Birthday boys

You can't hide your age in today's world of social media. If you followed my profile on Facebook etc, you'd have seen see that yesterday I was 62 and today I am 63; and this is right. Happy Birthday to me! The moths have risen to the occasion and given me great delight, first of all with this:

It's a Pebble Prominent, another species which never came to visit us in Leeds, but last night joined its relations, the Swallow Prominents.  Here are a couple of them: Lesser Swallow Prominents as opposed to the larger Swallow Prominent which came the previous night.

Also joining the party was this pretty White Ermine, cousin of the Muslin moths described in yesterday's post (and there was one of them last night too). The Nut-tree Tussock below it was a reminder of one of the first excitements of trapping here at our new home in Oxfordshire; maybe it's one of the moths which came back in early May. It certainly looks a little age-worn.

Something else I've noticed here, which didn't happen in Leeds, is the greater number of moths which don't enter the trap but roost in the grass or leaves surrounding it. Last night they included this Chocolate Tip below and also what I am fairly sure was a Waved Umber - in the other two pics. It was skittish by the time I got to the lamp, rather late after opening birthday cards, and got away before I could take a well-focused picture. The same applied to a sweet little micro, which I think may have been Ancylis badiana.

Finally, here's what I think is a Red Twin-spotted Carpet, a small moth which might be overlooked on a morning which also had the riches listed above. But it is beautifully patterned in the manner of the family, whose appearance led 18th century entomologists to compare them to the Oriental carpets newly-arriving in England at the time.

Mustn't forget: a Hebrew Character and Clouded Drab completed the birthday team.

Just in time - my Bible returns

Happiness reigns! I have found my Moth Bible - indeed both of them. I have survived for a month or so on using the internet for my (admittedly haphazard) identifications, but although it is very good and the resources provided by fellow-enthusiasts are amazing, I don't think anyone can better Richard Lewington's paintings.  Paul Waring and Mark Townsend's system of classifying is also marvellous and it's just so handy to have similar moths set out on the same, or neighbouring pages.

The moths of Oxfordshire have responded in kind. They are very courteous to a new recorder, coming in modest numbers which I can handle, but offering interesting titbits as we go along. My Chief Sage and Advisor Ben Sale commented on my last post about how poor this season has been so far and that he had yet to find a Prominent in his trap.

Bingo!  They were listening, Ben, because look what came this morning. A Swallow Prominent of truly impressive size and splendour - much bigger than the Lesser SPs which were familiar to me in Leeds. Here it is again, in the classic pose (also chosen by Lewington for his painting of the species), which makes it look like some secret US weapon.

Also in the trap this morning was this pair of male Muslin moths, looking like my great-granny and her sister on their way to get their hair done at Marshall & Snelgrove in Leeds. One puzzle for which I would welcome info: Waring, Townsend and Lewington say nothing about the especially fine pair of yellow breeches on the forelegs of one of these two. And why only on that one? It's an interesting moth in many ways, the Muslin. The men fly at night and the women by day. I wonder when and how often they meet?

Finally, an example of the only moth to prompt an exclamation mark in the generally quiet text of Messrs W, T and L: the Flame Shoulder. The punctuation follows their note that this is a moth which really does have a record of flying into recorders' ears at light traps. Moths probing human ears features prominently in myth and legend, but tis actually very rare. Watch out for this chappy though.

Quiet times

Sorry for another gap; we've been back up north on various errands. It's also been wet and generally inappropriate weather for moths as last night showed. A calm, sunny evening gave way to chilly temperatures and a grass frost this morning. Hence the tally in the trap: just one, this Chocolate Tip, and he or she didn't get further than the metal bulb-holder.

