P-SL controversies

There's a recent post here - https://uigboy.blogspot.com/ which is interesting, somewhat controversial, and I have pondered the same thing. I commented rather long-windedly! I have thought, but not previously dared to voice a similar opinion.

There are quite a few species which quite a few P-SL folk list but which are the very devil to identify properly. These include: various moths but particularly Common and Lesser Common Rustic Mesapamea secalis and M. didyma which can only be separated by dissection. Yponomeuta moths are also very tricky, and Y. padella, malinellus and cagnella, can only be identified from larvae found on their identified food plant or adults reared from larvae found on the identified food plant, these cannot be identified any other way (not sure about genetic analysis) (and some references indicate that this may not be 100% reliable). So don't go trying to ID the ones in your light trap to species ;-) 

Mesapamea didyma, demonstrating how the external appearance of the adult is no guide to which of the two species this is.

Spiders, these are not easy! Even though I have Roberts. There is now a very good website, - https://araneae.nmbe.ch/ I have 40 spiders and other assorted archnids on my list. I briefly worked on opiliones professionally, a long time ago. Fairly recently a spider expert I spoke to suggested that there are only around 30 spider species that can be reliably IDed in the field. (I still have some qualms about my Pirata piraticus tick...). 

There are also all sorts of other things, including stuff you'll see a lot, that are next to impossible unless you are an expert. Eyebrights Euphrasia spp - there is a whole book on these, and everything is complicated by hybrids as well, my advice; don't even think about identifying them! In Orkney, there are some endemic species of plants, but they are not on my list because I have no idea how to determine them. And then we come to the Hieracium species, brambles and dandelions.... Hundreds of micro-species, hybrids and various other impossible-to-ID things. 

The trick is to know what is possible and what is not. And that is very much a personal judgement. What is important is to be able to make that judgement. Personally I prefer things with legs and wings, but I'm quite enjoying botanical excursions this year.

And then there is the being shown something, but not actually being able to ID it. I don't tick these which includes various mosses in particular.

However, to be honest, I have 109 fungal species on my list and 54 lichens. I have limited understanding of these taxa and the difficulties of getting them to species, despite previously working in a lab' where we did identify some fungi (and bacteria). The ones on my list were usually identified by using AI followed up by using the quite a few books that I have and consulting online resources. Until now I've not examined spores to confirm these IDs, but I do now have a quite decent compound microscope (unearthed in a local 2nd hand shop - thank you Remake). This coming autumn and winter I will be chasing some of these up to check them further. For the moment the IDs stand. (Although it is worth noting that the whole world of fungi is in flux and I've come across quite a bit of different opinion about what is an identifiable species and what are regarded as species aggregates or groups.)

Triphragmium ulmariae - confident about this one.

The very, very good thing about P-SL is that it positively encourages citizen science and the recording of our wildlife. Whether you use iRecord (recommended) iNaturalist (ok), Birdtrack (very good for birds) or any of the various other apps and sites, recording things is good. Where there is accurate verification of records it is even better. 

Personally, I especially like recording particular sites, many of my recent P-SL listed species come from either my garden or our local community woodland where I am working on developing as comprehensive a species list as possible. This is my primary motivation, although I do enjoy the wee jousts and struggles in the lower echelons of the P-SL listing community. As a birder I was very much interested in my patch-birding and certainly in the last 20 years or so had very little interest in chasing rarities.

One of the main drivers of the Pan-Species Listing movement is Graeme Lyons. Graeme is a professional ecologist and has published an interesting book about P-SL  

