Skye - 500 (with minutes to spare!)

I believe the phrase is "eleventh hour", and indeed mine came with just 43 minutes remaining at precisely 11:17pm. Annoyingly, it was something I'd overlooked earlier rather than something amazing on a tree trunk, found whilst lamping in the woods. Though, speaking of lamping in the woods....

Nuctinea umbratica by torchlight at night

According to the Spider Recording Scheme, this is the first record of the species on Skye since "1980-1991", so that's a nice update for them. Even better, and on the same outing after dark, was this fine lady

Steatoda bipunctata - on the shop windowframe! 

As can be seen from the SRS website, this is entirely new to Skye. 

I've been joined by my good friend Tony the last week or so, it's entirely down to him that I went out lamping last night and that I've been pushed into successfully achieving 500 for the square by end of March. I have to say, I'm blown away by it all. 500 - by March!!! I know Ali is storming into the sunset of his home straight already, but it's pretty good going for someone like myself. 

Highlights since my last update have been many and varied. Yesterday, again thanks to Tony's prompting, this fat bugger has made it onto the VC104 list at last, must be massively overlooked!

Glyphipterix haworthana extracted from a Cottongrass seedhead. New for Skye, bizzarely!

I was pretty darned chuffed to finish work, look out the window and see this fine fella sat on the suet ball feeder a week or so back, first time I've encountered it anywhere on Skye

Male Reed Bunting. He pit-stopped for two whole days whilst on passage back to...somewhere! 

A huge surprise (for me, at least) was finding an area of Sphagnum bog that held several dozen Fir Clubmoss plants. I've only ever seen these at the top of Cairngorm and had absolutely no idea they occured in lowland bogs too. Still, that's one of the great things about this 1KSQ mallarkey - you sure do learn a few things along the way! 

Fir Clubmoss in a bog - who'da thunk it? 

So, I'll do a breakdown of my first 500 of the year (haha, cocky bugger or what?) tomorrow. Tony, should you be reading this at some point after journeying back down south again, thank you so much for heading all the way up here (and in the middle of an Ice Age too, good effort!) I hope you had a blast, I certainly did. Ali, Pete and Tim - I'm still stoked at being able to share NG3963 with a decent naturalist, so hurry up and get yer arses on up here! 

Quiz time for Ali and comparison with 2013

Well, as there's still not much going on in my neck of the woods, here's an easy one for Ali to get:

Additions since my last post are:

451	Pogonognathellus longicornis	Springtail	Collembola	25/03/2018
452	Elachiptera cornuta	Diptera	Chloropidae	25/03/2018
453	Neomyia cornicina	Diptera	Muscidae	25/03/2018
454	Andrena flavipes	Hymenoptera	Andrenidae	25/03/2018
455	Bombus lucorum s.l.	Hymenoptera	White-tailed Bumblebee	25/03/2018
456	Melangyna lasiophthalma	Diptera	Syrphidae	26/03/2018
457	Haematopus ostralegus	Birds	Oystercatcher	28/03/2018
458	Phaonia subventa	Diptera	Muscidae	29/03/2018
459	Pollenia angustigena	Diptera	Calliphoridae	29/03/2018
460	Bombus hypnorum	Hymenoptera	Tree Bumblebee	29/03/2018
461	Botanophila fugax	Diptera	Anthomyiidae	29/03/2018

And just to prove I've got too much time on my hands, here's the rough progression of the scores from Andy Musgrove in 2013 (taken from his blog, no entries for Aug-Nov that I could see). His total of 1406 is still the highest for a full year:

28/01/2013 - 158

28/02/2013 - 217

31/03/2013 - 261

29/04/2013 - 400

26/05/2013 - 612

30/06/2013 - 904

23/07/2013 - 1115

31/12/2013 - 1406

Two points - three of us are double or getting on for double what Andy was on at the end of March, and then look at the huge increases in Andy's totals in May, June and July. So I'm still looking forward to the warmer weather!

