October Moths

October was a quiet month moth-wise, as you would expect.  I say expect because you wouldn't expect the same sort of numbers as you would in July or August.  October was relatively wet, so that also limited the number of occasions that the moth trap was employed.  In fact it was limited to 2 occasions.  But there were a couple of new species for the year, including the striking Merveille du jour.

18 October 2014 (abandoned mid-evening due to rain)

Green-brindled Crescent - Allophyes oxyacanthae

Barred Sallow
Green-brindled Crescent
Silver Y

30 October 2014

Light-brown Apple Moth (micro)
Large Yellow Underwing
Rusty-dot Pearl (micro)
Merveille du Jour
Smoky Wainscot
Yellow-line Quaker

Merveille du Jour - Dichonia aprilina

Merveille du Jour - Dichonia aprilina

September Moths

Okay, so it's November - and high time I got round to checking my records and letting you know what I found in the moth trap in September.  There were a lot of moths, a handful of relatively scarce moths, and a few striking ones.  There was also a rather delicate Mayfly - yes, in September!  Pictures of the best and full lists below.

5 September 2014

Angle Shades

Black-headed Conch (micro)

Pond Olive Mayfly - Cloeon dipterum

Four-spotted Footman - Lithosia quadra

Blood Vein

Bright-line Brown-eye

Brimstone

Brown China-mark (micro)

Centre-barred Sallow

Chinese Character

Clay

Common Grass Veneer (micro)

Diamond Back (micro)

Dingy Footman

Dusky Thorn

European Corn-borer (micro)

Feathered Gothic

Flame Shoulder

Frosted Orange

German Wasp

Knot Grass

Large Yellow Underwing

Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing

Light Emerald

Light-brown Apple Moth (micro)

Oak Hook-tip

Peacock

Riband Wave

Ringed China Mark (micro)

Ruby Tiger

Setaceous Hebrew Character

Shuttle-shaped Dart

Six-striped Rustic

Small Blood-vein

Small Grey (micro)

Small Phoenix

Smoky Wainscot

Snout

Spectacle

Square-spot Rustic

Straw Dot

Wood Sage Plume - Capperia britanniodactyla

Vine’s Rustic

Willow Beauty

Wood Sage Plume (micro)

14 September 2014

Brimstone

Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing

Clay

Clifden Nonpareil

Clifden Nonpareil - Catocala fraxini

Dusky Thorn

Flame

Frosted Orange

L-album Wainscot

Large Yellow Underwing

Narrow Grey (micro)

Oak Hook-tip

Riband Wave

Ringed China Mark (micro)

Rosy Rustic

Ruby Tiger

Setaceous Hebrew Character

Small Square-spot

Snout

Straw Dot

Willow Beauty

27 September 2014

Pinion-streaked Snout - Shrankia costaestrigalis

Angle Shades

Black Rustic

Bright-line Brown-eye

Brimstone

Common Wasp

Dusky Thorn

Four-spotted Footman

Frosted Orange

Light Emerald

Light-brown Apple Moth (micro)

Lunar Underwing

Narrow-winged Grey (micro)

Pinion-streaked Snout

Rush Veneer (micro)

Sallow

Setaceous Hebrew Character

Silver Y

Snout

Straw Dot

Willow Beauty

Frosted Orange - Gortyna flavago

Black Redstart

You know how it goes, you are sat in your living room reading and out of the corner of your eye you catch a bird landing on the wall outside.  Your first thought is "it's a robin".   Then you notice the lack of a red breast.  Just as your brain is going through the possibilities, it flies off and you catch a glimpse of its red tail and rump and you know that you've just missed a black redstart.  A few moments later it lands again in the same spot and hops down behind the wall, then back on the wall before flying off again.

Time to grab a camera and a long lens so that you have it assembled and ready in case it returns.  It does return, so you lift your camera to find the viewfinder full of the robin that just chased off the redstart.  So no photo.  Here's one I prepared earlier - much earlier - about 2 and a half years earlier - and its a female and way down the bottom of the garden, not the beautifully marked male that perched just outside the window.  It did, honestly!

Black Redstart - Phoenicurus ochruros

North Wales Wildlife

Occasionally, I go up to Aberdaron in North Wales to meet up with a few friends, the only connection being that we used to work together and one has a cottage there.  Aberdaron is a fairly remote village at the farthest end of the Llyn peninsular, looking out over the Irish Sea, Cardigan Bay, and Bardsey Island.  This is normally a good place to see Choughs - I once saw a flock of about 20 here - but on this visit, despite checking out as many black birds as the strong south-easterly allowed, all I saw were crows and jackdaws.

We did manage to see some grey seals though, as well as a late season queen common carder bumblebee clinging to knapweed and storing up nectar for her forthcoming hibernation.  Incidentally, the scientific name of the grey seal - Halichoerus grypus - means hook-nosed little sea pig!

