far I'm holding off the madness and alcoholism that befell Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Only time will tell...

Most nights of late have been wet, windy, or wet and windy at the same time. However, I recently decided to start a species list for the hotel grounds and so, between downpours, I set up my light trap in a covered doorway and began my first headtorch safari of the hotel walls. 

Mostly it was all as expected, lots of Amaurobius similis and Zygiella x-notata on the walls and around the windows, plenty of slugs and Tachypodoiulus niger lower down on the walls, a handful of earwigs and woodlice. Plenty of very small flies, I spied a few Sylvicola amongst them. Those I can (and will) identify. Pleasingly, it appears that Tipula pagana is frequent here with several pairs in cop on the walls. 

Note that the female has reduced wings, rendering her incapable of flight. Check your walls of a night-time. If you too have craneflies with reduced wings, particularly this late into the year, it's a pretty safe bet you have Tipula pagana. It appears to be a widespread species throughout most of Britain and Oct/Nov is the time to go looking for them. 

But the biggest surprise was the male Steatoda nobilis hanging in its web in the top corner of a window recess. What the heck is that doing here! I thought Steatoda nobilis was still very much a southern species, restricted to lowland England. I had no idea it occurred further north than about Birmingham. My next surprise was finding a second male a few windows further along the building. Holy crap!

Steatoda nobilis aka the Noble False Widow

At this point in time, I would like to point out that I am not responsible for getting that green paint all over the window frames. That was done before I arrived. I do have an awful lot of painting lined up for this winter, both exterior and interior, but I can assure you it won't be slapped up quite as badly as that. I can also assure you that I will most definitely be keeping my eyes open for any Steatoda whilst painting around window recesses! 

I had a look on iRecord and was surprised to see that there's already a Skye record for Steatoda nobilis (two females photographed) making mine the second record. That's pretty cool, I wonder how widespread they actually are up here.

Female Metellina segmentata 

I checked the light trap in the morning. One Sylvicola which flew off before I could pot it and a lone Tipula pagana, to whom this track is dedicated.