Dalgety Bay - end of month (ish)

Not many photographable or photogenic species added of late so here's a nice landscape looking east  from my autumn vismig spot. I may or may not squeak over the line to 550 before month end (I did - edited) but I'll be away from a PC until April.

Until then today's sunshine saw Coltsfoot in flower, flies all over, A jumping spider, and lots of spring feeling. Hoorah!

541		bird	Gallinula chloropus	Moorhen
542		flowering plant	Alliaria petiolata	Garlic mustard
543		flowering plant	Epilobium montanum	Broad-leaved Willowherb
544		diptera	Lasiomma seminitidum	A flower fly
545		diptera	Dasysyrphus venustus	A hoverfly
546		bird	Passer montanus	Tree Sparrow
547		collembola	Orchesella cincta	A springtail
548		bird	Buteo buteo	Common Buzzard
549		spider	Salticus scenicus	A spider
550		flowering plant	Cochlearia danica	Danish Scurvygrass

Dalgety Bay - spring!

A brief wander up the coast and a gardening session (with a net and sorting tray, naturally) kept the dials moving over the weekend. It was clear that a handful of pots will soon be replaced by a pooter or two. Inverts are go! I've already gone from having no "stock" material to a collection of pinned flies.

It was nice to see the garden start to pick up too, including an overhead Sparrowhawk which I half thought I'd already recorded.

Ceratophysella bengtssoni

Clouded Drab

Diplocephalus latifrons

Platycheirus albimanus

Muscina prolapsa

Not covered here so far was my first potential new-to-Scotland of the year, the anthomyiid Egle parva, which is covered here. You can see from the URL that I had given it the wrong ID to begin with.

Numbers:

528	*	diptera	Egle parva	A flower fly
529		collembola	Ceratophysella bengtssoni	A springtail
530		diptera	Ceratinostoma ostiorum	A Scathophagid fly
531		spider	Diplocephalus latifrons	A Linyphiid spider
532		fungus	Agaricus litoralis	A mushroom
533		lep-moth	Orthosia incerta	Clouded Drab
534		bird	Accipiter nisus	Sparrowhawk
535		diptera	Eudasyphora cyanella	A muscid fly
536		diptera	Platycheirus albimanus	A hoverfly

537		diptera	Muscina prolapsa	A muscid fly
538		diptera	Egle ciliata	A flower fly

Better than last year

Better that is in my terms - still way off the pace of the rest of you.
Thorne is now on 224 species whereas last year at the end of March I was only on 207 species.

Eype is still very slow going with the weather really holding things up. The highlight of the square is the nearly 1km length of soft cliffs but they are so wet and liable to slippage at the moment I havn't set foot on them yet this year. For the record Eype is now on 178 species.

Two Sandwich Terns at Eype this morning holds some hope that Spring is finally arriving.

Yellow Horned, Shoulder Stripe and Melinda viridicyanea

Picking up pace here a bit at the moment. However, nothing too unexpected. Nice to get my first Yellow Horned in the garden plus the first Shoulder Stripe of the year, one of my favorite moths. Also a Calliphorid that wasn't Calliphora vicina, namely Melinda viridicyanea.