If anybody ever wonders how aggressive bumblebees are, they should know that to take these pictures I had the lens of the camera about six inches away from her, and was holding the stem of the flower in my other hand.  The only threat I got was a back leg raised as if to say - I've got a sting under here - please go away.

Common Carder - Bombus pascuorum

Common Carder - Bombus pascuorum

Grey Seal - Halichoerus grypus

Grey Seals - Halichoerus grypus

August Moths

So far September has been a busy month, so it's taken me a while to get round to noting the moths that we found in August. But here they are - the weather wasn't as hot and dry as it should be in a normal August (if there is such a thing) so numbers were down, but there were still a few 'firsts' in the trap.  Pictures and catch lists below.

Peach Blossom - Thyatira batis

2 Aug 2014

Ash-bark Knot-horn (micro)

Black Arches

Brimstone

Buff Ermine

Common Wave

Dusky Thorn

Flame Shoulder

Furness Dowd (micro)

Garden Pebble (micro)

Garden Tiger

Grey/Dark Dagger

Iron Prominent

Jersey Tiger

Lunar Thorn

Marbled Piercer (micro)

Oak Eggar

Orange Swift

Pale-streak Grass-veneer (micro)

Peach Blossom

Riband Wave

Scalloped Hook-tip

Scalloped Oak

Shuttle-shaped Dart

Silver Y

Small Grey (micro)

Straw Dot

Swallow Prominent

Willow Beauty

Scalloped Hook-tip - Falcaria lacertinaria

22 Aug 2014

Angle Shades

Brimstone

Cabbage Moth

Clay

Common Grass-veneer (micro)

Common Marble (micro)

Common Rustic

Dark-bordered Pearl (micro)

Dusky Thorn

Elbow-stripe Grass-veneer (micro)

Flame Shoulder

Iron Prominent

Large Yellow Underwing

Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing

Lesser Swallow Prominent

Lesser Yellow Underwing

Light-brown Apple Moth

Maiden’s Blush

Narrow-winged Grey (micro)

Peacock

Setaceous Hebrew Character

Silver Y

Small Square-spot

Smoky Wainscot

Snout

Square-spot Rustic

Willow Beauty

31 August 2014

Brimstone

Chinese Character

Oak Eggar - Lasiocampa quercus subsp. quercus

Common Marbled Carpet

Common Rustic

Feathered Gothic

Green Carpet

Iron Prominent

Large Yellow Underwing

Lesser Yellow Underwing

Light Emerald

Orange Swift

Small Bush Bell (micro)

Small Dusty Wave

Small Square-spot

Snout

Square-spot Rustic

Wasps on Apples

It's the time of the year when apples are ripening and starting to fall off the trees.  It is also the time when queen wasp grubs and male wasp grubs pupate and stop producing their sweet excrement.  In a remarkable give and take process, adult wasps catch and kill (usually) smaller insect prey which they do not have the mouth-parts to ingest.  They carry the prey back to the nest and feed it to their larvae which do have suitable mouth-parts.  The larvae then digest the prey and produce sweet sugary excrement much like the honeydew produced by aphids.  This is then eaten by the adult wasps so that they have enough energy to fly off and catch more prey.  When the colony reaches the end of the cycle and the new queens and males emerge, there are no more larvae to feed the now redundant workers, so they go off to find other sources of sugar, such as the sweet soft drinks to be found in pub beer gardens or the jam in the Victoria sponge you took on your picnic.

They will also look for rotting fruit such as the windfall apples beneath your apple tree, and in many cases will start eating the apples before they fall off the tree if they are ripe enough.  Despite their reputation, wasps are not generally aggressive and will not sting unless severely provoked, for example, by not cutting a slice of Victoria sponge for them.  (Though when they do sting, they produce a pheromone that will cause other nearby wasps to go on the offensive.)

The pictures below are of Red Wasps on apples, a German Wasp chewing fence wood for nest-building, and another German wasp that got caught in the moth trap.

Fortunately wasps are not provoked by having a camera stuck in their face - even when they are drunk on fermenting apple juice.

German Wasp on Fence - Vespula germanica

Red Wasp - Vespula rufa

Red Wasp - Vespula rufa

German Wasp - Vespula germanica

German Wasp - Vespula germanica

July Moths

A very busy month for moths.  As well as the rarities (See Goat and Footman post) there was an abundance of more common species as well as plenty of species new to our moth trap.  On the advice of Trevor, who is an old hand at the moth trapping business, we moved our trap further down the garden and ended up with a much bigger catch as a result.  Pictures of some of the more photogenic below as well as a full list of the moths seen - not including those that flew out of the trap as soon as it was opened because the weather and their wing muscles were so warm.

In total, it was 124 different species - not including the other insects that also get drawn to light.

