The Group expands to four.

Hi,

Mostly as a means to make myself explore British wildlife in more detail (even including Bryophytes, yuck) I have decided to join this madcap 1000 for 1KSQ challenge.
My square is ST52 17 which is where I work so I will visit it all too frequently. It is a fairly normal lowland farmland square near Yeovil without - alas - any major waterbodies.
With my current level of knowledge I expect 1000 will actually be quite a tall order but we shall.

A quick summation of my records so far this year gives me a commanding 'Wooden Spoon' position with an exceptionally meagre 86 species recorded.

These are made up of the following;

Fungi                                4
Bryophyte                         1   Yes, managed to key out my 1st Bryophyte ever
Vascular Plants                 28
Molluscs                           4
Annelids                           2
Myriapods                        1
Butterflies                        2
Hymenoptera                    2
Birds                                39
Mammals                          3  

Skye - And the 300th falls

Spent this morning wandering the woods instead of working (my boss is cool with flexi-hours... honest...) and found a couple of lifers in the process. First was the rather swanky looking moss Dicranium rufescens hiding in a clod of liverwort that I peeled off an earthen bank (Calypogeia fissa once again), followed by this Shrek-coloured stunner which turned out to be Peltigera leucophlebia. Excellent, that's one you won't see down in the south! 

Network of veins on the underside differentiate this from the similar P.britannica

Turning rocks and boulders is a great passion of mine. Today I added the flatworm Microplana terrestris, the Worm Slug Boettgerilla pallens, my first Geophilus insculptus of the year (which is the second record of this centipede from Skye following the one I found last year!) and a female millipede which, after a check of its naughty bits, keyed through to Ophyiulus pilosus. 

Female Ophyiulus pilosus - the intact version

Flashing her naughty parts for the camera

New plants included Tormentil, Square-stemmed St John's-wort and this lovely wee Pignut

Useful if I get peckish later in the summer

My revised totals are as follows (categories as per the PSL Website) :

Algae 8

Lichens 43 (inc 9 lifers)

Fungi 24 (inc 3 lifers)

Bryophytes 36 (inc 12 lifers)

Vascular Plants 74

Cnidarians 2

Molluscs 23 (inc 4 lifers)

Bryozoans 2

Annelids 5 (inc 4 lifers)

Platyhelminths 3 (inc 1 lifer)

Arachnids 2 (need to pull me finger out!)

Myriapods 9 (inc 1 lifer)

Crustaceans 8

Springtails 1

Orthopteroids 1

Coleoptera 6 (inc 2 lifers)

Diptera 1 (inc 1 lifer)

Moths 5

Fish 2

Birds 47

Mammals 4

Hoping for a bit of action regards flies, bees, bugs, beetles, spiders etc before too much longer. Just waiting, waiting, waiting for Spring to arrive!

All of which adds up to 306 species in NG3963 this year. 

Skye - Creeping along quite nicely

Managed to get out and about in the square a couple of times this week. Not too many additions to my overall tally but good hits from the beach included Black Guillemot, the fungus Stigmidium ascophylli on Egg Wrack bladders, the kelp fly Coelopa pilipes and an Otter at point blank range. 

The dark spots are the fruit bodies of Stigmidium ascophylii. Pretty damn stunning huh....

Ok, so I need to buy a proper camera!

In the woods plants are starting to burst into life with budburst being particularly advanced in both Elder and Fuchsia. Lots of Primroses pushing through too, I found the flymine Chromatomyia primulae on several old leaves, all vacated and hence (by my own rules) not admissable on the tally. Similarly the empty Thornback Ray egg case I found on the beach isn't on my tally. 

Empty - therefore not countable by my own Rules. Same with leafmines/galls/dead stuff.

Woodpigeon finally hurled itself onto the list, I'd been living on Skye two months to the day before I saw one (in fact it was two together. Bit like buses here. You wait 2 months....)

Very much looking forward to discovering which plants are here (I'm not too hot on 1cm tall seedlings) and massively looking forward to seeing lots more invert action. Apart from midges, but I guess that goes with the territory over here. 

Tally as of 5th February is 290 species and I've plenty in pots plus this afternoon free. Shouldn't be too much longer before I reach the 300th species...he says in a hopeful manner!

Totals so far

Not the most exciting blog post, but here is my species breakdown so far:

Amphibians: 1
Arachnids: 3
Birds: 69
Bryophytes: 43
Crustaceans: 6
Diptera: 3
Fungi: 3
Hymenoptera: 1
Lepidoptera: 1
Lichens: 8
Mammals: 2
Molluscs: 16
Myriapods: 6
Platyhelminthes: 1
Vascular Plants: 79

Overall total: 242

I've gotta get some more inverts seen!

NT1582, Dalgety Bay - springtail Gastranurida denisi

A springtail described by Bagnall in 1939, not seen since 1940 in Britain, and never seen by anyone else except Bagnall (per Hopkin, FSC "A Key to the Collembola")

Until yesterday morning anyway ... now it's been seen in Fife. By me. Get in!

A small group were found grazing on a whelk shell below the tideline and potted, presumed to be the more common maritime one whose name I couldn't remember. Only problem is when keying it out it didn't have quite enough eyes.

Try as I might I couldn't get it to be anything else, so I sent off some pics this morning and received confirmation back pretty quickly. Happy days!

