Going through the garden moth trap this morning, I was pleased to find the second Privet Hawk Moth of the year. I posed it on the dead willow for a photo, when the nearby bird dropping sprouted legs and started to move....

Closer inspection revealed the rather funky Platyrhinus resinosus - a new weevil and very very cool to boot. Sadly, once it clocked me, it went into bird dropping mode.

It is amazing how much...

Andy Phillips has confirmed that the specimen I recorded of the large wolf spider Pirata piscatorius last week in the Black Hole at Burton Pond is a first for West Sussex. This is a big impressive spider (at Pevensey, people often mistake them for raft spiders!) so it is surprising that it has been over looked. West Sussex does have plenty of undiscovered species though and the Black Hole is not exactly the most inviting of habitats!

Here is the BAS web page of the spider http://www...

There were a couple of orchid species I wanted to see this year - Military and Late Spider. It became obvious that the season was going to be earlier than usual this year yet the weather was pretty unaccommodating so as soon as a couple of dry, if not hot, days were forecast, I planned to set off on a couple of adventures.

Going out to the car on Friday, I noticed a shieldbug on the windscreen. I potted it and realised that is was a new species for me.

  Troilus luridus.

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