Common Yellow Conch - Agapeta hamana

7th July

Bright-line Brown-eye

Broad-barred White

Brown Tail

Buff Arches

Buff Ermine

Cinnabar

Common Footman

Common Plume (micro)

Common Yellow Conch (Agapeta hamana - micro)

Coronet

Coxcomb Prominent

Dark Arches

Coxcomb Prominent - Ptilodon capucina

Dot moth

Early Thorn

Elephant Hawkmoth

Flame

Flame Shoulder

Heart and Club

Heart and Dart

Herald

L-album Wainscot

Large Yellow Underwing

Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing

Poplar Hawkmoth

White Plume - Pterophorus pentadactyla

Riband Wave

Rosy Footman

Scalloped Oak

Small Grey (Eudonia mercurella - micro)

Small Magpie (micro)

Small White Wave

Smoky Wainscot

Spectacle

Spotted Magpie (Phlyctaenia coronata - micro)

Suspected

White Plume (not in trap)

Willow Beauty

12th July

Small Phoenix - Ecliptopera silaceata

Acorn Piercer (Pammene fasciana - micro)

Bright-line Brown-eye

Buff Arches

Clay

Clouded Silver

Common Bright (Incurvaria oehlmanniella - micro)

Common Rustic

Dark Arches

Dot Moth

Double-square spot

Mirid Bug - Miridius quadrivirgatus

Ear Moth

Elephant Hawkmoth (7)

Heart and Club

Heart and Dart

Large Yellow Underwing

Miller

Mother of Pearl - micro

Oak Nycteoline

Rosy Footman

Rosy Tabby (Endotricha flammealis - micro)

Rustic

Satin Grass-veneer (Crambus perlella - micro)

Scalloped Oak

Buff Arches - Habrosyne pyritoides

Silver Y

Small Grey (Eudonia mercurella - micro)

Small Phoenix

Treble Brown-spot

Uncertain

Yarrow Plume - micro

Other Insects

Orange Ladybird
Sexton Beetle - Nicrophorus interruptus
Black Snail Beetle - Silpha atrata
Mirid Bug - Miridius quadrivirgatus

21st July

Peacock - Macaria notata

Blood Vein

Bright-line Brown-eye

Brimstone

Brown China Mark - micro

Buff Arches

Buff Ermine

Buff-tip

Chinese Character

Clay

Clouded Border

Clouded Silver

Common Footman

Jersey Tiger - Euplagia quadripunctaria

Common Quaker

Coxcomb Prominent

Dark Arches

Dark/Grey Dagger

Dot Moth

Drinker

Dusky Pearl (Udea prunalis - micro)

Ear Moth

Early Thorn

Elephant Hawkmoth

European Corn-borer (Ostrinia nubilalis - micro)

Fan-foot

Notch Wing Tortix - Acleris emargana

Flame Shoulder

Four-spotted Footman

Garden Grass-veneer (Chrysoteuchia culmella - micro)

Garden Tiger

Goat Moth

Heart and Dart

Heather Knot-horn (Pempelia palumbella - micro)

Hebrew Character

Iron Prominent

Jersey Tiger

Least Yellow Underwing

Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing

Lesser Yellow Underwing

Blood-vein - Timandra comae

Lunar-spotted Pinion

Magpie

Maple Prominent

Marbled Piercer (Cydia splendana - micro)

Meal Moth - micro

Mother of Pearl - micro

Notch Wing Tortix (Acleris emargana - micro)

Nut-tree Tussock

Oak Hook-tip

Orthopygia glaucinalis - micro

Pale Prominent

Pale Water-veneer (Donacaula forficella)

Peacock

Pebble Hook-tip

Pebble Prominent

Poplar Hawkmoth

Riband Wave

Ringed China-mark (Parapoynx stratiotata - micro)

Rosy Footman

Rosy Tabby (Endotricha flammealis - micro)

Ruby Tiger

Scalloped Oak

Scarce Footman

Single-dotted Wave

Small Grey (Eudonia mercurella - micro)

Small Yellow Wave

Smoky Wainscot

Straw Dot

Swallow Prominent

Swallow-tailed Moth

Sycamore

Treble Brown Spot

Triple Striped Piercer (Grapholita compositella - micro)

Other Insects

10-spot Ladybird

26th July

Small Rivulet - Perizoma alchemillata

Bird-cherry Ermine - micro

Black Arches

Bright-line Brown-eye

Brimstone

Buff Ermine

Canary-shouldered Thorn

Common Footman

Common Purple & Gold (Pyrausta purpuralis - micro)

Common Rustic

Coronet

Dark Arches

Dark Pine Knot-horn (Dioryctria abietella - micro)

Marbled Green - Cryphia muralis

Dingy Footman

Dun-bar

Dusky Thorn

Elephant Hawkmoth

Flame Shoulder

Iron Prominent

Large Yellow Underwing

Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing

Light Brown Apple Moth (Epiphyas postvittana - micro)

