A Tenuous Case

I made use of a couple of free hours this afternoon. First off, I headed to Swithland Reservoir in glorious sunshine. I'd only just got out of the car when I noticed a few ducks close to the dam by the overflow, including two of my favourite species beginning with G ....

Gadwalls were preening and having a drink in between bouts of courtship ...

No such luck for this lone drake Goldeneye.

After grabbing a few snaps, I set about my main purpose. Staring at walls. It didn't take long to find the expected Psychidae.

Luffia lapidella f. ferchaultella

Dahlica sp. - found a good number of cases in a slightly different section of the boundary wall to where I usually look. All looked to be D. lichenella, no potential D. triquetrella.

I noticed one moving about, surprisingly. They overwinter as full-fed larvae and should be pupating by now. When I got my hand lens out to have a good look at this one I noticed something else very close by .....

Bristly Millipede - never ceases to amaze me how these are invisible when you are actually looking for them.

Whilst I was enjoying these wall-dwellers, they were not what I was actually looking for. News came through during the week that Keith Tailby and Mark Hammond had found putative silk-tube cases of Infurcitinea argentimaculella. The photos seemed compelling, if a little inconspicuous. They'd been found at Ulverscroft and along the Swithland Res walls, but I was seeing nothing. After a quick call to Keith, I decided to head over to Ulverscoft and try there.

I was soon looking at a much more promising habitat, with the dry stone wall covered in a powdery blue-grey lichen (Lepraria sp.). If you think looking for larval cases of Psychidae is tenuous, you ought to try this .....

This is likely to overwinter as a small larva, but should be starting to become active again in spring, so it seems likely that bigger cases are old and vacated. I've collected a couple to have a look at, but definitely this is one to make an effort to return to in a couple of months. With lichens generally doing better now, and with eg the spread of lichen-feeding footmen spp., seems likely that this has also done well in the last decade or so and could well be wide-spread. After all, even when it's on your radar (which it wasn't) it is not exactly jumping out at you!

Just before getting back in the car, I had a quick look at the outer wall and quickly found more Psychids.

Narycia duplicella

Beach Life

Had a great break down in North Devon over easter, staying at the inlaws. I managed to combine some great family days out with some PSL activity, particularly during a couple of beach visits. There are some great beaches along the North Devon coast, with long stretches of sand and dunes with some good rock-pooling opportunities at either end. Our first full day wasn't the best weatherwise, but we headed over to Westwood Ho! beach and whilst the boys and their cousins were happily playing I ambled over to the rocks and boulders.

I wasn't exactly equipped for rock-pooling, just some pots, hand lens, penknife, camera and generalist field guide. Didn't take long to find interesting things though, just by watching patiently or tuning over rocks. There were lots of shelled molluscs including a few new for me, plus good numbers of anemones. Mainly the expected Beadlet Anemone, but also a good few of these ...

Strawberry Anemone - new for me, can't think where the name comes from

Another one I was pleased to find was my first chiton. These are odd looking things - they appear like colourful legless woodlice from above and you may think that they are crustaceans, but from below they are clearly molluscs.

Lepidochitona cinerea

I could have picked up a whole host of shelled molluscs to show the huge variation in size and colour of some species, but I picked out a few that were clearly different species to each other and some of these were new for me like ....

Thick Top Shell (Osilinius lineatus)

Flat Periwinkle (Littorina obtusata)

Flat Top Shell (Gibbula umbilicalis)

Aside from the expected marine stuff, I also found a springtail way out in the rock pools and well away from the dry area inshore from the high-tide line.

Anurida maritima

This very hardy springtail is hydrophobic thanks to the body hairs, and these also entrap air which allows it to withstand being submerged for up to two days. How hard is that!

Away from the beach, I picked up a couple of ticks from the inlaws garden.

Bank Vole - not sure how I've managed to not actually see one alive before

Bristly Millipede - massive coincidence to find this on a bright-whitewashed wall of an outhouse as we'd been out at Arlington Court all day and I'd been failing to find this on the old stone walls and buildings.

The other beach we visited was Woolacombe, and it was a much brighter and sunnier day. Again I managed to spend some time around the rockpools and add a few things to the list ..

Pepper Dulse

Elminius modestus - a naturalised barnacle, unusual in having only four plates

Greenleaf Worm (Eulalia viridis)

Speckled Sea Louse (Eurydice pulchra)