Field Trip & Advanced Spider ID

A double-header for friends of the Shropshire Spider Group!

If you have been associated with the Shropshire Spider Group over the last couple of years we'd like to invite you to attend either one or both of these special days which the Tomorrow's Biodiversity project is funding to say 'thanks' to friends of the SSG. Please contact Rich Burkmar if you'd like to come to either.

North Wales field trip Thursday 8th October

Litle Orme

  • Who: Richard Gallon

  • What: Field visit to see some special spiders (and other inverts!)

  • Where:  Little Orme & Great Orme

  • When: Thursday 8th October 2015

We aim to take a minibus from Preston Montford field centre to North Wales where we will meet up with expert local arachnologist Richard Gallon. Richard will be our guide for the day and his local knowledge of Little Orme and Great Orme will ensure that we have the best chance of seeing some very special spiders, including some national rarities.

In the morning we aim to visit Little Orme - a North Wales Wildlife Trust reserve - where we should see, amongst others the very rare Segestria bavarica (see its remarkable distribution here). We will stop for lunch at a local hostelry - probably the Craigside Inn (Brewers Fayre) or Bodafon Farm Park - where Tomorrow's Biodiversity will buy you a hearty meal!

After lunch we are planning to visit a site at Great Orme known for its Purse-web Spiders (Atypus affinis) and which also has Drassylus praeficus, Episinus truncatus, Segestria bavarica, Liocranum rupicola and Micrargus laudatus! It's a spider twitcher's dream!

The field trip will be free to attendees. Places will be limited and preference will be given to those attending the 'advanced techniques' training the day after, but please email Rich Burkmar to register your interest whether or not you are coming on the advanced training.

Advanced Techniques for Spider Identification Friday 9th October

  • Epigyne of a very unusual Microneta viariaWho: Richard Gallon

  • What: Advanced techniques for spider identification

  • Where: FSC Preston Montford, near Shrewsbury

  • When: Friday 9th October 2015

As part of our work with the Shropshire Spider Group, over the course of 2015 we have supported a programme of training courses that has catered for people interested in spiders and other arachnids at all levels. The programme would not be complete without something for people who are already operating at the higher levels, so we've drafted in Richard Gallon - an expert arachnologist with many years experience of identifying spiders both in the field and under the microscope - to lead a one-day workshop on the trickier aspects of identifying spiders, from problem money spiders to advanced techniques like clearing and disection.

This will be a chance of people who have experience of identifying invertebrates under the microscope to get together with others and discuss the trickier identification problems of identifying arachnids and compare notes and techniques on how to overcome them.

The workshop is free to participants, but we are expecting attendees to be well-versed in the use of micrsocopes and have experience of identifying invertebrate specimens with them. It will be an ideal opportunity for people to bring along troublesome specimens - either to get help or to show other people how they overcame the identificaiton problems.

The workshop will start at 9:30 and continue until 17:00. You may wish to bring your own micrscope, but if not, we can arrange for the use of one on the day. You must bring your own lunch, but tea and coffee will be provided.

Places are limited but we can accommodate around 12, so if you would like to book a place at the workshop, please contact Rich Burkmar.