Spiders, Beetles and Bugs

Not many of them, it's not my main area of interest but I always end up taking a few pictures during the year and then don't find the time to research and identify them. They usually wait until we get a wet and windy winters day when I have nothing better to do.


Three spiders, all easy to identify. An interesting area to explore but it's difficult to get decent photographs and the identification, once you get away from the more obvious ones, can be really time consuming. Perhaps I just need to have a "Big Spider Year".

Common Garden Spider - Araneus diadematus

Zebra Spider - Salticus scenicus

Green Orb-weaver - Araniella cucurbitina

Beetles and Shieldbugs next. These are really just a by-product of taking pictures of butterflies. It's just fascinating how much life exists in the vegetation but you just don't see it unless you stop and look.

Black and Yellow Longhorned beetle - Rutpela maculata

Cantharis rustica - one of the soldier beetles

Common Red Soldier Beetle - Rhagonycha fulva

Sulphur Beetle - Cteniopus sulphureus

Thick-legged Flower Beetle - Oedemera nobilis

Oedemeridae group of beetles probably Oedemera lurida

Shieldbugs I particularly like. They are relatively easy to identify and there are only around forty four species recorded in the UK. Just the right sort of number for a life list, challenging but achievable. Not sure that I want to go in for netting or hoovering though, so it would be difficult to find them all.

Hairy Shieldbug - Dloycoris Baccarum

Red-legged Shieldbug - Pentatoma rufipes

Red-legged Shieldbug - Pentatoma rufipes

Common Green Shieldbug - Palomena prasina

Came into the house on the Christmas tree and trying to get out through the double glazing

Common Green Shieldbug - Palomena prasina

Only one problem, you need to be careful not to confuse them with Squash Bugs, family Coreidae, that can look very similar. This one below the Dock Bug.

Dock Bug - Coreus marginatus

The last picture, a Harlequin Ladybird, an invasive and problematic species. It out competes our native ladybirds for food and also eats their larvae and eggs. I rarely see any other ladybirds these days.

Harlequin Ladybird -  Harmonia axyridis

More to follow with Flies and Hoverflies.

Red-breasted Mergansers

The beginning of a new birding year and I am off to a very slow start. We had family staying over New Year and for the first few days of January, then I was laid low by a stomach bug. Even the garden feeders let me down. The Sparrows, Goldfinches and Greenfinches that visit every day disappeared, Wood Pigeons gone, no Robin, no Dunnocks. I managed to entice a couple of Herring Gulls in with some festivity left overs but other than that it was a couple of Crows, one Starling and a few feral pigeons on the surrounding TV aerials.

I finally managed to get out for a couple of hours on the Monday and decided to target the Red-breasted Merganser at Widewater and the Purple Sandpipers at Shoreham Fort. Great idea but neither were showing, there was nothing on the sea, and very few other birds about. I ended up going home at the end of my two hours with my bird list barely reaching double figures.

Fortunately things picked up after that but with generally overcast and dull conditions picture opportunities have been limited. Still a return to Widewater on the Tuesday did give me the Merganser and also sight off the Purple Sandpipers, which were roosting in deep shadow under the pier.

Red-breasted Merganser

Red-breasted Merganser

It took yet another visit to get the Purple Sandpipers in half decent light. Not my best pictures of them but it was good to finally get the shots.

Purple Sandpiper

Purple Sandpiper

Next picture is a Water Pipit. This one taken on the tidal marsh at Appledram. Seen in isolation it is often a difficult call to tell it from a Rock Pipit. Fortunately in flight you can clearly see the white outer tail feathers that confirm the identification.

Water Pipit

The shot below is a Rock Pipit taken on very similar territory at Pagham North Wall. It was being mostly true to its name, hunting along the stones on the edge of the wall, whilst the Water Pipit was out amongst the puddles left by the retreating tide.

Rock Pipit

Also at Appledram a Greenshank in the fading light

Greenshank

A quick trip to the WWT at Arundel added a few more birds to the list. This Grey Wagtail was still foraging around the dried out duck feeding pool. The signs say that the area will be developed for a new bird pavilion. I guess that means Flamingos or Pelicans. I hope they are not making a mistake. I may not like captive birds but I always stopped to look for the Smew and to listen to the Eiders calling. Surely bringing the children to feed the ducks is (was) one of the biggest attractions of the site.

Grey Wagtail

You are never quite sure what you are going to get when you photograph Kingfishers. This one in good light at the Appledram outflow is OK but I have taken hundreds like it.

Kingfisher Appledram

I thought this one taken from the Scrape Hide at the WWT was a wasted effort, fading light, back-lit, high ISO, but it is always worth giving it a go. The "blue" feathers can give some odd effects.

Kingfisher WWT Arundel

So where does the blue streak come from? The orange plumage is the product of tiny pigment granules but its cyan and blue feathers contain no pigments.


These colours are ‘structural’. They are created by the intricate structural arrangement of a transparent feather material which, depending on its precise make-up and thickness compared to the wavelength of light, produces a range of colours from incident light – in other words from light shining on the feather with only certain wavelengths being reflected (or is it refracted?). Scientists describe this as semi-iridescent. Think of a soap bubble. It is formed from a colourless transparent liquid but when blown up into a very thin layered bubble it shows all the colours of the rainbow.