I have huge admiration for anyone who has the energy and application to get any book written, let alone published. This is a motivational and useful book. My grouse (but which one?) with Graeme is his anti-AI stance which IMHO is a bit elitist. Yes, AI does use a lot of data (= energy), so is anti-environmental in that sense. However, for those of us with too much required memory for our RAM capacity it makes P-SL possible and allows us access to a world we would otherwise find pretty much impenetrable, or take up more time than we have available. Used thoughtfully, AI improves our ID accuracy and provides a useful checking tool. Additionally, as with my new found interest in vane trapping, even with an Order like Coleoptera, which I have been interested in for much of my life, there are so many families that knowing where to start can be a challenge; the key to Family is not the easiest. Obsidentify is usually pretty reliable in getting a particular animal to Family and thus providing a reliable starting point for work with the microscope and key (Mike Hackston's online keys are very good if you don't have the four volumes of Duff). There is an interesting piece on AI and identifying insects here - https://www.royensoc.co.uk/antenna-50-1-ai-powered-species-identification/

Glischrochilus quadripunctatus - fished alive out of a vane trap yesterday.

The above is nationally a quite rare beastie - https://species.nbnatlas.org/species/NBNSYS0000024510 This one is my second of late which is an encouraging indicator on the health of our woodland. And I would probably not have started vane trapping but for the motivation of P-SL.

Each to their own is my view, but whilst we might all try to push the boundaries of what is possible in the determination of particular specimens to species on occasion, being aware of ones own limitations helps.  It is fine to admit defeat, I do frequently. Sometimes after investing a couple of hours in an ID I realise the outcome is not going to be reliable. A recent tussle with Fannia sp being a case in point and a particular Tipula sp lingers in the mind!

However, sometimes the hours pay off with an ID I do have real confidence in, and all of this is a learning experience. What will the next trap emptying bring? New species or a now confident identification in moments of something that a few weeks ago took six hours (well it was an Epuraea....). 

 

Parabeckerias obtusinervis - quite a challenge, but using Mike Hackston's key to Pipunculidae backed up with the freely available, if ancient RES key (Coe R.L. 1966) I got there eventually.

 

Meall Corranaich

I'm not a great one for going up the hill, not unless I have a very good reason to go. However, on this occasion younger daughter was visiting and no one else was available for transport duties or accompanying, so it fell to me.

The weather was perfect, sunny, but not too warm. And I did need to recce for later in the season when a botanical expedition to Ben Lawers will be required.

This was a pretty gentle wander for me. Younger daughter strode off into the distance to tackle Beinn Ghlas and then Lawers itself whilst I took the left hand path and headed for the col between Beinn Ghlas and Meall Corranaich.

An Stuc in the distance from the col (Ben Lawers is hidden)

 This was very useful in terms of seeing how feasible it was to drag myself up and by Ben Lawers to search for plants in July. Good to find I don't have to hack up Beinn Ghlas, but can by-pass that obstacle.

Anyway, having watched younger daughter disappear into the distance I ambled along the path to the col. There were many, likely hundreds, Ctenicera cuprea flying around.

Ctenicera cuprea

A few carabids scuttled away beside the path as I walked; annoying. But then something caught the eye. Several expletives, as although having only seen this beast once before I knew it immediately...

Carabus nitens - wow!!

This is really not a very common beetle at all. I had it in a pot for a few minutes and showed it to a couple who were heading down the hill, they were suitably impressed.

After a bit of a chat, the folk headed off, I released C. nitens and ambled on. And within a couple of minutes was looking at a second Carabus nitens!!! Now Ben Lawers is a pretty special place and it has an impressive list of rare and wonderful wildlife but that was exceptional.

I had brought the "wrong" cameras with me. I regretted leaving the EM-1 with the 60mm macro at home. I'd brought a longer lens and the wee Olympus Tough TG-4. In the bright light I was struggling a bit. However, the Tough came into its own at the col where there was a very interesting shallow pond (which I failed to photograph).

This was the day I finally decided I could tick Pirata piraticus, with this one hunting on the water's surface. 

Pirata piraticus, the Jack Sparrow of spiders.

An advantage of the TG-4 is that you can stick it underwater. There were lots of interesting things there including two different caddis larvae, several beetles and species of Corixidae which may prove to be identifiable.

Corixidae species

Two very differen caddis larvae

I'm not sure if there is a resource for the identification of caddis larvae by their cases, I presume there probably is. Alternatively the FB Group may be able to help.

