It's SNOW FLEA time

 Lockdown 2

If you are looking for something to do for your "daily exercise" allowance during Lockdown 2 consider going out to your local patch and looking for snow fleas, Boreus hyemalis.

Photograph: David Williams

The above photograph is of a female found just before Lockdown 2 started at Corbet Wood near Grinshill. 

The insect is about 5mm in length and the male differs from the female in that its abdomen is blunt ended with claspers and its wings have developed into a pair of spine-like features that are used to support the female during mating.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

The spine-like feature is clearly seen in these photographs of immature males photographed at Corbet Wood.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

Photograph: David Williams

Another feature of these insects is the beak-like extension to the head which can be seen in the last photograph above and in the one of the mating pair. 

This is described in the Royal Entomological Society's Handbook for the Identification of British Insects (Volume 1, Parts 12 and 13) - Mecoptera, Megaloptera and Neuraptera by Lt-Col F C Fraser I.M.S. as giving "a grotesque bird-like appearance to the insect's head".

Rather an insult to the insect (and birds) in my opinion.

If you would like a copy of the Identification Handbook you can download a pdf at no cost from the Royal Entomological Society's website - LINK. As well as this handbook there are many others available for download at no cost.

Where can you find them?

They are associated with moss. According to the handbook The moss favoured is short, compact and velvety, growing on a loose sandy loam (Polytrichum commune). From my limited experience they are found in or close to good sized patches of Polytrichum moss at the edge of woodland paths and rides, and within woodland, but where the canopy is more open.

This photograph shows one of the patches of Polytrichum in which they were found at Corbet Wood.

Photograph: David Williams

And this photograph the habitat in which they were found.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

(It is possible, of course, that having had some success finding them in such habitats, those becomes the only areas I look for them, thus missing other suitable habitats!)

How to find them?

My method of choice is a suction sampler as this is a very quick method of checking out a patch of moss. But patience is still required when sifting through the "catch" as the snow fleas have an uncanny knack of staying hidden in the leaf litter that is inevitably sucked up.

The more traditional method is to observe the moss for a reasonable time to detect any movement. Snow fleas will move around the moss, often on the surface, and can be spotted. Good eyes and patience are needed. I assume that close-focus binoculars may assist. But remember not all the movement will be caused by snow fleas, other insects take advantage of the habitat and its inhabitants.

Of course, a clue is in the common name, Snow flea. They have acquired this as they are "easy" to spot in the snow when they can be seen walking over the whitish surface. I have never seen this.

The "flea" part is that they do jump and are capable of a leap of a couple of inches (5cm for those readers only brought up on SI Units).

When can you find them?

They are an insect of the cold, winter period. The handbook states that they can be found between November and April. They have been found in Shropshire from November to February.

So they are an ideal insect to look for during the current lockdown, and the restrictions that will inevitably follow; when you are walking off the effects of Christmas Dinner; or just getting out and about.

Have a go. They are such a bizarre but delightful insect that finding one brings much needed joy.

Next:

Short-winged coneheads, Conocephalus dorsalis, have been found and photographed for the first time in Shropshire.

A trip to the former open cast mine named Huntingdon Lane in Telford recorded the first sighting of this insect in a grassland area. Our orthopterist had visited the site earlier and using his bat-detector was able to identify the presence of this insect from its call. Unfortunately his search for the insect was in vain.

A week or so later in October, when we were still allowed to meet in groups of six, a group of five of us met up to explore this area and, armed with sweep nets and suction devices, try to locate the elusive conehead.

Liberal use of the bat detector once again pronounced the presence of a singing short-winged conehead. But try as we might, using only manual random searching efforts, we could not catch sight of it.

Frustrated, what could we do?

Have lunch.

Then try again.

This time we we tried a more co-ordinated approach with the aid of powered help. Eventually we located a insect by using the bat detector and closing in, carefully, on the likely spot we thought it may be.

In the end powered help was not required as the insect was observed.

It seemed unperturbed by our presence and quietly posed for the press pack that recorded its presence.