431	Bembidion lunulatum	Coleoptera	Carabidae	22/03/2018
432	Xantholinus longiventris	Coleoptera	Staphylinidae	22/03/2018
433	Proteinus ovalis	Coleoptera	Staphylinidae	22/03/2018
434	Orthosia gothica	Lepidoptera:moths	Hebrew Character	21/03/2018
435	Gonatium rubens	Arachnids	Linyphiidae	22/03/2018
436	Dismodicus bifrons	Arachnids	Linyphiidae	22/03/2018
437	Xylocampa areola	Lepidoptera:moths	Early Grey	22/03/2018
438	Orthosia incerta	Lepidoptera:moths	Clouded Drab	22/03/2018
439	Orthosia cerasi	Lepidoptera:moths	Common Quaker	22/03/2018
440	Anticlea badiata	Lepidoptera:moths	Shoulder Stripe	22/03/2018
441	Melinda viridicyanea	Diptera	Calliphoridae	23/03/2018
442	Orthosia munda	Lepidoptera:moths	Twin-spotted Quaker	23/03/2018
443	Achlya flavicornis	Lepidoptera:moths	Yellow Horned	23/03/2018
444	Aegopodium podagraria	Vascular Plants	Ground Elder	24/03/2018
445	Alliaria petiolata	Vascular Plants	Garlic Mustard	24/03/2018
446	Centaurea nigra	Vascular Plants	Common Knapweed	24/03/2018
447	Epilobium montanum	Vascular Plants	Broad-leaved Willowherb	24/03/2018
448	Geranium lucidum	Vascular Plants	Shining Crane's-bill	24/03/2018
449	Geranium robertianum	Vascular Plants	Herb-Robert	24/03/2018
450	Ruscus aculeatus	Vascular Plants	Butcher's-broom	24/03/2018

The sun also rises ...

Lovely to get a sunny day yesterday, brought out a few hymenoptera and diptera, plus a couple of new moths and beetles for the year. Coleoptera remain the most speciose group in my square so far, with 83 species. Given that 82 have been from my garden, I think there's scope for a lot more elsewhere in the square, but can't get to most of it.

So on we go, now up to 430. Won't be much of the microscopic algae/fungi stuff in this persons blog this year, though.

420	Andrena nigroaenea	Hymenoptera	Buffish Mining Bee	20/03/2018
421	Lasiomma seminitidum	Diptera	Anthomyiidae	21/03/2018
422	Bombus lapidarius	Hymenoptera	Red-tailed Bumblebee	21/03/2018
423	Vespula vulgaris	Hymenoptera	Common Wasp	21/03/2018
424	Pollenia labialis	Diptera	Calliphoridae	21/03/2018
425	Helina evecta	Diptera	Muscidae	21/03/2018
426	Andrena bicolor	Hymenoptera	Gwynne's Mining Bee	21/03/2018
427	Cerastis rubricosa	Lepidoptera:moths	Red Chestnut	21/03/2018
428	Lithophane ornitopus	Lepidoptera:moths	Grey Shoulder-knot	21/03/2018
429	Glischrochilus hortensis	Coleoptera	Nitidulidae	22/03/2018
430	Psylliodes chrysocephala	Coleoptera	Chrysomelidae	22/03/2018

Red Chestnut (Cerastis rubricosa)

Dalgety Bay - wind in the willows

The wind yesterday precluded any fly catching so I re-investigated the barely-touched area of willows, and not without success. This is the kind of area that I have in my local nature reserve in abundance so I know what it can be good for. Can't believe I found no Peltigera, but a couple of additional bryophytes were added and a fungus I've wanted to see for ages. I'm not joking, though you may soon think I am!

Frullania dilitata

Frullania

Trimmatostroma salicis - yes!!

No, really!!!

The moth trap was out too

Rhigognostis incarnatella

Common Quaker

Then there was a beetle with backstory. The other day I found a plastic discarded chinese takeaway tub. Since I had a bottle of soapy water in my bag for this sort of thing I re-purposed it as a water trap and it came up with this first-for-county Vincenzellus ruficollis. I'll be carrying more soapy water from now on.

Vincenzellus ruficollis

NBN map Vincenzellus ruficollis

Numbers:

518		liverwort	Frullania dilitata	A liverwort
519		flowering plant	Lamium album	White Dead-nettle
520		moss	Dicranella heteromalla	A moss
521		fungus	Trimmatostroma salicis	A fungus
522		lep-moth	Orthosia cerasi	Common Quaker
523	*	lep-moth	Rhigognostis incarnatella	A micromoth
524		diptera	Pollenia rudis	A cluster fly
525	*	coleoptera	Vincenzellus ruficollis	A beetle

Dalgety Bay - Desmid Island Discs

Nothing could be more fun that taking a drop of water and sticking it under the microscope. If it's from an algal mat then all the better. This beauty is Closterium monoliferum, which is one of the few things I managed to identify from the myriad species present (actually so far it's the only one!)

