Mooning about

 

I doubt that I am alone in getting a kick from novelties and especially so after all my years of light-trapping which mean that a newcomer is a rare event. I thought that I had one this morning - the prettily-marked moth above and below - but actually it came to see me 12 years ago in July 2014.

Given the state of the human memory at the age of 76, that does almost make it a newcomer for me; I am quite looking forward to that time of life when forgetfulness makes many things 'new'. It is a Lunar-spotted Pinion and I wrote at some length about it here. I tickled this morning's into flying away and thus showing me both its wings as it powered up. Below are more conventional pictures taken as it slumbered.

Another slightly unusual visitor today was this oddly-marked Common Emerald below; it would be interesting to know what caused the dorsal fading. Alas, as I have often remarked and was doing only yesterday with the Green Pug which stayed overnight, green is doomed to fade very quickly in moths. My second picture below shows another one which also came last night but is clearly a few days older

The weather is lovely and warm now and other visitors were plentiful. Here's a selection:

Beautiful Golden Y - I think. They can be hard (for me) to distinguish from the good old Silver Y

Brown-line, Bright-eye which takes over at this time of year from its buddy the Bright line, Brown eye

The Box Tree moth which has caused such devastation to the country's hedges

The dear little 'bird dropping moth' - the Chinese Character. The name refers to the silvery-white squiggles

Two of an (almost) kind, both resting on a sunflower just by the light trap: the Mottled Beauty above and the Willow Beauty below

Finally, I enjoy stalking day-flying moths which you set up regularly from hedgerows and long grass. I'm pretty sure that this one is the quite large micro-moth, Anania crocealis.

Summer colours

The Big Daddy of my moths paid a call last night, showing off his or her waspish body with the warning yellow replaced by gentle pink. This is appropriate because the Privet Hawk moth can do no more harm than tickling your fingers in spite of its formidable appearance. I am surprised by how many children believe me when I reassure them about this; they tend to take the big insects happily on to their hands and suggest impractically that they would like to keep one as a pet.

The Scarlet Tiger is another sure-fire winner although usually too skittish to sit happily on a finger or thumb. It is a day-flying moth and partly for that reason much less sleepy than most when I examine the moth trap's eggboxes in the morning.  You may be wondering if you are new to moths why this one is called Scarlet. There's a clue in the picture below.

Yes, the underwing is a dramatic contrast to the forewings, intentionally as the moth flashes them to startle predators. The Tigers are beautiful creatures and often mistaken for butterflies though they neither swoop nor glide but jerk erratically about.

The little moth below may be dismissed as small and grey on a casual glance but look more carefully. Can you see the green? This elusive colour in moths fades very rapidly from its early freshness but it's still there on this Green Pug, like a very gentle, glittery sheen.

I've got this next one down on iRecord as a Dwarf Cream Wave but my photo was given a red dot, so I will have to wait and see until an expert rules. The pallid Waves are one of those groups of moths which still give me ID difficulties after all these years, like the pugs and assorted browny greyey Rustics etc.. 

This below, however, is a Small Scallop, I am sure, and a very dainty moth too, and after it comes a solitary White Satin on our garden table and then a quintet of micro-moths with their names beneath.

From the top left, we have pretty-in-pink Lozotaeniodes formosana, A Bird-cherry Ermine (the species which sometimes engulf trees and even parked cars in their vast larval webs),  Anania coronata, a frequent visitor, and finally another regular, yellow Agapeta hamana, and Parapoynx stratiotata or the Ringed China-mark. The Linnaean names, although cumbersome for such little creatures, can have a splendid ring.

Here's the Privet Hawk again shortly before I took measures to hide it from that little blur in the background of the first photo; my over-attentive robin. Famously cheeky, these determined birds regard my activities as a massive breakfast opportunity. I am as vigilant as I can be but sometimes fail to save to save a moth, usually because they rashly fly out of the trap rather than waiting for me to photograph them.  Still, I feel bad because I was the one who lured them here, within Cock Robin's darting range. Alas for the Pale Tussock, below. RIP. And yet, moths and their caterpillars are of huge importance in the bird food chain.

Next a Mayfly, delightfully elegant and graceful but mown down in swathes by riverside birds and seldom living for more than 24 hours. Then an excellent picture taken by a neighbour of a hoverfly about to nectar at a Pyramidal Orchid; and finally a Peacock caterpillar which was walking the Thames Path on Monday at the same time as me.