Photograph: David Williams

It was then left in peace to get on with its life and we meandered our way home.

Also in October a few of us had another socially-distanced scramble up the scree slope and rocks of Pontesbury Crags to check on the state of the colony of the Purse-web spider Atypus affinis. We did not see any of the spiders as they tend to stay within their webs. Occasionally males will be found wandering around searching for females but, so my spiderman colleague tells me, this is usually at night, However we did find a good number of webs confirming that the colony was surviving. 

Photograph: David Williams

The climb up the crags afforded us excellent views on a beautiful day.

Photograph: David Williams

Having descended from the heights we spent a while checking out the scree slope. Here are three of the insects we found in the vegetation at the bottom of the slope:

Drinker moth larva

Photograph: David Williams

Lily beetle

Photograph: David Williams

A hoverfly, Rhingia rostrata

Photograph: David Williams

As with recent reports I now present a round up of photographs of other interesting things that contributors have been kind enough to send me.

In a garden in Church Stretton there lurked ...

A Sloe bug, Dolycoris baccarum ...

Photograph: Graham Wenman

And a pair of Rosemary beetles.

Photograph: Graham Wenman

On the Long Mynd at Gogbatch lots of pupal cases of, perhaps, a cranefly, were found scattered on the ground.

Photograph: Graham Wenman

In the same area an unidentified reed beetle was found and photographed.

Photograph: Graham Wenman

As well as a Knotgrass moth larva.

Photograph: Graham Wenman

Staying on the Long Mynd we move to Cwmdale where more larvae were photographed.

A Ruby tiger;

Photograph: Graham Wenman

A Bright-line Brown-eye;

Photograph: Graham Wenman

And another Drinker.

Photograph: Graham Wenman

One other larva of interest was found at Corbet Wood. A large beetle larva that is probably a Carabus species.

Photograph: David Williams

And to finish a couple of springtail photographs that arrived yesterday. I will let the photographer tell the story:

"After a few weeks of respite, the neighbours were once again treated to the site of me apparently praying to my pond this morning (or drinking it), bum in the air, nose to the surface. Reason: aquatic springtails have finally appeared. Not Podura aquatica but Sminthurides cf aquaticus. Photo attached of a 0.9mm long monster. 

Photograph: David Williams

"I also fished out a 1.2mm long Dicyrtoma fusca while I was at it; it perched on my thumbnail for the attached photo."

Photograph: David Williams

Keep well.

End of Season Sale

Monday, 5th October 2020

I am not sure why September 30 / 1 October is so significant to entomologists and the like, but it seems to signify the end of the season and the start of winter tasks. Nets and beating trays are put away in a safe place to be rediscovered next April, unidentified specimens are retrieved from storage and put under the microscope and records are tidied up before submitting to the various people and organisation responsible for keeping the records for public consumption.

And what do you get normally at the end of a season?

An End of Season Sale.

Here is my contribution to this tradition.

In this piece I will continue the "bits and pieces" stories from this peculiar season picking up from where I left off in my last report.

But before I do one reader has sent me some photographs from mid-August of her efforts to "try and photograph" dragonflies at the excellent reserve in Broseley, The Haycop. These look pretty good to my non-photographers eyes. I hope you agree.

The first is a female Southern hawker.

Photograph: Christine Littlewood

The second is of a pair of Common darters.

Photograph: Christine Littlewood

.

Back to September, the thirteenth to be exact.

Four of us travelled, in separate cars due to the covid restrictions, to Cherhill Down, near Marlborough, in Wiltshire. The Down is well known as a site of a "White Horse". But it was not this that we went to see. Our target for the day was a large bush cricket, known as a Wartbiter, Decticus verrucivorus.

Wartbiters are very rare insects and their rarity affords them legislative protection. You can look but you cannot touch, disturb or otherwise cause distress.

The journey there was difficult as an accident on the M5 just south of Tewkesbury had led to the closure of the motorway and a diversion through Tewkesbury south to Gloucester.

The traffic on the motorway was quite light so no great delay was anticipated as I approached the diversion.

How wrong I was.