The granules in the tip dance about, and the following link says of them that ... "vacuolar granules in Closterium moniliferum have been analyzed to consist mainly of barium sulphate crystals". See the link below. Also the further link from that link which talks about how this little guy could clean up nuclear material!

Fascinating page on the species

Also leaving this here for future reference - superb desmid galleries

Closterium in Desmid Gallery

Besides that the inverts have started to kick off with some muscoid flies starting to appear on sunny surfaces. Soon I'll have a box full of undetermined flies! Part of the reason I wanted to get off to a flier this year is because up to the point I decided to do this daft thing again I was intending to dedicate more time to the calypterate flies. Pretty sure I've banked enough species now to allow for some time outside the square though.

Numbers:

511		bird	Fulmarus glacialis	Fulmar
512	*	insect-other	Riccardoella oudemansi	Slug Mite
513		diptera	Phaonia tuguriorum	A muscid fly
514		lep-moth	Hofmannophila pseudospretella	Brown House Moth
515		flowering plant	Tussilago farfara	Coltsfoot
516		hemiptera	Anthocoris nemoralis	A plant bug
517	*	alga	Closterium moniliferum	A desmid

Another freeze up in TG4523

Wind, frost and snow has resulted in no additions to the square for the last six days. All getting a bit tedious. For the sake of completeness here are the last 10 additions, so now up to 419 for the square, including 340 from the garden:

410	Harpalus tardus	Coleoptera	Carabidae	12/03/2018
411	Veronica hederifolia	Vascular Plants	Ivy-leaved Speedwell	12/03/2018
412	Notiophilus rufipes	Coleoptera	Carabidae	12/03/2018
413	Eurysa lineata	Hemipteroids	Delphacidae (Planthopper)	12/03/2018
414	Drusilla canaliculata	Coleoptera	Staphylinidae - Aleocharinae	13/03/2018
415	Lispocephala brachialis	Diptera	Muscidae: Coenosiinae	14/03/2018
416	Arion distinctus	Molluscs	Common Garden Slug	14/03/2018
417	Aleochara bipustulata	Coleoptera	Staphylinidae	14/03/2018
418	Scydmaenus tarsatus	Coleoptera	Scydmaeninae (Staphylinidae)	14/03/2018
419	Luffia ferchaultella	Lepidoptera:moths	Virgin Bagworm	15/02/2018

One side benefit has been a bit of extra time to clear my backlog of sawflies. I also attended a very useful BENHS sawfly workshop with Andy Musgrove on Saturday. The additional sawfly species have pushed my 1 km square list to 2196 species, including 1788 from the garden.

Looks like it's going to get a bit milder, so hope to start getting a few more insects and birds soon.

Dalgety Bay ... new species loading ... please wait ...

A weekend of bad weather and domestic activity means not much happening. I did do this leaf section of the moss Campylopus introflexus, though. Pretty pleased with it. Shame it's already on the list!

Easterly winds continue. Lots of nice Kittiwakes and finally a Fulmar. Anther roll of the dice at lunchtime. Let's see. Everybody all together ... Gannet, LT Duck, Scoter ....

Skye - Seashore Fun

Took myself down to the beach today (stayed well away from The Ravine of Death, see my blog detailing yesterday's antics here) and managed to pick up a handful of additions for the tally. 

Drinker Moth caterpillar - waiting for some sunshine

Ruby Tiger caterpillar - off in search of some sunshine

Collemopsidium foveolatum - a lichen found on barnacle plates, would you believe!

Talking of barnacles....

Throw in a couple more lichens and bryophytes and my running tally stands at 440 species. I have samples in pots awaiting inspection, maybe I could bump it up a bit nearer to 450 by tomorrow. This time last year I'd just hit 400. 

