An Introduction.
In less than five hours from now, I shall be undertaking my 2021 Spiders & Flies Challenge, and bloody hell I can't wait for those bells to strike midnight so I can finally begin!
2020 was all about beetles and flies, and it has always been my intention to continue into 2021 with whichever of those two groups I felt most drawn towards. Well the flies won it, they now appear in my annual challenge for their third consecutive year. I'm still a complete bumbling amateur when it comes to fly recognition skills, but there are only two things that actively prevent me from trying to identify every specimen I collect - a lack of keys for some and a lack of magnification for others. I'm very happy to tackle small flies such as dance flies and winter gnats, right up to the bigger flies such as calliphorids and craneflies, but tiny things like sciarids and chironomids are currently well beyond my means. I do still become ridiculously confused about the position of certain leg bristles and the names for some of the thoracic body panels, but generally I enjoy keying flies. When out in the field I often find myself in a suddenly heightened state of alertness whenever an interesting looking fly buzzes past my face (particularly when it's a cleg!) or lands on a leaf in front of me. Flies are dynamic and often stunning insects, many seem to excel at evading capture, whilst others are identifiable as larvae or from the larval feeding signs. I've now seen over 400 diptera species in Britain and I'm keen to see how many more I can find by the end of this year. Could an extra 200 species be a realistic target, I wonder? How many species could I see in a single year? It's all down to two things really; how much time I spend in the field with them and how much time I put in at the microscope identifying them afterwards.
And as for the spiders...
Just three months ago I had no idea that I'd be as interested in spiders as I am now. Graeme Lyons can take the blame for that one, what with his suction sampling everything that moved during our PSL trip to Scillies in October. Watching him confidently name miniscule spiders by eye was a revelation and I wanted to be that good too. I've had a modest interest in them for years, but I've kind of caught the bug now and have treated myself to an awful lot of extra equipment to aid me in my quest to know more about them. Such as this
This is my beautiful storage system for the spiders I collect. Unlike flies which can be pinned, spiders need to be stored in alcohol. This 60 drawer cabinet has a divider in each drawer, allowing me to house 120 different species before it fills up. Each drawer is 5cm wide, 3cm high and 14cm deep. The whole thing cost me £27 but seems pretty robust and the glass tubes I'm using fit sideways across each drawer almost perfectly. I think I worked out that I can fit something like 3600 small glass tubes in it, which should take a while to achieve!
I've also bought a load of spider literature to help me identify my finds. Like this lot
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| This is the British arachnologist's bible! Palp and epigyne pics of everything |
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| I already had these two books, though they haven't seen a great deal of use |
And although I shall be concentrating on spiders, I will undoubtedly encounter harvestmen and pseudoscorpions at the same time. I already had these FSC charts and the synopses, so no extra outlay required.
I also had to buy some alcohol in which to store the spiders. Lots of folk seem to use a bio fuel from B&Q, but my nearest B&Q is over a hundred miles away, so I grabbed some 99% rubbing alcohol instead. Hopefully that will suffice until I'm next at a B&Q. It's not as though you can get pure alcohol posted to you either, Royal Mail refuse to carry it and it would be prohibitively expensive to get a tub couriered up to Skye. I'll figure it out eventually.
So what are my plans for tomorrow?
Well, I'm going to be doing a wall/window inspection soon after midnight, I should definitely find a few spiders out and about. If it stops raining and maybe warms up a degree or two, there may even be a few flies attracted to the security lights. I'm confident I won't blank.
Tomorrow it all starts properly and, miracle of miracles, it's looking to be a nice day! Fingers crossed for the rest of the year.
Whatever you get up to tonight, have a Happy New Year folks and keep your eye open for the spiders and flies near you. I guarantee there'll be a few!