As soon as I had moved on to the sliproad at the junction the traffic ground to a halt.

I put the delay down to a rash of traffic lights and expected it to clear once through them.

It didn't.

It was snail pace for the next hour or so, then, as if by magic, the road cleared and good progress was made.

Then, as I crossed the M4 by Swindon, I found the M4 closed and the official diversion through Marlborough which is where I was heading.

To be fair, until I got close to Marlborough, the traffic kept moving but we came to a halt again on the outskirts of the town. This was followed by a crawl until the junction where the M4 diversion went one way and I, thankfully, went the other. 

I eventually got to the meeting point, rather later than planned, to find two colleagues standing in a space in a lay-by which they beckoned me to fill.

We had been given a grid reference of where the wartbiters had been found in the past, so we headed straight to that spot.

Some of us followed the public footpath, others plotted their own route.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

We eventually met up again in the small, steep-sided valley in which the wartbiters were reported to reside.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

As one gets older one's hearing range diminishes. One of the by-products of this change is the ability to hear the song of grasshoppers and crickets. Fortunately our orthopterist is young and he can hear many of their calls, including wartbiters.

Using his aural ability, plus a little help from a bat detector, he soon homed in on the target species.

Needless to say, we joined him to have a look.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

What you cannot gauge from the photograph is its size. It is a big insect.

The one in the photograph is a male. Apparently males tend to inhabit dense tussocky grass, whereas females prefer a shorter sward. The valley in which we found them had plenty of both types of habitat.

The target species found we wandered off to explore more of the valley.

Sometime later we heard an excited yell from one of the group as he descended the steeply sloped side of the valley from an exploration of the upper slopes. Having got our attention he shouted "Wasp spider".

Having spent many hours searching for wasp spiders in Shropshire without success we were all very excited by this find and rushed over to join him and see the animal.

Photograph: David Williams

The photograph shows the spider's underside.

Its meal is a Roesel's bush cricket.

A second spider was seen nearby.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

Here is the scene that greeted any passers-by as this photographic frenzy was taking place.

As our master orthopterist moved away he found two more! One was with an egg-sac.

Photograph: David Williams

Wasp spider worship over we continued our explorations.

Eventually, a second wartbiter was located and photographed.

Photograph: David Williams

We returned home very happy.

A few days later a few of us visited a meadow at Crossways, close to the Rhos Fiddle SWT site, and the neighbouring Riddings Wood.

Conditions were good and the drone was launched capturing this view of the area we were in.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

Here is a more conventional view of the meadow with the wood in the background.

Photograph: David Williams

Flushed with success our drone pilot absented himself and disappeared to Rhos Fiddle. Here he took this aerial photograph of this site.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

As good and informative as these photographs are the rest of us kept our feet firmly on the ground and sought out creatures typically found at this time of year.

A small plantation of young oaks and the surrounding area proved to be the most productive. The following is a selection of the beasts we found there.

A large late season mirid bug Adelphocoris lineolatus, commonly known as the Lucerne bug.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

A large orbweb spider Araneus quadratus.

Photograph: Bob Kemp

A Gorse shieldbug, Piezodorus lituratus.

Photograph: David Williams

An Hieroglyphic ladybird, Coccinella hieroglyphica.

Photograph: David Williams

And a sawfly larva, the Pear slug, Caliroa cerasi.

Photograph: David Williams

Another fine day was had by all. Our thanks to the owner for allowing us to visit.

The following week, on September 21st, three of us travelled independently to Yoseden in Buckinghamshire. The site is close to Aston Rowant but a few miles further north of the M40.

I start with a brilliant photograph of the site being overflown by a Red kite, Milvus milvus.

Photograph: David Williams

As you can see, not a cloud in the sky; what a glorious late September day.

Yoseden is a steeply sided chalk grassland flanked on the higher ground by woodland and the lower by farmland. The information board told us that it is a site where Chiltern and Autumn gentian can be found. It also told us that it is difficult to tell them apart, leaving us pondering "How do you separate them?"

Here is a gentian. Feel free to tell me which one it is.

