Whacky weather

The weather has been most peculiar this last couple of days, as today's post illustrates. Periods of delightfully warm sunshine, almost worthy of July, have been followed by apocalyptic deluges, especially last night, whose consequences are shown above. Between 6pm and 7pm, after a very successful day of attracting punters to the Oxfordshire Artweeks exhibition at Shipton-on-Cherwell's little church, we were trapped like Captain Scott's Polar party by lightning, thunder and a tremendous machine-gunning of hail.

The white stuff was still lying around in sheltered or shady spots this morning, showing how relatively cold it must have been overnight. I scooped up this glassful and briefly pondered creating a modest ice-house.  I've also uploaded these two film clips I made back at the church, the first videos I've included here for ages.  I know that they don't work on all computers/phones etc but I hope they come out OK on yours.

The 'whacky' bit referred to in my headline is that, by contrast, yesterday (the Peacock) and today (the Speckled Wood), have had some idyllic spells of the kind which bring out butterflies. I'm hoping that things will settle down enough for me to light the moth trap this evening after two dark nights. Fingers crossed.

Birthday boys (or girls)

I always hope for something extra in the moth trap on my birthday; and since the latter falls on 18 May, in the middle of the early season rush, I am usually rewarded. This year happily was no exception, with this lovely male Lime Hawk at rest on the first eggbox I lifted out.

Its appearance makes three hawks for me so far this year, with a couple of visits from an Eyed Hawk and at least half-a-dozen from Poplar Hawks, the latest snoozing very comfortably in just one egg-shaped concavity of another eggbox this morning.

Other less dramatic but still interesting birthday arrivals included the Heart and Club and Heart and Dart below:

My birthday presents, meanwhile, included - to my unbounded joy - the new, third edition of the Moth Bible, from Penny who famously started all this off by giving me not only the first edition but the actual moth trap way back in 2005. She is a very patient moth widow and indeed far better than I am at spotting moths which venture into the house. Although her note is understandable, the new edition has loads of extra info and is much more up-to-date on the changing dispersal areas of the various species - many of them on the increase. Update: I should have said that one of the titbits I gleaned from the book when looking up Lime Hawks was that the yoga-like curving of the body is a practice of the male (show-offs). I'd assumed the sex already because the female is bigger all round.

Moths got a good look-in, too, among cards and other presents - below - but not on my cake. That was designed by my most excellent granddaughter to include two of my other enthusiasms - the Eggbots which feature in an episode of The Clangers on children's TV , and cress, whose peppery taste I love and whose absence from supermarkets, where mustard is sold absurdly as 'salad cress', is a minor national scandal.

Eggbot and cress cake - yum!

Balmy nights, bumper moths

Bumper days, or rather nights, have arrived and this post runs two of them together; Sunday/Monday and last night when a warm and rather humid Southerly breeze brought happiness to the UK's moth enthusiasts.

I have always like the Small Phoenix, above. Ideally, I would prefer a picture without the camera-baffling black of the trap bowl on which this visitor was sleeping. But had I tried to move him or her, I doubt that he or she would have settled anywhere else. This Carpet-y type of delicate, small moth almost always spirals off into the Great Outdoors.

The Orange Footman has also called in numbers, a neat little pill-shaped moth and the first of its considerable family to arrive this year. Another newcomer for 2017 is the very dark Scalloped Hazel below. I think that it may be the form nigra.

Always a pleasure to have an Eyed Hawk, a cousin no doubt of the one which called last week. And below that are a Rustic Shoulder-knot and a Knot Grass:

Then we have, I think, a Common Carpet, a Red Twin-spot Carpet and a Common Wainscot, the first of that large and varied tribe to come my way in 2017.

I think that the next one is a Lychnis followed by a Square-spot Rustic and that pointy-featured micro-moth, the Garden Pebble, officially cumbered with the name Evergestis forficalis.

Getting to the end now, but the quality of moths remains high: a lovely Purple Thorn followed by a Nut-tree Tussock.

And to end with: the first tadpoles I've seen this year, in the pond of a very nice garden in Steeple Aston, one of a clutch in the village which opened at the weekend under the ever-excellent National Gardens Scheme.  Plus a beguiling lure for flies and small moths: our insect-eating plants are in delicate flower. Be careful, flying friends.

In praise of Maybugs

The month of May is welcome for all sorts of obvious reasons, among them my birthday on May 18th. One of the less obvious, and perhaps less widely-shared, is the arrival of that comical creature, the Maybug, officially known as the Cockchafer.

Resembling a cartoon armoured car from some futuristic comic, it bumbles about on the ground and flies like a cumbersome helicopter. It is one of those endearing beetley things which gets in a tremendous pickle if it falls on its back, though by dint of manoeuvring those scaly legs, it eventually manages to right itself.

