Summer under way

After all the hectic excitement of my granddaughter's trap and its many hawk moths, I'm back to the quieter but still interesting pastures of home. I've been out on the actual pastures recently, checking whether Black Hairstreak butterflies are still around at the site I discovered last year, only a quarter of a mile from the computer on which I'm writing this.

They are. On my third visit, one obligingly swooped down from the high oak branches where they feed on the honey of aphids and sunned itself on some bramble flowers. It took off again and skedaddled before I could get a picture but it is reassuring that this elusive butterfly is remaining loyal to my doorstep.

My first picture above shows some of the 29 other butterfly species that we get here, Common Blue, Marbled White, Small Heath, Brimstone and Meadow Brown.  In the course of a nine mile walk, I also  saw plenty of Ringlets and Speckled Woods plus a couple of Commas and the day-flying moths, the Cinnabar and the Six-spot Burnet - the latter shown in the composite picture, top left.

Another moth which I disturbed on a narrow footpath between hedges during bright sunlight was a Blue-bordered Carpet, a species which has visited my trap only once, like the Anania perlucidalis below which I took at first for the very common Mother of Pearl micro-moth because of its almost identical, opalescent wings. I nearly ignored it on those grounds but luckily checked because of its two larger black markings and notably smaller size overall. For those who find Linnaean names off-putting, it is also known as the Fenland Pearl or, increasingly, the Marsh Pearl.

Next we have two smart Common Wainscots showing the species' colour variation and then a selection topped by two of the three main variants of the Large Yellow Underwing, a Buff Tip (the well-known twig or cigar butt imitator), a Small Magpie micro, a smart Silver Y and a Willow Beauty.

Green is a comparatively rare colour in moths and so it was a pleasure to have the coincidence of a Green Oak Tortrix and a Light Emerald. After them, observe a couple of Mottled Rustics followed by a Snout, the Pinocchio moth with its outsize palps or feeling organs, and a Shears, clearly showing the tiny double-bladed reason for its name.

Next we have that singular moth the Yellow Straw which always rests in this angular way with its forewings held out but completely covering its hindwings.  And finally, a very fine and I think almost certainly freshly-emerged Mottled Beauty, seen in the second and concluding picture with a Willow Beauty, smaller and without the rich streaks of brown.

Granddaughter bonanaza

The WhatsApp message came before breakfast: "Grandpa. I've got TWO Privet Hawks."  Moments later, came the follow-up: "Grandpa. There are THREE. If I find another, I am going to stop counting."

It is a marvellous moment when you sense the wonder which you first experienced so long ago in the voice of a young - ten-year-old - successor. And I have never had THREE Privet Hawks in my trap. Here's to what lies ahead!

The news was wonderful too as proof of the effectiveness of her light trap, only about a quarter the size of my big mercury vapour lamp one, but recommended by Dave Wilton,  the benign, omniscient and ever-helpful organiser of the Upper Thames Moths blog, my own rod and staff.

She wisely puts it under a glass-top table as a double precaution against rain - and indeed an extra arena to look for moths. One of the first places she inspects in the morning is the underneath of the table, although sometimes, as with this Box Moth, she doesn't even have to duck under but can see them snoozing through the blurry glass itself.

I had seen the effectiveness of the trap myself the night before, when Penny and I were down there on grandparent duty and I stole out to have a preliminary peep before the children woke up. I carefully left everything undisturbed but I could see from the plastic vanes that she had some very nice surprises in store.

I left the light shining and the moths slumbering and went in to make our morning cup of tea. When the granddaughter emerged, with "Let's go and see if there are any moths" as her first greeting, I had the brief private pleasure of knowing that she was not going to be disappointed. But I hadn't guessed the scale of the catch. Together, we found the Eyed Hawk and Scarlet Tiger still asleep, and then a single Privet (the first she had caught) a Large Elephant hawk and much else of the more modest sort.

The Scarlet Tiger was a particular delight to see. Although a common mouth in Southern England at this time of the year, often to be seen as a vivid rush of red when it flies by day, it has such glorious colours and a bold pattern. We were soon joined by the two grandsons who were given a very good little explanation by their sister of the relative values of concealment camouflage as with the Privet and Eyed Hawk forewings, and its very opposite: brightly warning colours, as with the latter hawk's 'eyes', the Privet's wasp-like body and of course the ostentatious glories of the Scarlet Tiger.

Her careful check of the trap's surroundings revealed a second Tiger which I had missed, sunning itself on a dandelion by the boys' racing car slide. Before we looked at the smaller moths, we went through the 'moth on my finger' with all three children, while she recalled vividly the first time that she had a great big Privet with its tickly feet on her own delicate hand when she was four, her younger brother's age now.

What else had arrived overnight? Of course the most numerous moth of the moment, the Heart and Dart, though only seven this time compared with the 27 she counted when we used the trap a fortnight earlier. She also found a couple of strikingly differently-patterned Heart and Clubs:

There was a nice Dark Arches and her inspection of the table revealed a pretty little Treble Brown-spot on one of its metal legs. Interesting too for her to see the bullet-shaped Bee Moth and hear how it raids bee nests and hives. This promptly led to a Googling task for Grandpa: "Why don't they get stung?"

