On the evening of the 19/05/2025, about an hour before dark, I visited St Andrews Church, Tarvin SJ491669. I beat the yews and other evergreen trees along with a few shrubs and hedges until it got too dark to see the spiders on the beating tray. I then investigated the churches walls by torchlight before visiting Kelsall Methodist church SJ523683 for another torchlit survey.

A couple of days later I got the specimens under the microscope and found that both Philodromus collinus and Philodromus albidus were amongst the beating catch, with a single female of the former and 1 male 2 females of the latter. I had expected P. collinus to be present in the county, but P. albidus was a pleasant surprise (this was only the second time I have encountered this species). P. collinus has possibly always been present in Cheshire (but nobody has beaten yews in churches during early summer before now) with P. albidus being a recent colonist as it expands from its south-easterly stronghold. Although both species are on their known north-western limit in Cheshire, with good numbers being collected widely across the county, both species are undoubtedly present in South Lancashire and quite likely to be found in North Lancashire and possibly even further north.

Over the next couple of months I found more specimens of both species from further churchyards, cemeteries and a public park by beating yews and other evergreens. P. collinus was always collected from beating yew and other evergreens with numbers dwindling as the season moved on, with males dying out just after midsummer and (from my experience of this species in Leicestershire) some females surviving until the first frosts. P. albidus on the other hand can be beaten from both deciduous (particularly oak) and evergreen trees as well as a variety of shrubs and bushes. Again males die out by midsummer and as the season moves on females are more likely to be beaten from evergreen bushes and ivy (I presume looking for somewhere to lay their eggs). At several sites I visited in early to mid July an hour of beating produced a single female P. albidus specimen usually from ivy just over a foot above ground level or from the sparsely vegetated branches of mature holly trees.

I would like to thank Peter Harvey for putting the new county records on the SRS website.