Here's one from last week that I inadvertently missed off the list

Water Cricket Velia caprai in a pool by the river

Dalgey Bay - half way! (502)

Can't believe I'm half way there with no leaves on the trees yet and snowdrops still in full bloom!

Half way point last year was 26th of April so just over a month ahead of the previous pace. Across almost all groups I'm on the same or better tally, although lichens are a bit off the pace. This isn't unexpected because I had a lovely (and well surveyed) piece of coastal outcrop which provided most species. Bryophytes, algae and fungi have been star performers, with the first two exceeding last year's total early on and the latter already matching 2017's August tally. Coleoptera continue to underwhelm, but then I've had little from leaf litter and I haven't placed any pitfalls this year yet. A nice surprise was having three echinoderms on the list already (or at all).

59 species have been lifers - 13%. Last year's overall lifers ratio was about 25%  but some of that would have been routine coastal/marine species which I'm finding again this year as not new.

Before the numbers, here's a lovely Polytrichum juniperinum I found this morning while out for a stroll. Growing on an old rope at the sailing club!

Category	Jan	Feb	Mar
alga	6	15	23
Protist other	0	0	0
slime mould	0	0	0
lichen	27	31	34
fungus	60	83	83
liverwort	9	9	9
moss	37	43	44
flowering plant	60	72	73
conifer	2	2	2
fern	3	3	4
cnidarian	0	1	5
mollusc	12	17	24
bryozoan	1	2	2
annelid	0	8	10
flatworm	1	1	1
harvestman	1	2	2
pseudoscorpion	0	0	0
spider	6	10	12
gall mite	0	0	0
Tick	0	0	0
millipede	6	7	7
centipede	4	5	5
crustacean	10	12	13
collembola	5	8	8
bristletail	0	1	1
odonata	0	0	0
dermaptera	0	1	1
orthoptera	0	0	0
hemiptera	4	5	6
coleoptera	8	13	14
diptera	15	24	25
lep-moth	4	8	10
lep-butterfly	0	0	0
hymenoptera	3	4	4
insect-other	0	0	0
tunicate	0	0	0
echinoderm	0	2	3
invert-other	0	1	2
fish	0	1	1
reptile	0	0	0
amphibian	0	0	0
bird	54	62	70
mammal	3	4	4
	341	457	502

Dalgety Bay - Guillemots in the mist

A misty day and easterlies meant some Guillemots were feeding off the small harbour wall but still no gannets, no fulmar, no Little Auk, no LT Duck, no Phalaropes ... this wish list should be getting 2nd nature by now!

I have managed to get a few things and I surely have enough in the store cupboard to clearly leap the halfway point. a few things I thought were bankers turned out to be not what I thought, including my first slug dissection. Is it Deroceras reticulatum or D.agreste? Oh, it;s exciting ... oh, it looks like it's D.invadens. I think. That one to be referred but not clearly what I thought it was anyway.

At the third time of asking I found my favourite "ground" beetle, the arboreal Dromius quadromaculatus, with a session of head-torching. The usual things were on trunks but there are far less isopods and no isopod hunting spiders (so far). This square also seems to have no pill bugs, which makes me think the other square is more calcareous or something of that nature.

Anyway, I had hoped this lot would be enough to go over 500 but it's not! 499! It'll be today though unless something bizarre happens.

492		flowering plant	Mercurialis perennis	Dog's Mercury
493		coleoptera	Dromius quadromaculatus	A ground beetle
494	*	annelid	Eiseniella tetraedra	An earthworm
495		mollusc	Tandonia sowerbyi	Sowerby's Keeled Slug
496		spider	Nuctenea umbratica	Walnut Orb-weaver
497		spider	Zygiella x-notata	A spider
498		lep-moth	Agonopterix heracliana	A micro moth
499		lep-moth	Orthosia gothica	Hebrew Character