Definitely Untamed Shrew

 

A beady-eyed surprise was waiting for me in the trap yesterday when I upended it to clean out the dusty bowl. A Pygmy Shrew - I think, though I am checking with iRecord that it is not a Common Shrew - was scurrying about in a panic among the last bits of debris.

It ran this way and that like a small whirlwind, at one point stopping to have a go at the remains of a moth, which doubtless explains why it was there. I've previously opened a long-unused drawer in our shed to find a family of mice living cosily inside, amid the shredded paper of some old seed packets. So nothing surprises me in terms of what the building contains.

I can't help posting all these pictures though perhaps I should have contented myself with the little video below. I hope that it plays on your computer.

Meanwhile here's another threat to the well-being of moths inside the trap which I try to safeguard as best I can - a hornet apparently with a micro moth picnic comfortably in its grasp. All is not what it seems, however. The hornet as well as the moth was dead. Toxin? Choking with greed? Or perhaps the temperature inside the bowl just go too hot for the hornet during our current lovely sunny spell. I will ask various learned friends which might be the likeliest reason.

I meanwhile posed the question of what the two moth preys might be on my rod and staff, the Upper Thames Moths blog, whose omniscient organiser Dave Wilton rose magnificently to the challenge. He can only guess at the shrew's victim but his suggestion of Smoky Wainscot seems to me to be on target, as wainscots of various types are coming here in large numbers. But the hornet's is pretty definitely the micro Acentaria ephemerella, a good name for the short-lived and fragile Water Veneer.  Many thanks to Dave, as always. 

Recent visitors meanwhile include the bright Canary-shouldered Thorn below, followed by a Striped Wainscot, a Latticed Heath in its 'I'm a Butterfly' resting mode, and another Wainscot, Webb's, once a relative rarity but a regular here for the last three years. I think I'm right on that but it might also be the Brown-veined Wainscot and I'm checking that with Dave W.

Oh, and a frog, although he or she wisely stayed well away from the light trap.