First Hoverfly of 2021

Today turned out to be a beautiful day, hardly a cloud in the clear blue sky, snow on the hilltops, a crisp northerly breeze in my face but the air not so cold that I needed gloves. Pretty darn wet underfoot, it has to be said. We've seen a heck of a lot of rain recently! 

I took myself into Uig Wood and checked tree trunks for roosting craneflies (couldn't find any), thought about sweeping the low vegetation (too wet) or tussocking (again, too wet) so ended up grubbing through mosses and lichens on tree trunks and shaking aeriel debris into my sweep net. Not a particularly productive way of finding spiders and flies, but I found a few. 

2mm of male chironomid midge. Way beyond my skills, I let him go

Adult male Metellina merianae - spider No.5 for the Challenge

The woods really were very hard going, and after an hour or so I decided to quit and head across the sheep fields towards the cemetery where I could check in a drystone wall for signs of life. I picked a random bit of fence line to cross, put my hand on a post for balance...then stopped as I saw this

What on earth is that?

A closer look was obviously required

It's a hoverfly larva! 

If you look really closely, you can see a pair of breathing tubes sticking out at the top end (actually the rear, the larva is positioned facing head downwards). I figured it was a Dasysyrphus, but there are several species that occur on Skye and I didn't know if this could be identified to species as a larva. However, I know a man who does! So I popped the pic on the UK Hoverflies Larval Group's FB page and within a few minutes was informed that it was a Dasysyrphus albostriatus and the first larval hoverfly record of the year on Facebook! Yay....so what do I win?

Continuing to the cemetery wall, I began by surreptitiously checking no crofters were watching, before carefully lifting the top stones in search of spiders. I know all of the local crofters now, a bit of a rough and ready bunch to be fair, but they're usually pretty decent types. However, nobody likes it when 'idiots' begin pulling apart the walls. I'm certain I could talk my way out of any trouble, but it's probably best not to deliberately wind them up wherever possible. As it happens, I found more in ten metres of wall than I did on the trees!

A young Megabunus diadema - it must have been all of about 2mm long!

This is a female Trichocera saltator (keyed indoors) seemingly trying to push a rock up a hill...

And this is a liny (money spider) which is currently causing me some problems

There are only two ways to go about this Challenge when it comes to the spiders. The first option is to buckle up and crack on with all of them, no matter how big or small, just get on with it and see how you progress. The second option is to say "Oh shite, that's a money spider. Bollocks am I doing that" and just stick to the big easy stuff. Hopefully you all know I'm never going to take that second option. That's akin to running a moth trap and ignoring all the micro's 'coz they're too difficult' and obviously nobody does that... 

The way I see it is simple. There are shedloads of linyphiid spiders out there (linys for short, the money spiders basically). It will be impossible to avoid them whilst looking for other spiders, and indeed whilst sweeping for flies too. I've spent lots of money on decent literature specifically to put myself in a position to tackle them. Provided they are sexually mature - which means they are fully developed and hence identifiable - I will collect them in an effort to become more proficient in their identification. But some of them are pretty hard to ID. And this one's identity is currently proving a tad tricky to nail. 

Quite a distinctive epigyne, you'd think it would be easy to find a match

I ran it through the keys, taking count of the number of leg bristles on certain tibia and metatarsi, noted the absence of a trichobothria on one part of one leg, checked it's position on one part of another leg, came up with a formula, measured the whole spider at 3.5mm, ran it through the keys and came out with, I think, eleven possibilities. Picture matching the epigynes narrowed it to the genus Centromerita, with a couple in the genus Centromerus as outside possibilities. But nothing conclusively matched, no matter which images I looked at in my books or on various websites. 

Eventually I caved and put the images up on the UK Spiders FB Group with a plea for help. So far I've had one of the Centromerus species suggested, so at least I'm in the right area, but nothing conclusive. I'll try again tomorrow, with fresh eyes. 

My 2021 Challenge tally so far stands at four flies, seven spiders and one harvestman. A steady start, I think. I need to try and keep from developing any backlog specimens for as long as possible, before it all kicks off in the spring. Baby steps, I've a very long way to go yet!