Its finest features are the antennae which gradually unfurl from little russet packages into the sort of mobile TV aerial you can see below. Once these are out and the wing-cases on its back start to divide, you can be sure that it will grind off whirringly into the sky within a short time.

It is well worth spending time on Google if you are interested in this beetle, which comes with a terrific load of history and folklore. Disliked for centuries as a pest of potatoes and other crops, it was sentenced to banishment by a court in Avignon in 1320, inspired Nicola Tesla to design his first (Maybug-powered) flying machine and often takes the same role in German children's books, such as Max and Moritz, right, as the ladybird does in ours.

I have always thought that the anti-hero of Stella Gibbons' tour de force Cold Comfort Farm, Mr Mybug, is simply based on the beetle, because some people instinctively dislike them, their appearance and their hectic flight in the way that others treat moths.

For myself, I feel that they are well worth getting to know.

Purring with joy

Some very good and longstanding friends from the United States have been with us this weekend and I was very much hoping that the moth trap - in which they have taken a benevolent interest from afar - would come up trumps.

It did, with this beautiful Puss Moth, a triumph of beauty and cunning camouflage which uses the 'op-art' effect made famous by the artist Bridget Riley and the sort of ties I wore when I was a teenager. It also boasts a mane of fine fur which gives the species its name.

Not uncommon, the moth is nonetheless a joy to have in the trap because of its loveliness and size (compare with visiting American's slender finger), and because of the hope that it may be a female and leave me some eggs. I am keeping it overnight in a cosy box full of its foodplant, willow, in the hope that this may happen. Fingers crossed.

Picture courtesy of www.wildlifeinsight.com

The reason is, that Puss moth caterpillars are most extraordinary, with a fierce and frightening cartoon 'face' and unique whip appendages on the tail, handy for flicking off ichneumon wasps which try to inject caterpillars with their eggs which hatch internally and eat their host alive. Nature, eh!  I will check in the morning and let you know.


The Puss moth gave its name to a De Havilland aircraft, a big sister to the more famous Tiger Moth and Gypsy Moth aircraft. In the same way, another arrival last night, the finely-coloured Cinnabar, inspired a narrowboat owner here on the Oxford Canal with a name for his floating home.

Multitudes

Much warmer weather on Thursday night brought the year's first, real crowd of moths in time for P and my wedding anniversary yesterday. 38 years!  And it seems like yesterday. P even got asked the secrets of a long-lived marriage at her tennis sesh in the morning. She didn't say so, but giving your husband a moth trap is definitely one of them.

I haven't time this morning to sort things tremendously efficiently, with lovely visitors from the US coming for the weekend. So this will be a bit listy. Moth number 2 is a Pug whose exact identity I need more time to check, but something about it suggests that may be a Dotted one. Update: Typical me...There is no Dotted Pug. After many hours of research, I think it is the White-spotted Pug.

Next, the year's first Cinnabar, a lovely moth whose greeny background colour is actually black. Its caterpillars love ragwort and that's sufficient reason for me to oppose the moans of those who wish to pull up wholesale this pretty and useful flower.

Another Year First, the beautiful White Ermine, whose arrival I expected after the recent spate of its duskier relative, the Muslin moth.

And another: the Common Swift, little male top, larger female below. One of the most primitive of UK moths in terms of its internal organs.

Also new for the year: the Shears, whose patterning rather suggests to me the name of Nipper.

A very lovely Carpet; the Silver-ground; new too.

And a Brimstone, adding a splash of colour and warmth.

For the 2017 newcomers' list again: a Marbled or Lesser Marbled Minor; too difficult to distinguish between them.

A Spectacle moth; plenty have already been this year but I can never resist showing them.

A fine Pale Tussock (new for the year once more) about to be probed by a Daddy Longlegs

And another of the larger moths, the nicely-named Coxcomb Prominent.

A second Pug whose exact ID must wait. Update: I'll go for Mottled Pug and wait to be corrected.

And two Treble Lines; not new for the year but an attractive pair and pose.

A Chocolate-tip, a moth which first came last week but this one has adopted a less usual resting position, with its wings slightly spread like a cloak and its strange little tail arrangements peeing out below the fringe.

One Pug that even I can ID: the sweet little Lime Speck.

And a second that I can't - yet... Update: I think it's the Brindled Pug.

A Muslin moth showing its rather discreet markings - two shades of grey - which are not always apparent.

Micro selection - please give me time.

A good old Poplar Hawk, this one in fine condition unlike the battered relative which marked the species' debut last week.

That beautiful moth, the Powdered Quaker

Another Pug which I can do - the V-Pug, clearly showing the reason for its name (and, rather unusually for this species when at rest, its petticoats)

And another which needs time. Update: another Brindled?

Finally another delightful moth, the Buff Ermine, which completes a lovely May trio with the White Ermine and the Muslin.

Phew!