Regular readers of this blog (and from the stats this appears to be an oxymoron) may remember that last year I unsuccessfully looked for the histerid, Saprinus viridescens. Well today I found one under a mat of Knotgrass, along the edge of an arable field about 5 miles from my home in Cambridgeshire.
This beetle was busy munching its way through the attendant Gastrophysa polygoni beetles, supposedly one of its main prey species. I only found a single beetle in 30 minutes of searching but suspect that it's only just appearing now.
They look much bluer in real life and really catch the eye when you see one.
I love an island, me. Absolutely love them. I'm talking about smallish ones mind, not whopping big ones like the UK or even Australia, which is probably so big that it ceases to be an island in the traditional sense.
I like the feeling of being away from things, of being 'cut off' from most of the rest of you. There's just something a wee bit magical about sitting on the seashore watching the waves lap and knowing that you're pretty much on your own. I've been lucky enough to visit lots of islands over the years and even managed a 3 month stint on the Seychelles island of Cousin in the late 90s, studying birds and racing giant tortoises. Happy days.
Anyway why this lengthy preamble? Well I recently got to spend a week on the west coast Scottish island of Shuna. Where, I here you cry, is Shuna?
Red circle marks the spot. Isle of Mull to the north west and Jura to the south-west.
It was supposed to be a back to basics week for the family with some healthy walks and some sea kayaking, all of which we participated in but it was also an excuse to look at wildlife.
Best of all were stunning views of otters. Down to five metres in some cases. There was an adult with a pup that swam past the cottage each day and that were reasonably curious if you sat still. We watched them fishing and playing. A real joy to watch.
The island still has a lot of forest cover made up mainly of birch and oak, and when the sun was out it was glorious.
We did a wee bit of rockpooling at low tides and the best for me was a new species of starfish, Ophiocomina nigra.
Black brittlestar (Ophiocomina nigra) I think
It was also nice to reacquaint myself with a few plants that I haven't seen for a while...
Butterwort Pinguicula vulgaris
Round-leaved Sundew Drosera rotundifolia
...and others that I can't believe I hadn't seen or recorded before.
Lousewort Pedicularis sylvatica
Beetle-wise, there were a couple of species that I was really chuffed to finally catch up with.
The first was the staph Dianous coerulescens, known (by me) as the waterfall rove beetle. Closely related to the genus Stenus, it shares that groups large eyes and distinctive shape, the main difference being the length of the temples (back of head, behind the eyes). It is found in the moss and vegetation next to water falls and that is exactly where I found mine. They were moving in and out of the moss in the splash zone, presumably looking for prey.
According to the NBN website there are only four records from Scotland and I suspect that it's just woefully out of date, as opposed my having found a rare species.
Map of Dianous coerulescens records
The second beetle was the shoreline carabid Aepus marinus. This one of two species of Aepus found around UK shores. This particular species lives under flat bottomed stones part-embedded in sand or fine gravel a little way below high water mark. This substrate means there are small air pockets that beetles can survive in when submerged by the rising tide. It's a pretty extreme habitat for a carabid so respect to them for going there. The other species, robinii seems to favour silt filled gaps in between stones, possibly even further down the beach. Many thanks to Seth for the info on habitat.
[EDIT: it's been pointed out that this is in fact robinii not marinus!! Seems like these didn't read the memo on habitat]
They are tiny, strange looking things but I'm pleased to have seen one after looking unsuccessfully in a few places.
All in all it was a great week, and would thoroughly recommend a visit.
Here's an appropriate track from the 80s from the mighty Mike Oldfield featuring a the ever-gravely-voiced Bonnie Tyler.
It would be a lie to say that I've had mixed results with moth pheromone lures. Until this year I've never had any success at all except for a brief encounter with a Yellow-belted Clearwing down the bottom of the garden last year.
I now suspect that I may have had some duff lures as this year's new crop are performing much better. First up was the Emperor moth lure and recently I've been trying the others (with actual mixed results this time).
Yesterday, I tried putting out the CUL lure for Large Red-belted Clearwing and within 5 minutes had a clearwing come in and circle the lure. I netted and potted and the moth but when I looked at it more closely it was a Red-belted Clearwing, not it's larger cousin. God knows what will happen when I put out MYO lure for that species, might end up with a dodo....
Anyway, it was a new species for me and brilliant to finally get a good look at a clearwing.
A male Red-belted Clearwing
The other new species in the garden yesterday was one that I can't believe I haven't seen before, the pretty common, Malthodes minimus. One of the soldier beetles, it looks more like a parasitic wasp or fly on a cursory glance, with the wings and abdomen sticking out far beyond the tips of the elytra. Males of this genus are relatively straigtforward to key out if you examine the end sternites and tergites (final bottom and top bits of the abdomen).
I've just returned from a second week in Scotland (more on both soon).
On a day at home to do washing between the two trips, I ran the moth trap for the first time in a while.
I had 45 plus species of moth including the first hawkmoths of the year and lots of other species I'd not seen for a while.
Privet Hawkmoth
At the bottom of the actinic trap I noticed a smallish carabid running about which I assumed was going to be a Bradycellus species. A quick check and I could see it was something different but I wasn't sure what. I ran it a couple of times through the key and came out quite easily to Anthracus consputus.
Closely related to Acupalpus species this is the only UK member of its genus. It's found under stones and leaf litter on damp soils. And apparently it sometimes comes to light. Always good to see a new species of carabid!
Have a bit of a blog backlog at the moment as I'm just back from a week's holiday on the west coast of Scotland and about to head off back north of the wall to Abernethy Forest for work. More on that in a bit.
Firstly, just before I went away a colleague told me he'd seen a longhorn at the Lodge that I'd not seen. The next day I went to the same area and within 5 mins had found two of them at the base of a pine tree. Over the next 30 mins I'd found at least another 10.
Asemum striatum. Probably pretty common where ever there is pine, and has rather short horns for a longhorn. In fact in flight it looks like a big click beetle.