We also enjoyed getting almost the full range of variations of the Riband Wave, another interesting point of discussion in which the incompleteness of my answers shows every sign of spurring her to find out for herself. The second one in the series below doesn't actually have that metallic green sheen. It was the result of the actinic bulb which was still on when I took the photo.

Here's the Box Moth again and then below a challenging task which I'm tackling at the moment as micro-moth IDs are frankly a bit of an ask of a ten-year-old. Even at 74, I find them extremely frustrating.  So far, I've only nailed the third one as Celypha striana.

That was it for the trap but not for the day's moths. In the afternoon when the granddaughter and her brother were at school and we were playing with the youngest in the garden, a day-flying Cinnabar fluttered past, showing its red skirts like a small Scarlet Tiger. And when the granddaughter came home from she went straight to the gloomy recesses of a bush where she had hidden the Privet Hawk. "It's still there!" came the cry.  Another piece of moth behaviour to think about - and a small competition for you. Can you see it from the same range?

                                                 

Here come the Hawks

 

The moths have been slow to come this year, a matter of widespread comment on blogs and fora devoted to the subject. The simplest explanation is that Summer has taken its time as well. In my case, the numbers have been down but the variety has largely held up. One exception has been those masters of the moth universe, the mighty hawk moths.

The Poplar, above, came later than usual and has had the eggboxes to itself in hawk moth terms right up until the second week in June. then a solitary Eyed Hawk arrived, timing its debut nicely with a weekend stay by a small great-niece. She has duly been infected with the moth enthusiasm which is such a happy feature of P and my grandchildren.

Then along came the magnificent Privet in my top picture, the UK's third largest resident moth after the Convolvulus and Death's Head, with its showily-striped body which I've managed for once to capture in the picture. Hawks are very sleepy during my morning inspections and it was easy to persuade this one to inspect the charms of a Love-in-the-Mist.

Finally, so far, a pair of lovely Elephant Hawks were in the trap this morning, along with the best selection of moths of the year so far. And in good numbers too.  Things are looking up.

The Pine Hawk should arrive in the next week or two and with probably the Lime Hawk and Small Elephant. I will be unlucky not to see a Hummingbird Hawk in August, zipping about our flowerbeds and nectaring during the daylight when the sun shines, and I live in hope of a return of the Broad-bordered Bee Hawk which paid me one memorable visit.  My granddaughter is meanwhile confident that the lovely green Oleander Hawk will visit my trap - and now of course her own - one day. 

The Poplar Hawk in its more familiar pose, trying to frighten me by flashing its underwings

Farewell to Greece

 

                                          

This striking moth, above, added to my excitement on a hot but lovely walk along the coast from the old town of Nafplio to a beach three miles away. It last featured here two years ago when a friend in France discovered one at their holiday house and sent a picture asking what on Earth it was.

The answer is a Palm Moth and initially I was startled by her message because this grand and striking creature is a native of Uruguay and Argentina and shouldn't be in Europe at all. It turned out to have arrived France in the mid-1990s in a consignment of ornamental fan palms. Since then, it hasn't looked back. 

Sadly. Because palms are a lovely feature of the Mediterranean coast - and indeed of resorts such as Torquay in the UK.  The Palm Moth pounced on the first French palms it saw and its caterpillars began their practice of boring into the trunks. The moths have spread to Spain, Italy and - as you can see - now Greece, creating a wilderness where once there was a line of shapely palms.

When my friend alerted me in September 2022, the picture rang a bell and I realised that my Moth Bible has a picture of it in a section which I seldom use about rare adventists - moths which spread through human agency like the commercial palm market.  Here it is, with a bit more info:

Back in Greece, I enjoyed stalking various larger 'brown' butterflies including this version of our Wall Butterfly or perhaps Speckled Wood and the Grayling (again of a Mediterranean sub-species), Speckled Wood and Skipper in the composite picture, along with three moths. I need to find time to attempt some ID work on all of these unlees a passing Greek entomologist can help, although I can tell you that the bottom right-hand butterfly in the second composite was a child's sticker, lost and glued by someone's heavy footstep to a Nafplio pavement.

The skipper above is another ID task awaiting me - a Mediterranean form of the Grizzled? - but I was at home with the lovely Marbled Whites which flitted about among almost all the ancient ruins which Penny and I went to see (takes one to know one...).  I was also very pleased to see a Bath White - the butterfly bottom right in the composite below. They are common in Europe but very rare indeed in the UK.  I still remember the excitement of seeing them in Portugal when I was 15.  They resemble a rather superior female Orange-tip with similar but more intricate green dappling on their underwings - sorry that my pictures of this, left, are so blurred.

Finally, back to the glorious Swallowtail which I gave you a glimpse of in my first post about Greece, last week. Here are some more pictures, including one with a bee in attendance, plus a little film of this majestic creature in action.