But then I struggle with this picture. The bird is silhouetted with its back in shadow, so where does the incident light come from to generate such a vivid blue streak?


For the record it wasn't Photoshop!

Semipalmated Sandpiper

Over the weekend there had been lots of reports and also a few good pictures, of a Semipalmated Sandpiper on Oxey Lagoon, Pennington. Monday dawned fine and clear so I decided to make the journey. This is a site I have visited a few times in the past but it is really at the edge of my day birding area. It's a pity that it is so far, as there are always a good selection of birds to see there.

It wasn't difficult to find. I parked up and walked a mile or so along the coast path and soon saw a gathering of three or four people standing overlooking the lagoon. I had expected more, it's quite a rare bird, a life tick for me, and there had been some discussion over the possibility of it being a much rarer Western Sandpiper.

There wasn't a great deal to do. It didn't seem fazed by our presence and I watched it feeding for about half an hour taking a few snaps as it moved around.

Eventually it hauled out under the bank, spent a few minutes preening and then settled down for a siesta. A good time for me to move on. 

As for the issue of Western or Semipalmated - I am no expert and the bill does look a bit long for a Semipalmated but everything else seems to support this conclusion. Colour, straight stout bill, breast markings, etc, but it is a difficult call. They are very similar species and I have no experience of the variations within each. This is one where I will have to be guided by more experienced eyes.

I picked up a Long-tailed Duck on one of the other lagoons

and there were probably seven or eight Spotted Redshanks about but none of them were giving good picture opportunities.


There were probably other things to see around Pennington Marsh but this time of year daylight hours are short and the hours for photography are even shorter. I wanted to call in at Eyeworth pond on the way home to see if there were any Mandarins at home. The ones on my local pond back in Sussex have gone AWOL this year, or at least they have on the occasions I have gone looking for them.


I was pleased to find that there were Mandarins on Eyeworth although they were keeping their distance and sheltering under the bushes on the opposite side of the pond for most of the time I watched them. There was also a Goosander

and a wonderful Muscovy Duck that came rushing over to see one lady who then proceeded to feed it from a dog bowl full of seed.

Possibly an escapee or just a bird that has learnt how to get an easy meal but it needs to take care or it could end up on someones Christmas table.

By now the light was going so I headed back to the car and off back to Sussex.

Snow Bunting

It looked promising today, the wind had dropped, the sun was breaking through and there was no rain in the forecast. The target was the Snow Bunting at Medmerry and it was good to get out, into some decent weather for taking photographs.

But perhaps not that decent. About a hundred metres from home and I was in thick fog that stretched all the way along the coast to Chichester and down to Selsey. Still I was out and I needed the fresh air so there was no point in turning back. Parking up at Selsey, if anything, the visibility had closed in even further. However, the walk to the Medmerry Breach would be good exercise particularly as most of it was on shingle.

The highlight of the walk was a flock of about forty Ringed Plovers hunkered down on the beach. I had no idea they were there and it was quite a shock when they spotted me and half the beach seemed to lift into the air. They did one quick circuit allowing me to make a quick count but then disappeared westward probably to the Stilt Pool on the other side of the breach.

The breach itself was really spectacular. It was the first time I had seen it with a real high tide running and with the fog making it impossible to see the other side the warnings not to attempt a crossing really carried some weight.

Sitting on the rocks eating my sandwiches the sun started to make itself felt and the fog gradually began to clear. Soft bright light opening up the view and there was the Snow Bunting sitting on the fence of the last caravan.

It was perhaps more wary than some Snow Buntings that I have photographed but as long as you moved slowly it showed little inclination to flight.

I did lose it at one stage when a gardener complete with strimmer appeared and put it to flight but as he moved on the bird soon reappeared and started searching the grassed areas for seeds. I watched it for a while and then had a second chance to photograph it on the fence.

It was good to get it isolated from its background. Most times you see Snow Buntings they are on shingle and their colours tend to blend into the background.

I searched for Black Redstarts but did not see any and with rain threatening I headed back to the car. Half an hour finishing of my lunch, in the car park at the Bill, gave me a few Turnstones but with the rain setting in I headed for home.

I was lucky, it didn't last for long but this was my best lighting and best picture opportunity for months.

Great Bustard

I had left it a few days but in the end I had to go to see the Great Bustard. It had been reported over at Rookery Hill, on the downs just outside of Bishopstone. The bird, which is showing a red ring with the number 92, is a juvenile female and part of the Salisbury Plain re-introduction program. However, you cannot see that from my pictures. As well as being knee deep in Kale it is over 300 metres away. I would have liked to have got closer but there is no point in upsetting the farmer.

Apparently she did fly in from Spain, back in May, but  that was in the form of an egg. She was hatched and then released in August, to join the rest of the reintroduced population. Why it is now in temporary residence in Sussex and what it will do next is still unclear.

I guess I will have to wait a few more years to see a British born Great Bustard but it was well worth going to see. A great bird even if it is half tame.


The best of the rest from a few trips out around Selsey and Pagham Harbour and up onto the Downs. Starting with one of the many Black Redstarts that have been appearing locally.

Black Redstart

Cattle Egret

Chiffchaff

Singing competition

Stonechat

Wren

Nothing unusual but it is at least nice to see a few birds. Is it just me or are they getting very thin on the ground? Some of the once reliable places I visit now seem to be completely devoid of birds.