Space, therefore, to pass on an entertaining note from Ray Walton - my invaluable moths advisor in Comments under the name Stokeleymort - from  a piece he wrote about the book You English Words by John Moore, which Ray found at a second-hand bookshop which had obtained it in turn from the library of Dr Neville L. Birkett of Kendal, a former GP whose insect collection is important to Cumbria and is now in Carlisle's Tullie House Museum.  Here's the entomological connection - John Moore's view of the etymology of the word 'butterfly' which I discussed in a recent post about seeing a Brimstone:

Common words as well as rare ones turn out to be etymological mysteries. You might think, perhaps, that so familiar a word as ‘butterfly” must have an obvious and well-known derivation. Far from it. There are three contradictory theories. The likeliest is that the name refers to the colour of some of the commonest and earliest English species, especially the brimstone: “the butter-coloured fly.” A rather far-fetched notion, on the other hand, attributes its name to the look and consistency of its excrement. But Dr. Johnson thought the name came from the time the butterfly’s first appearance in the spring, the season of the year when butter is first made.” That was before the introduction of swedes and turnips, annual rotations, and the winter feeding of cattle. Dr. Johnson’s idea is ingenious, though it is probably wrong. He made, and admitted, a good many mistakes - as when the horsey woman indignantly asked him why he had defined “pastern” as the knee of a horse. The doctor replied cheerfully: “Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.”

The colour of butter

Tuesday night stragglers

I didn't put the trap out last night, so as not to bother moths such as yesterday's Chocolate Tips which might return again and not particularly to their advantage. I remember this almost certainly happening with a Poplar Hawk moth in Leeds which was dozing away in the eggboxes five nights in a row. I don't have any evidence that it was definitely the same insect or that it suffered harm, but I'm guessing that the disorientation involved in coming to the trap repeatedly isn't wholly a good thing. Any opinions on the subject most welcome.

I do have some moths, though, as the night before last also yielded another species new to me, the Least Dark (apols, Black - thanks to Dave in Comments) Arches shown above which does frequent Yorkshire in modest numbers but never paid us a call there. It has the Linnaean name of Nola confusali which sounds as though it means 'Don't get confused' on the lines of the Biblical 'Noli me tangere', but it doesn't. Shame, as it would be a useful memo to myself when trying to identify moths.

I nailed it, in the continuing absence of my Moth Bible in the packing cases, with the help of the really excellent Flying Tonight page of the Hampshire and Isle Of Wight moth group, to which I was led by the equally good, local Upper Thames Butterfly Conservation website, which I mentioned a couple of days ago and to whose own Moth Sightings I'm now contributing. It's marvellous, and very good for accurate record-keeping, how many enthusiasts there are in our small, nocturnal world, and how the internet has revolutionised our sharing of experience.

I seem a bit gabby this morning, so just to add the Red-green Carpet (whoops no, it's a V-Pug, many thanks again Dave) and Early Thorn above from Tuesday night plus a Daddy Long-legs, below, an insect much-loved in childhood and still fascinating. Also to say, as I forgot to do yesterday, that I was lucky to have time yesterday morning to watch one of the Chocolate Tips warm up in the bright sunshine and fly away after our photo session. As soon as it took wing, its lovely and distinctive colouring ("What a charming insect!" a friend Tweeted me) turned into the usual super-midge-like blurr which marks out flying moths from floating, soaring butterflies and is another reason why they remain the Cinderella sisters. But like Cinders, greatly worth getting to know.

Tipping in the chocolate

This most satisfactory moth arrived last night; indeed a pair of them did, all the more welcome because I have never seen the species before.  It's a Chocolate Tip which unusually inhabits the south of England and part of Scotland but not the bit in between, where we lived until last month for 26 years.

Its name ought to be lengthened to Liqueur Chocolate Tip because there's definitely a touch of Morello cherry in there, or a spot of Burgundy wine. As the later pictures show, it's been dabbling in chocolate with its head and forelegs as well as the tips of its forewings and forked tail. Or maybe Liqueur Chocolate Shrimp because it looks extremely shrimp-like in the third picture, like those Guyelian chocolate sea shapes. Also a little like the caterpillar of one of the Puss/Kitten moths.