Beinn Ghlas, Ben Lawers and distantly An Stuc from the top.

I investigated a snow patch, but there were no accumulations of insects.

Snow

Way off

We then decided to go off via an alternative route. I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing this but I had checked it out on the way up.

There was less to see as we went down.

Red Deer

Red Wasp Vespula rufa near the top surprisingly.

There had been lots of  Bombus monticola Bilberry Bumblebee, but I failed to get an image.

And then, last week I did it all again, not so nice weather, a bit of a brute of a trudge up and fewer things to see, although I did get a couple of lichen ticks on Meall Clachan, the hill behind Killin.

Dactylorhiza purpurella

Ophioparma ventosa

 

Parmelia omphalodes

Louise looking a bit damp as we came off the hill.

Not Goldilocks....

 Somebody ate the tops off my apple trees!

 Somebody made their bed in the grass.... 

It wasn't me!

This time it wasn't me!

 

I'm off!

Onwards: backwards

 I've been adding to my P-SL in the last few days, but also, as I regularly do, removing things. Goodbye Tachina fera, at least for the moment, whilst I investigate whether my photos are good enough to split it from Tachina magicornis. I've also removed my Lehmannia slugs as current thinking is that these cannot be reliably determined except by dissection. However, I've just achieved 2,500 species to my list, despite the subtractions. Onward to 3,000.

This is ok as Tachina fera methinks, colour of front tarsi and breadth of frons. Pic from 30 July 2018.

I've not tried dissecting slugs, messy I expect!

Not much bird news, nothing to match the excitement of  last time's Stock Dove anyway. Spotted Flycatchers are in and calling noisily. Swifts screaming. A Carrion Crow added to the "in the garden list" and a first ever Starling to the bird feeders (feeders are now mostly retired for the summer), I just occasionally put a bit of nijer out or scatter a little bit on the ground.

Squirrel Squad activities are now in full swing. Louise and I completed our arduous training - PH took us around the traps and showed us what to do! And we've had one kitchen ID session checking the hairs on the stickies.

Red Squirrel

How does it work? There's food in the box, yummee corn, peanut and sunflower. Squirrel has learnt to lift the lid and get the food. On the inside of the lid is a sticky which takes a small hair sample from the squirrel. Every fortnight we replenish the food and check the stickies. If the hair is all Red Squirrel, all good! But if a fiendish Grey Squirrel has visited it will leave a hair sample and we will know. PH then deploys traps (live traps). The difference between the hairs is not especially easy to discern, Grey Squirrel hairs have a sharp demarcation of colour whilst with Reds the colours blur into each other more subtly.

Grey Squirrel hairs indicated by the arrows in this sample.

This is the front-line in the battle with the Grey invasion. The Highland Boundary Fault is the divide. Yes there are Reds in the borders and south of us but there are many, many Greys there. I'm yet to see a Grey Squirrel here, Louise found a dead one the other side of the A822, and there are reports of them in the winter up Monument Rd. This is a line that needs to be held as Greys spread disease and compete with Reds. However, the resurgence of Pine Marten is thought to be good for Reds and bad for Greys.

Great fun (ha, ha, yes FUN) with the pheromone traps. and some nice catches.

Epiblema scutullana

 This species just loves the FUN lure. Today I was showing a group round the Community Woodland but because of the rain had not deployed the traps. However, I brought a trap and a FUN lure to show folk. I demonstrated how the trap worked and left the trap armed with lure on the floor of The Hub. Within a few minutes we had Epiblema scutulana males buzzing around the inside of shelter.

At home I've caught both Pammene obscurana but also now a few Pammene albuginana (a rare moth in Scotland, and a single Pammene fasciana. Also added P. obscurana to the Community Woodland list.

Pammene albugiana

Pammene fasciana

The Pammene albugiana came to FUN, JAN and MOL and the P. fasciana to the Large Red Clearwing lure. 