Long-horned Flat-body (Carcina quercana - micro)

Lunar Thorn

Marbled Green

Oak Hook-tip

Pine Hawk-moth - Hyloicus pinastri

Oak Hook-tip

Pale Water-veneer (Donacaula forficella - micro)

Peacock

Peppered Moth

Pine Hawkmoth

Poplar Hawkmoth

Red Twin-spot Carpet

Riband Wave

Ruby Tiger

Ruby Tiger

Sallow

Satin Grass-veneer (Crambus perlella - micro)

Scarce Footman

Shuttle-shaped Dart

Silver Y

Small Rivulet

Small Grey (Eudonia mercurella - micro)

Straw Dot

Straw Grass-veneer (Agriphila straminella - micro)

Swallow Prominent

Swallowtail

Sycamore

Tree-lichen Beauty

Twin-spotted Wainscot

Uncertain

Wax Moth

Yellow-tail

Other Insects

Hawthorn Shield-bug

Dragonfly Walk

At the weekend we went for a walk in Ashdown Forest with Sussex Wildlife Trust looking for dragonflies - and we found plenty.  Two of the species were comparatively rare - the Keeled Skimmer and the Small Red Damselfly.  Both of these need the unshaded slightly acidic conditions typical of the heathland habitat in Ashdown Forest.  Everybody got a good look at the rarities and we had very good views of the not so rare species like the spectacular Golden-ringed Dragonfly and the smartly dressed Black Darter.  We finished off at the ponds in a private garden looking for Brilliant Emerald dragonflies.  We didn't see any but had lots of fun trying to distinguish between Red-eyed damselflies and Small Red-eyed damselflies.

Small Red Damselfly - Ceriagrium tenellum

Keeled Skimmer male - Orthetrum coerulescens

Keeled Skimmer female - Orthetrum coerulescens

Golden-ringed Dragonfly - Cordulegaster boltonii

Ruddy Darter - Sympetrum sanguineum

Black Darter - Sympetrum danae

Black Darter - Sympetrum danae

White-legged damselfly - Platycnemis pennipes

Goat and Tigers

This has been a busy month in the world of moths, the warm humid weather bringing them out in droves.  There will be a full account later, but on Monday night we had three Nationally Scarce moths - The Jersey Tiger, the slightly worn Four-spotted Footman, and the formidable Goat Moth - as well as the strikingly beautiful Garden Tiger, all of which are pictured below.

Garden Tiger - Arctia caja

Jersey Tiger - Euplagia quadripunctaria

Four-spotted Footman - Lithosia quadra

Goat Moth - Cossus cossus

Rare Colour Morphs

If you hang about around the car park at the Village Hall for long enough, you may be lucky enough to see the white squirrel shown below.  Trevor Buttle spotted this rare albino squirrel recently and conveniently had his camera to hand.  Apparently the birth of an albino squirrel is a one in 100,000 chance according to wildlife experts.  Just who those experts are, and how they came up with such a suspiciously round figure is unclear, but it's a figure widely quoted when white squirrel sightings are noted on the internet.  I've seen a white squirrel but I'm sure I've not seen 100,000 grey squirrels - maybe I'm just lucky.

White (Grey) Squirrel - Sciurus carolinensis

While out looking for bumblebees carrying pollen recently, in the Dungeness area, I found what I thought was another rare colour morph, only this time from the insect world.  I thought it was the pink form of the Meadow Grasshopper (Chorthippus parallelus).  Some sources say that pink grasshoppers are not rare but that all meadow grasshopper nymphs are pink (this one is a nymph), and only rarely is the pink colour carried over into adulthood, and then only to females.  However, when I came to check the photo more carefully, I realized that it wasn't a Meadow Grasshopper, but a Field Grasshopper.  (Very subtle naming there!) The Field Grasshopper (Chorthippus brunneus) ranges from buff-coloured through to purple with many shades in between, so pink is not in the least unusual.  But I thought you may like to see the photo anyway.

 Field Grasshopper - Chorthippus brunneus

Rosemary Beetle

This exquisite beetle with its stripy metallic coat was found in our herb garden.  Despite its name I didn't find it on the rosemary bush, but on the nearby lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), though I did find one later on the rosemary ( Rosmarinus officinalis).  It has clearly got a liking for aromatic plants.  It is a flightless beetle that is common in southern Europe, but it has only been found in the UK since 1994, though it has quickly spread throughout the country (without flying!).  Both the adult beetle and its larvae feed on rosemary as well as other plants in the Lamiaceae (mint) family.  That probably explains why the rosemary bush has a large dead patch in the middle.

Rosemary Beetle - Chrysolina americana

Rosemary Beetle - Chrysolina americana

Rosemary Beetle - Chrysolina americana