Last night was the warmest since we arrived but the local BBC TV news - very good and genuinely local to Oxford - warned last night of heavy rain in the early morning hours. Some internal bell went off my head at 4am, when it was indeed raining although not very hard, and I crept outside, turned off the light and put the trap under shelter. I've never done this before because the rain shield which Mr and Mrs Robinson designed for their trap is very effective in terms of sheltering the expensive light bulb. But water can pool in the bottom below the egg cups and I would have been mortified if a Chocolate Tip had drowned.

This is my 700th post. Goodness! Thanks to all who have stuck with me, especially my ace correctors such as Ben, David and Ray (see previous post, and many earlier).

Powder in May

There were 15 moths in and around the trap this morning - initially, I was going to say in various disappointing shades of brown and grey.

But it pays to look more closely and the power of the micro mode on my digital camera also helps. (Sorry for yet another pause in posts, incidentally, but the said camera's charger was also buried deep in our removal boxes until yesterday evening).

Please enjoy, as a result, the delicate beauty of these Powdered Quakers (I think; the third looks a little different and, as always, I would welcome correction if needed - and indeed, see Comments. Ben puts me right by identifying the first two as Small Quakers and the third as a Powdered. Thanks Ben!). They remind me, again, of the history of the Friends' Ambulance Unit in the First World War which I've just finished reading. Another nugget from it, relevant to the sort of work which goes on today in Syria and other scenes of carnage, was an account of the typhoid epidemic in Flanders at the height of the trench warfare of 1915.

Amid the terrible suffering, which included an infant survival rate around Ypres of nil after 12 months, the Belgian government with the assistance of the FAU and others managed to issue every household with chloride of lime sachets to make polluted water safe, each package accompanied by a free spooon with instructions for use in Flemish and French.  It's the kind of detail which keeps the whole, wider story fresh in your mind, and therefore very much the sort of thing I looked for in my work as a journalist.

Here, finally, is my first southern pug moth. Brindled?  I think so but will conduct further checks when fully unpacked. (No need, now. Ben has kindly confirmed that for once I am right).

Getting better

The nights are getting a little warmer while the days continue to be Heavenly. The moths are increasing gradually in number too. The Nut-tree Tussock, above, paid a welcome return call last night and there were seven Hebrew Characters including this one below which found a snug bolthole in an eggbox cone.

My boxes are still Yorkshire ones, including the Happy Eggs which have cheered up previous pictures of the drabber sort of moth and do so again now with another of the Hebrew Characters, below. But no doubt the chicken farmers of the Cherwell valley will get a look in soon. One of them is a Muslim organic farmer who is self-building a very fine house out of cob mud and thatch. I'm looking forward to some eggs from there.

Here are three more of last night's catch seeking places to snuggle - Twin-spot Quakers, I think; you can see the double marks like inverted commas towards the leading edge of their wings. I hope to unearth my Moth Bible before much longer and to be more definite as a result.

A fly pretending to be a bee

Thanks to David Shenton (see Comments on last post but one), I now know that my first Oxford mystery moth is a Nut Tree Tussock, which gives me that schoolboy kick which comes from discovering something new. They're not much found in the north and I never saw one in Leeds. Hooray!

Here's another picture of it; and also a short series of another novelty for me which Penny spotted on a windowsill yesterday and neither of us recognised in spite of its distinctive and somewhat menacing appearance.

 

Menacing is an appropriate word because this is a a Bee Fly, rejoicing in the fine Linnaean name of Bombylius major, which uses its mimicry to act as a parasite on the larvae of genuine bees. Poor embattled creatures, as if the current concern about disease and pesticides wasn't enough. The Natural History Museum's excellent website says dramatically: "The female has been seen to flick her eggs mid-air into ground bees’ and wasps’ nests."

