Beetle #81

Another win for the grass pile. New to me and the reserve. With the reserve total on 185 we're slowly creeping towards a not-horrible 200. The aim, though is to be about 100 north of that by end of play. 48 of the existing tally is already Staphylinidae.

2021 Beetle #81 - Hygrohypnus angustatus

80 beetles and Lithocharis nigriceps new to me/reserve/county

2021 Beetle #79 - Pterostichus madidus

not photographed because I thought I surely must have already recorded it!

2021 Beetle #80 - Lithocharis nigriceps

As per the species account in the book - - in a (the) pile of grass cuttings

Another day, another beetle (oh, and a wasp)

First the wasp. Again, from the magical tussocks came this lovely female brachypterous wasp, which was kindly identified on the Icheumonidae facebook page as Aptesis nigrocincta. Very pretty little thing it is, too. It may or may not be new to Scotland. The status of such things is "data deficient". But it's certainly new to me, and to Cullaloe, and almost certainly Fife. It's actually quite big for a wingless wasp. It parasitises a sawfly which hasn't been recorded either, so that's an interesting one to look out for. Neither has Scottish dots on NBN.

The beetle is somewhat more routine, but still new for Cullaloe. Believe it or not, it did NOT come from a tussock, but rather from under a stone in the woodland. One thing Cullaloe lacks, really, is turnable stones, so if I find one I always turn it. When I say "find", it's not as if I don't know where they all are! Most of the time I can name what's going to be underneath them (spoiler - it's one of several Pterostichus). The Leistus is beetle species #184. Pretty pleased with that, since we started the year with only 150.

2021 Beetle #78 - Leistus fulvibarbis

Beetle additions - 76 & 77

Still from the 2nd, a Catops from fish-baited pitfall trap and another staph from the Land O' Tussocks. The Philonthus is known from here according to my field guide marginal notes, but wasn't actually on the list. There were no Catops on the list, despite discovering a new species of fungus for Scotland on an unidentified one a couple of years back!

2021 Beetle #76 - Catops tristis 

2021 Beetle #77 - Philonthus laminatus

Big and shiny

The Overwhelming

As spring has sprung the Time of Overwhelming draws ever nearer, and there's no doubt I'm flirting dangerously with it. This morning I spent a happy lunchbreak at Land O' Tussocks, which was once known as "The Orchid Meadow" and is now a sea of Deschampsia and Juncus tussocks, intermittently mown by the occasional presence of a couple of sheep. It has a cracking damp/wet spot in the middle which is bordered by Water Avens and it holds Marsh Thistle, Marsh Willowherb, Big Yellow Trefoil (yeah, I'm sure that's what it's called...) and other such wet-bit plants. Also, in its season, shedloads of Tormentil and nice late season Scabious - if the sheep haven't eaten it. For a very fairly tedious-looking rectangle of grassland there's a lot going on.

Anyway, I digress. I carved up three of the 1000 tussocks today and had three new-for-year and new-for-reserve species, two of which were new-for-me. Huzzah! And I've only started on the minor collection I made. To be fair, I obviously started on what looked the most easy/juicy. The rest will probably add zilch.

One of the nice things which I think I've only seen tussocking, or maybe I also swept it before, is the little red ladybird .

2021 Beetle #73 - Coccidula rufa

More exciting, and at first I lost my bearings on this, was this little, diggy (under)ground beetle. I regret this pic doesn't show its fossorial forelegs. I had been looking forward to seeing Clivina fossor, and even though I clocked its obvious redness in the field (not as apparent here) I only latterly realised that meant it wasn't C.fossor at all, but in fact, C.collaris.

2021 Beetle #74 - Clivina collaris

Third new beetle for the day, and 2nd new beetle for me, was an unexpected click beetle - 

2021 Beetle #75 - Hypnoidus riparius

The latter was species #201 for the year, with species #200 taken by a long-awaited addition - the 35th fly - Pteremis fenestralis. I think I had this before but I never actually caught one so I never added it to the list.

 

2021 Fly #35 - Pteremis fenestralis

Mooned by a lesser dung fly

I will not, unless I'm prevented from getting to the reserve tomorrow, get through the remaining species before I collect even more. Which means tomorrow I will start the day with material in hand. AND I saw the first peeping flowers of Willow breaking out today. I have one baited bottle trap and two baited pitfalls. 

It's about to get real.

Spring

 Made the best use of an appointment at the recycle centre to make a small detour to Cullaloe. A good sunny morning is a fine time to observe flies on all the south-facing wood the entrance has to offer.

Long wooden fence - a big draw when in full sun

Sinkhole protector (?). Also good

Even a small signboard.

Wood warms up nicely and makes a fine place for basking in sunshine. Soon these surfaces will be covered with Salix-loving anthomyiids, but for the time being it looks like it's all Muscidae and Calliphoridae. Pollenias were out in force and at least one Lucilia. There may or may not be an anthomyiid. I'll have to wait and see what else there is. It took me ten minutes to make a small collection but there is new stuff there no doubt, and all brachyceran. (Brachycera is the Latin for "proper fly").

I also re-jigged a baited pitfall trap, moving the bait to above the trap wrapped in an old sock. This has shown promise for allowing smell out while stopping insects getting gunky. Luckily, for some reason (!), I happen to have a large box of PPE gloves. Hopefully some chancer mammal won't pinch the bait, as happened in another trap (rotting fish for mammal poo - is that a fair swap? at least I didn't kill the mammal)

Bottle trapping

So the first bottle trap experiment failed due to hard weather, but finally last week I was able to get a robust trap with fish bait going. Last night I emptied said trap and it had a predictable set of inmates. I should have a photo of the trap but when I set it I'd forgotten my phone/camera. Doh! I swapped out the "capture chamber" so I can photo it again anyway.

Most obvious in the trap was Calliphora vicina, finally. This may have appeared earlier had I set the trap nearer to the cottages end of the reserve, but it's an inevitable species both in bait traps and on sunny surfaces. Then there was one (only one?!) Dryomyza. Usualy they show up early in numbers, but the trap wasn't out that long and not in its usual place. A couple of Heleomyzidae were Tephrochlaena oraria and Heteromyza commixta. The rest of group was made up of a small collection of Drosophila subobscura. All common species on the reserve, but nice to get the dipteran ball rolling a bit. Surprisingly absent was Sylvicola cintus, which I had in 10s if not 100s last year, but maybe that's specific to location. The trap was previously over a wet seepage in a different part of the reserve. Maybe a second trap's required.

This week will hopefully see me swishing a kite net at Willows and the game will be seriously on. As usual, I expect my capabilities will be over-run over the space of about 48 hours. Current dipteran tally - 32 species.

Calliphora vicina

Heteromyza commixta

Dryomyza flaveola

Drosophila subobscura