Value in my 1k square count: 1

a la Damien Hirst

The keying

The knockout punch photo

the ocelli/PAO diagram in Hopkin

Am I weevil? Yes I am

Dalgety Bay, NT1582

First weevil of the year was beaten from gorse on the 22nd and appeared to be a Sitona. It did key out as that in the Broad-nosed Weevils book but when cross checking Duff I see it has moved out and become an Andrion with its own key exit in the Sitonininini genus key. Andrion regensteinense to be precise. It has a peculiar (for Sitoninini) way of the front of the abdomen meeting the back of the thorax as both dip down to form a "V".

Other notable features are the long, inflated front femorae and the upright setae on the elytrae.

Like other family members it has even more picky food preferences than my 4-year old. It likes a bit of gorse.

When it's spring again - NT1582, Dalgety Bay, Fife

Dawn over Downing Point

The picturesque Braefoot point oil terminal

 Numbers ticking along at a healthy rate over the weekend with an unexpected leap in springtail progress. They kept falling out of bushes and kept being identifiable, bless 'em. Long may it continue! Pogonognathellus longicornis, not pictured here, came from under a log on Friday. Most of the other additions could be considered "routine" which is fine, and the beetle list got a bit of a start with Micrambe ulicis and Pterostichus strenuus on the board. Plenty of plants only in leaf haven't been added - no rush.

Orchesella cincta

Entomobrya nivalis (redet. E.intermedia)

(edit: On submitting the record of E.nivalis it was noted that the species which keys out as nivalis in Hopkins 2007 is more than one species and the above is actually E.intermedia)

Link here:
http://urweb.roehampton.ac.uk/collembola/taxonomy/(185ENint).html

Category	Total
annelid	1
bird	32
bryozoan	2
centipede	2
chromist	6
cnidarian	1
coleoptera	3
collembola	4
conifer	1
crustacean	7
dermaptera	1
diptera	4
fern	2
flowering plant	32
fungus	23
harvestman	1
hemiptera	1
hymenoptera	1
lepidoptera	1
lichen	31
liverwort	1
mammal	1
millipede	2
mollusc	5
moss	10
spider	3
	178

Skye - 250 Up!

It's my birthday today, so it was an especially nice treat to hit the 250 species mark whilst out and about this afternoon.  The past few days I've been pottering about, adding the odd lichen or liverwort to the tally/my PSL. Additions today include Greenfinch, Map Lichen Rhizocarpon geographicum, Field Vole, Ramalina calicaris and Wych Elm. 

I'm not going to list the 254 species seen so far, that would be a bit boring (although you can see them on my blog here)

Here are a couple of pics to brighten up a dull blogpost

Rhizocarpon geographicum - my first sighting in NG3963

Salpingus ruficollis - 6th record for Scotland apparenty!

My 2017 Breakdown for NG3963 is as follows -

Algae - 6
Lichens -  38 (7 = Lifers)
Fungi - 20 (2 = Lifers)
Bryophytes - 26 (7 = Lifers)
Plants - 64
Cnidarians - 2
Molluscs - 20 (4 = Lifers)
Annelids - 5 (4 = Lifers)
Platyhelminths - 2 (1 = Lifer)
Arachnids -1
Myriapods - 4
Crustaceans - 5
Springtails - 1
Orthopteroids - 1
Hemipteroids - 1
Coleoptera - 5 (2 = Lifers)
Moths - 4
Fish -2
Birds -  44
Mammals - 3

TOTAL - 254 SPECIES

NT1582: All stars, no stripes

A very nice find this morning was Collared Earthstar (Geastrum triplex). I found them on a nearby square at the end of last year but these are the first I've found in The Square.

Also confirmed this morning was my record from the 7th of Amandinea lecideina. I was pretty confident but it's nice to have a grown up give it the thumbs up.

Other than that some odds and sods saw the total creep over 150.

Category	Jan-20
annelid	1
bird	30
bryozoan	2
centipede	2
chromist	6
cnidarian	1
coleoptera	1
collembola	2
conifer	1
crustacean	6
dermaptera	1
diptera	1
fern	2
flowering plant	26
fungus	21
hymenoptera	1
lepidoptera	0
lichen	30
liverwort	1
mammal	1
mollusc	5
moss	7
spider	3

Night moves

Having seen Tree Slug in my garden a couple of squares away I headed off with head torch to nail it down in the Golden Square, which duly happened - hurrah!

While I was there I thought it was worthwhile poking about a bit on tree bark. One of my neighbours who was walking his dog with a torch enthusiastically joined in and so racked up an "assist" on Common Earwig. I think I'll also record him as a human. I'm more or less sure he is.

It was nice to get some spiders on the board finally. Of course I also came away with a small number of brain teasers to sort out (micro moth, uncertain slug, 2 or possibly 3 lichens)

Amaurobius similis, male

Labulla thoracica, female

Species additions 17/01/2017:

116	Labulla thoracica	A spider
117	Amaurobius similis	A spider
118	Arthonia radiata	A lichen
119	Tenuiphantes tenuis	A Linyphiid spider
120	Porcellio scaber	Common Rough Woodlouse
121	Lehmannia marginata	Tree Slug
122	Forficula auricularia	Common Earwig
123	Dynamena pumila	A hydrozoan
124	Limacus maculatus	Green Cellar Slug
125	Homo sapiens	human

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