Other new moths have been Nematopogon swammerdamella, netted by a participant on a CCW walk I was leading. And to light in the garden Beautiful Brocade and Scoparia pyralella. New for the garden was Small Elephant Hawk-moth, a species I've not seen for about 20 years.

Small Elephant Hawk-moth

Beautiful Brocade

Scoparia pyralella

 

Scorched Wing, always a treat to see.

Large Longhorn Nematopogon swammerdamella a very nice surprise. Well netted that man!

I was somewhat reluctantly engaged as transport one afternoon to go to Glen Artney Church. Anyway, with some dragging of feet on my part we set off. It's a bit of a drive up a somewhat tortuous road and although a relatively short distance takes a relatively long time. When we got there the other singers (it was a singing event) were nowhere to be seen. I mooched around the churchyard. Right by the path I found this monster, only the second I've ever seen.

Meloe violaceus, a beast with a fascinating biology (give it a google)

 And here's the site - 

The Violet Oil Beetle was right by the path, which is why I picked it up and moved it to safety, as despite its isolation there are regular visitors marching up the steps.

Rhubarb

Rheum x hybridum

We've been given quite a lot of rhubarb and there's only so much rhubarb crumble we can eat, so I experimentally made a batch of jam which has turned out ok. Rhubarb Rheum x hybridum is on my P-SL life list as in Orkney it grew all over the place, here in Perthshire it seems restricted to actual gardens and allotments. However, the plants that have escaped gardens and are wild in the countryside include a huge range of species here, most are, I think, benign, but Japanese Knotweed, Indian Balsam and American Skunk Cabbage are pretty much rampant.

American Skunk Cabbage Lysichiton americanus more info here - https://invasivespecies.scot/invasive-plants/american-skunk-cabbage/

 The most surprising find of the last couple of weeks and an add to the patch list has been Stock Dove. This was heard whilst cycling around fairly early one morning. I've looked repeatedly for this species, scanning Woodpigeon flocks through the seasons and rarely locating even a suspect. The habitat was not surprising, the bird was singing from one of the big old hybrid Lime Trees on the estate in an area of parkland. I would expect this species to be here, the surprise is that it has taken so long to find one. Crossbill continues to be outstanding, but my hearing for overflying finches appears to be an impediment.

The vane traps have added a few species to the P-SL list. Working through the catches is quite hard work, the beetle species I'm catching are not familiar as I've not used this method before. The traps caught a lot of a small (3mm) Epuraea species, these are especially hard to get to species.

I spent about six hours to get this to species. That's with AI giving me a head start of getting to genus, although I probably spent an hour or so checking that was accurate. In the end I'm happy this is Epuraea unicolor due to the shape of the mid and hind tibiae and the genitalia, but I may send some off to be checked.

I seem to be finding quite a number of things that are troublesome to identify at the moment. A sawfly has occupied a fair bit of time, I'll have to key it from the beginning maybe, it is somewhere in the Macrophya area maybe.

 

Macrophya maybe?? Tenthredo (thanks AG), and given that lead I got it to atra (awaiting confirmation).

 I've extracted the genitalia so I guess the next stage is to try and match to an illustration in Lacourt... I think the penis valves match ok to atra. 

Penis valves, Tenthredo atra.

Another awkward beast was this moth which came to FUN pheromone lure in the garden. Obsidentify was 100% that this was Pammene obscurata. I wasn't so sure. But online opinion (thanks NV) was that P. obscurata it was indeed. 

Pammene obscurana

I've not light trapped recently as it has been so cold. However, today there was some warmth and I saw a number of Silver-ground Carpet flying at the fish farm, where there were also five or so Orange-tip and a Green-veined White. Along the way on the estate a first Red Admiral of the year showed briefly. I'd seen Painted Lady on 15th at CCW. Of course now is the season for Pearl-bordered Fritillary, A south facing hill near some birch woodland and Bracken; somewhere in Glen Lednock will be worth searching I think, there are old records from there.

Painted Lady

There were a few interesting things in the light traps and a few more to pheromone, I've at last added Emperor Moth to the garden list. But that's for the next post.