The Brightness of Burnets

I like to do a very long walk around Midsummer's Day, taking advantage of the generous hours of daylight to test my ageing body and bones' ability to slog on. Both passed with flying colours as I marched on Monday from Tadpole Bridge, where a couple of Scarlet Tigers jinked about in the warm sun, to Pinkhill lock where the riverside meadows had day-flying Six-spot Burnet moths aplenty.

It's a while since I've seen one of these although an observant cousin spotted one on similar coastal meadows in Cornwall last week and I remember them vividly from schooldays in Herefordshire. 'Vivid' is the word; it is so nice to have a really brightly coloured moth and what's more one which flies by day. Like the Scarlet Tiger, it's almost an honorary butterfly.

Not that there's anything second-best about being a moth; but there is some justification in doubters' suggestions that too many of them are small and dull in colour. The Burnets are often on the wing as the males spend their lives searching among thistle and knapweed for unmated females. Their family in the UK numbers ten, most of them very local, but there is a well-know colony of their Forester cousins near here which I must seek out when time permits.

Moth trap visitors meanwhile included another Burnet cousin, the Cinnabar, shown above with a micor. It is very common round here and just at the moment bespecially strong in numbers. All these moths are well-guarded from predators by their glaring warning colours which are shared, albeit in yellow and black, by their caterpillars which are poisonous to birds.

I also had the Smoky Wainscot above, well named with its sooty streak along the basic Common Wainscot colour and patterning, a Common Wave (I think), the Horlicks tablet micro Agonopterix arenella and a Single-dotted Wave.

And bringing up the rear, a couple of Mottled Rustics and a Plume which I think is the Brown one but I need an expert to tell.

Finally, as another treat in terms of bright colours, here is Common Blue from my Thames walk - common maybe but blissful little fragments of bright blue in the overwhelming green-ness which surrounds you - and more evidence that this is a Painted Lady year. I saw them consistently over the 20-odd miles.

Photobomber

 I was ambling round the Trap Grounds nature reserve in central Oxford yesterday morning, a little oasis reclaimed from a dump next to the canal and looked after by enthusiastic volunteers. I like to enter their annual photo competition for their calendar and I was pleased to find an amenable Meadow Brown butterfly.

I was even more pleased to see that my snap had been photobombed without my realising it by a Common Blue Damselfly. It too was unusually willing to be stalked and I got this clearer photo of it shortly afterwards. 

I wasn't alone in the Trap Grounds; for company I had the cat who walks by him (or her) self. He or she was extremely suspicious of me and the ducklings on one of the reserve's ponds were noisily suspicious of him or her.

I also snapped a Common Green Bottle Fly before heading home from the Trap Grounds to the moth trap which has been keeping busy.  Attractive arrivals include - in order below - a Scorched Wing with its remarkable eye-baffling pattern, a well-named Blood-vein, a Marbled White-spot (which needs careful checking to distinguish it from the various much commoner Marbled Minors

Finally, a firm favourite: the Beautiful Hook-tip whose caterpillar perhaps contributes to the adult insect's beauty by enjoying a diet of lichen. As it happens, my photo chosen for this year's Trap Grounds calendar was of lichen and moss, though sadly bereft of caterpillars.

The handsome Leopard

The Leopard moth is a distinctive visitor which usually pays me a visit once a year. There is something wasp-like about its colouring and shape although no UK wasps are anything like its size, thank goodness.

When I spotted this one first, it was hunkered down on an eggbox cone, above, but as soon as I tried a little tickling to awake it from deep slumbers, it reflexed into the shape of a comma.

I doubt that any bird would touch it because the deterrent colouring is very convincing. Here's a closer look at that 'waspiness' with the curving tail revealing the yellow segments between the black ones.

For all its beauty and protection, the Leopard lives a brief life of ten days at the most because it has no mouth parts and cannot feed; not even nectar. Don't feel too sorry for it, however. Its caterpillars overwinter twice and sometimes three time, making it one of the longest-living UK moths if you take all four stages of the life cycle - egg, caterpillar, pupa and adult insect - into consideration. A rum creature altogether but a very nice one to study at leisure at close quarters.

The trap's other overnighters included the Grey or Dark Dagger above - without dissection of the genitalia (yuk), they cannot be told apart, a Common Carpet pretending to be a butterfly and the bright little micro-moth Archips podana or the Large Fruit Tortrix.