And still they come

The last few days have really made up for the dismal April, although I suspect that some of the early spring moths have slipped through the net. Still, we look forward as all good folk should and this post shows why - a Sunday and Monday trap and both days providing lots of activity and new moths for the year. And some great moths to see too!

Sunday 27th - 33 moths of 16 species. 15W BLB and 117W CFL combo trap
The majority of space in the trap was taken up by the boisterous Scalloped Hazel and tonight brought 9 of them to the trap, by far the most I've seen! New for the year came in the form of 2 x Pale Tussock, a cracking little Mottled Pug, a tiny Firethorn Leaf Miner, Iron Prominent and a Rustic Shoulder-knot. The Iron Prom was a bit battered and had obviously been around for a while so I'm surprised that I haven't seen one earlier. The rest were really fresh moths, especially the Scalloped Hazel, indicating the recent warm weather had eventually brought about the miraculous transformation that brings them to the trap.

Pale Tussock

Look at those antenae

Mottled Pug

Firethorn Leaf Minor

A great night and some old friends from last year providing lots of entertainment. I've also come across (what I think is) an interesting idea for photographing moths. As anyone who has ever tried, it is bloody difficult to get 'em to stop still! Putting them in the fridge seems to work to some degree, particularly works well with Noctuids and the like, not quite so good with Geometrids and almost no good with the micros. After spending hours trying to photographing them last year and watching the after effects of fridging them up for the day I noticed that almost all the species immediately stuck our their tongue (is that the right choice of word?) and started searching for moisture, presumably to re-hydrate themselves after being so cold. It immediately struck me that if there were something sweet and tempting for them to drink then they may stay longer. And thus began my experiment with sugar, honey and water dripped onto the wall where I take my photos to see which species respond more than others. As you can see for micros it works a treat, the Leaf Miner above stayed for plenty of time. Pugs seem to love it too, which is great as I haven't many good pug shots. The only ones that haven't appeared to appreciate my culinary skills are the Brimstone and Twenty-plume Moth. The tests continue...

Monday 28th - 43 moths of 21 species . 15W Actinic with 42W CFL combo
With equally good conditions, I thought it would be a good test to see how the moths respond differently to the Actinic. As you can see the results speak for themselves - almost 30% more moths than yesterday. Tonight 7 new for the year including this Poplar Hawk-moth (always great to get a hawk in the trap!!), Small Phoenix, the first of plenty of Heart & Darts, the first orange-panelled Common Marbled Carpet appeared (the others I've caught so far have been the dark grey variety) and a few others. Nothing new for my lifelist again, but as you can see some fascinatingly varied moths!

Poplar Hawk-moth

Small Phoenix

White-spotted Pug

Incurvaria masculella

Foxglove Pug

Buff Ermine

Twenty-plume Moth

With all these newbies the moth yearlist has now hit the 81 mark. The trap is out again as we speak and buzzing with this heavy cloud, hopefully it doesn't rain too hard...

May ups its game

...but only slightly.



Garden Carpet



Campion



After some great birding over the weekend, the weather appears to have made a turn for the better. Sunday night and the trap was out! With temperatures of 13 degrees for the daytime, and only dropping to 9 degrees throughout the night I thought that something wonderful would grace the trap.



Pale Mottled Willow



Shuttle-shaped Dart



Garden Carpet, Pale Mottled Willow, Campion and Twenty-plume Moth were all potted before departing for bed - and all new for the garden yearlist. I was excited to see what would be in the trap when I awoke!!

Sadly, the exitement was a little far-fetched and the only inhabitants of the trap were 2 x Shuttle-shaped Dart. But they too were new for the garden yearlist, and take pride of place among the 7 moths that came to please me. The other little fellow was Emmelina monodactyla.

This week is looking much warmer, albeit with clearer night skies, so hopefully the traps will definitely be out again soon (and much fuller too!)

A weekend away

Our first camping trip (since our inauguration at Chatsworth last year) took place this weekend, and what a fantastic time we had. Four friends and associated partners, kids and dogs set up home at Bank House Farm, Hulme End in the Manifold Valley. Located right next to the river on the flood plain, this little campsite was absolutely perfect for us. Plenty of space for the kids to play, a good set of facilities and very friendly, helpful site owner meant that we all had a throughly enjoyable weekend. And to top it off the birding wasn't too bad either. After pitching up Friday evening and enjoying a good catch-up, we put ourselves to bed, only to be duetted by a pair of the local Tawny Owls around 11pm.

Early morning dawn chorus included a Redstart, which turned out to be very showy the following day, and was one of several that we saw on a walk from camp downstream to Thor's Cave. The walk was full of spring, with warblers in full song, plenty of flowers in bloom and the sun shining well (considering the poor weather we had been promised!). The Peregrine put on a quick show for us, but the Dipper was missing this time. As you can see the kids loved hunting down some of the fossils found in the Carboniferous Limestones of the Manifold Valley. This spot held loads of Crinoids, corals and shells of various sorts.

The limestone is also the culprit for the phenomenom here. This is the state of the River Manifold (one of the major rivers in Derbys/Staffs). The river, during dry periods, falls through the cracks and gullies in the limestone, disappears completely from this stretch and resurfaces further downstream. When we visited earlier in the year the winter rains had kept the river above ground, but as you can see with the recent "drought" the river has retreated to calmer passages.

These flowers (which I think are Wood Anemones?) were carpeting all the wooded walk up to Thor's Cave, with patches growing elsewhere along the trail. This Ammonite was spotted inside Thor's Cave on a particularly slippy bit where clearly many people have trod before.

And finally, these two snippets of nature that were found during the weekend. Some sort of fungus coating a dead piece of wood used as a barrier at the campsite. I think it's a Trametes but would appreciate any wiser reader comments. And the same for this hoverfly. No doubt it's a common enough species but hoverflies are a new world for me that I enjoy dipping into every now and again.

The weekend was completed in style with a quick twitch over at Long Eaton after news of a Little Gull was received. After picking up a massive number of Swift and hirundines over Pastures Lane it was clear that a big hatch of insects had pulled in the gull. This site is virtually guaranteed to get them and also Arctic Tern at this time of year and today was no different. At least twenty Arctics were floating around the furthest lake and after following them into the corner the Little Gull was picked out. A cracking pair of birds, and to add to the evening's entertainment a Lesser Whitethroat led me on a merry dance up the lane until finally giving itself away. A Twenty-plume Moth was also spotted flying across the path. Four ticks and a lovely evening walk to top off a fabulous bank holiday weekend!