Finally, on a lovely sunny day, we saw a couple of fine Brimstone butterflies on a classic English countryside walk which took in the deserted village and numinous, ruined manor house of Hampton Gay. The Brimstone's colouring as a 'butter-coloured fly' is one of the most commonly-cited reasons for the curious word 'butterfly', although without conclusive evidence.

I didn't get a picture of them, nor of the many Peacocks and a few Small Tortoiseshells which were enjoying the sunshine. But I managed to snap this lovely female Holly Blue, whose white wing-trim suggests very recent hatching. Sorry she's a bit blurred and a bit coy about opening her wings to their full, lovely extent.

Early but also late

Another frost last night and the moths remain sparse. Coming south has not led to a sudden abundance in the trap. There was a welcome 'first' for 2013, however, albeit a very late one: this Early Grey, a species whose name has led to much jesting on my part in the past about tea. By one of those coincidences which intrigued Arthur Koestler, Penny and I had a pot of mixed tea at Annie's Tearoom yesterday afternoon and the nice lady serving us called it 'Early Grey' in her soft Oxfordshire voice.

Well concealed in sunshine...

There's a general consensus that everything is late this year because of the long and dreary winter, and this is another scrap of evidence for that. What camouflage, though! I wonder if Early Greys have a very high survival rate from predators. By another coincidence, I have just been reading about an exotic camouflage of painted jungle animals which was used to disguise the otherwise shining white of marquees in a Friends' Ambulance Unit hospital at Dunkirk during the First World War - 'to shield them from the artless Hun', as it says in its quaintly dated terms.

...and in shade (Yes, I have discovered how to do captions)

DRAMATIC NEWS! The trap has moved...

Hello again, world.

Sorry that things have been a bit spasmodic in the last fortnight but there's been a reason: we've moved.

It's the culmination of a plan hatched years ago when Penny sweetly came north with me for my job, uprooting our two small boys from our cosy nest in Chiswick with nothing but enthusiasm for the adventure.  I did go down on one knee, however, or possibly two, and promised: "One day, my dear, you will return to your native land. Or somewhere quite near to it."

Now, with both the above small boys much bigger and working in London, and with my recent retirement as Northern Editor of the Guardian, that time has come. And lo, the map now illuminates not Rawdon in Leeds but our patch of Kidlington in Oxfordshire.

This is Martin's Moths, not Martin's Moves, so I won't go on. But above is a picture of the mighty pantechnicon which carried us south, and below the cave of unpacked boxes in which my Moth Bible is currently buried.

And here is the very first Kidlington moth: a familiar face, Diurnea fagella or the March Dagger, accompanied by a large beetle on my debut trapping which took place after a sunny day on a clear night with frost which you can see on the grass.

Better was to come the next night, when an assortment of Quakers and Hebrew Characters was accompanied by this very attractive visitor below.  He or she awaits my rediscovery of my Bible for identification but in the meanwhile, hey-ho for a new era. More very shortly.

Out in the sun

Sorry about the delay in posting - life has been busy. But at least it's given time for the sun to come out and to provide me with a sequel to the last installment.

The sleeper wakes - number one

I mentioned then that I knew the whereabouts of a Peacock butterfly hibernating in Oxford. I revisited it yesterday in temperatures and sunshine worthy of June; and it had gone. But not far.

Here it is, wide awake and beating at the windowpane in that desperate way which many writers have used as a symbol of baffled frustration. I opened the window and off he or she soared. But that wasn't the end of the matter.


Revisiting the room an hour later, I heard the familiar hopeless flutter-flapping and there was a second Peacock. I helped it out but the flapping continued.

Peacock number two

Behind a grubby paint tin, there was a third. Marvellous how these creatures discreetly share the less frequently Spring-cleaned parts of our homes; but lucky that someone was around to make sure that the long winter sleep of these three ended happily.

And the last. All three are now roaming Oxfordshire (or doing their tiny bit to sustain a local bird or birds...