Photograph: David Williams

Why did we chose this site for a day out?

To find Great green bush cricket. A warden at another reserve we had visited looking for these suggested that this was a good place to find them.

Did we find them?

No.

If only we had been there earlier in the year we may have seen plenty.

No matter, we did have a good day on this excellent site, which, according to the Berks, Bucks and Oxon SWT website, is home to 28 species of butterfly, almost 50% of the British species. In fact the day after we went there, Yoseden was featured on the "One Show" where the presenter of the piece was visiting to photograph Adonis blues.

Clearly it was a bit late in the year for many of the butterfly species but we did manage to spot a rather worn Brown argus.

Photograph: David Williams

The grassland is grazed by a few cows. These greeted us as we passed through the kissing gate to gain access. They were no threat, they were huddled together seeking, seemingly, shade under the trees. However, where you get cows, you get cow-pats.

Lots of insects visit dung and one shiny fly immediately caught our attention.

Photograph: David Williams

This is a soldier fly, Sargus flavipes, known to some as a Yellow-legged centurian!

Dung was to play an important role later in the day ... read on to find out why.

A plant that was in full bloom throughout the site was Devil's-bit scabius.

Photograph: David Williams

It was at this species of plant that we saw one of our larger hoverflies, Epistrophe grossulariae.

Photograph: David Williams

And our largest hoverfly, Volucella zonaria.

Photograph: David Williams

Our search for the Great green bush cricket did not yield any sightings but we did find a Speckled bush cricket, Leptophyes punctatissima sunning itself in the bushes.

Photograph: David Williams

Nearby a Common green shieldbug, Palomena prasina was also enjoying the September sun.

Another person was wandering around the site, clearly searching for something, close to where we were. She told us that she was looking for the Hornet robberfly, Asilus crabroniformis which is found on this site.

This is is one of the largest flies in Britain. It feeds on grasshoppers, dung beetles and other flies and is often found on dung. We promised to keep an eye out for one.

With this promise in mind we continued looking for the elusive bush cricket but checking out cow-pats as we picked our way through the grassland. 

Our vigilance paid off as a female Hornet robberfly was seen. The fly was followed until it settled for long enough to be photographed.

Photograph: David Williams

Our fellow searcher joined us to share our views of the insect.

This or another female was seen later where it appeared to be ovipositing in or under a cow-pat.

Photograph: David Williams

After all this excitement it was time for a rest. We all met the voluntary warden of the site who was, sensibly, sitting under the shade of a tree at the top of the site observing our activities. We had a good discussion about our interests, the site itself , the surrounding land and Great green bush crickets. He felt that we had left it too late to see the bush crickets.

We made one last effort to find the elusive insect but, as you know already, this was to result in failure. However, we did see several more Hornet robberflies including this male.

Photograph: David Williams

The following day, whilst on an outing to Gogbatch, Catherine and Graham found this rather smart beetle on mint.

Photograph: Graham Wenman

It is, surprise, surprise, a Mint beetle, Chrysolina herbacea. This is only the fifth record in the county. Another one to keep a look out for.

A week later Graham found this in his garden.

Photograph: Graham Wenman

It is a Tortoise bug, Eurygaster testudinaria. Until recently these had only been recorded in the Wyre Forest, then one turned up in Dolgoch Quarry followed by sightings in Telford and Cramer Gutter. Now it is found in gardens. What a remarkable expansion of range within the county!

Fittingly, I end this "End of Season Sale" at the end of September with a  Twenty plume moth, Alucita hexadactyla, one of many seen in log store in Madeley.

Photograph: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Now as I prepare for winter in these uncertain times, who knows what the future will bring. I will continue to venture out, others may join me or venture out on their own as permitted by ever-changing regulations. On these outings photographs will be taken and these, I hope, will be shared with you periodically.

I cannot say with any certainty if the Joy of Wildlife group will be able to gather again next year, but I will put together the programme for 2021 during the next few months in the hope that it will.

My thanks to the many photographers who have provided photographs for me to use. And, of course, my thanks to you, the readers, who make the production of these ramblings worthwhile.