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