Merry Christmas from my festive lamp conversion

Hi all and I hope that you have a lovely Christmas and wish you all good things for the New Year. I am hoping to attract three Wise Moths over the holiday although it looks as though they will have to have travelled from very afar, being a type of Ghost moth endemic to New Zealand.  All warmest and here's hoping for more everyday but interesting arrivals in the New Year!  Martin Wainwright, Thrupp, Oxon

In the bleak mid-Winter

 I'm not sure that it actually is mid-winter quite yet but there's some sort of solstice on 21st December - goodness, tomorrow I mean - so we can't be far away by any definition. Not the most prosperous time of year for moths, then, but they are still about. Before it turned cold again, I put out the trap for a second and third night after my last post and a very small handful of visitors turned up.

Two to be precise, both Winter Moths and both in good and rather attractive condition. The sceond one obligingly spent the night inside the plastic cowl and so I was able to photograph its underside, although I'm sorry that the picture is a bit blurry. The cowl is very battered after many years of use.

I put the trap close to a wall with a lot of ivy in leaf nearby in the hope that hibernating moths might be lured out. No luck this time but my moth-minded granddaughter and her brothers roll up here on Sunday night so we'll all have another go then.

Very quiet - but not completely

 

It's been suddenly mild after a couple of cold snaps and so I lit the lamp again having originally decided that things were over for 2024. I was encouraged too by this glorious sunset which made me wonder if the moths would all ignore my trap and follow Epicurus who in the famous words of Lucretius 'fared afar beyond the flaming ramparts of the world until he wandered the unmeasurable All.'

Perhaps they did, because the sole new arrival was this spindly Common Plume. A pleasure for me to see and photograph but definitely not enough to interest my gluttonous robin, below, which flew away empty-beaked.

There was also a very bright Moon which is known to divert some moths into a hopeless attempt to fly the 238,855 miles from Earth.

And at the bottom of the eggboxes, two December moths which arrived at least a week ago. Dead, sadly. They could have easily have flown to freedom but preferred to hunker down and expire, something that I've often noticed before with many types of moth when tucking the trap away in the shed out of robin reach. Theydo not eat and perhaps they have mated and are programmed to hide rather than risk birds and bats and so have nothing left to do.

Basking in the Sun

The question which ended my last post was answered helpfully at the weekend when I was walking into Oxford to meet Penny and saw a brilliant flutter of wings in the bright sunshine. It was a Red Admiral which swooped around a few times and then returned to the brick wall where it had been basking - yes, genuinely basking in the warmth of a December morning, a rare interlude between recent rain and fierce cold. 

The butterfly was so content that it allowed me to get up close and take the second photo before I left it to carry on sun-bathing. Back home in the roofspace where I have been sorting piles of old papers, a third Buttoned Snout put in an appearance. However dark and cobwebby, it's definitely their kind of place.

I'm not sure what the equally contented-looking fly is in the picture above but there's all manner of insect life amid the rafters. Here are some old wasps' nest, lifeless thank goodness, built by a Queen who must have hibernated somewhere comfy in the insulation fluff.

The warmer spell encouraged me to put the moth trap out and I was rewarded with a nice clutch of December Moths and one very gracefully patterned Winter, Autumnal or November Moth which obligingly perched on the trap's transparent cowl so that I could photograph it from both on top and below.

My proceedings were watched carefully throughout by a Robin but he didn't manage to pounce on anything while I was looking the other way.

Buttoned up

Not being a particular fan of Winter Moths, I have all but moth-balled (ho-hum, no pun originally  intended) the trap for the Winter though I may bring it out next month to create a brightly shining Christmas star. To my surprise, however, I have spent today in the company of not just one Nationally Scarce B moth but two. I was organising piles of old but interesting paperwork in our cobwebby attic when I saw a telltale flutter.

It was the Buttoned Snout, above, a moth which I only met for the first time in April this year when I had second thoughts about checking another little flutter on the bare soil of our vegetable garden. Its distinguished status may be about to change as in recent years it appears to have increased in numbers in parts of the South and Midlands including Oxfordshire Maybe our attic is a key expansion base.

My speculation about that was fuelled by a second modest flutter when I swept behind an archive box and roused the moth in my second picture. This is the standard version of the Button Snout whereas the first one is, I think, the form unicolor. In the standard form, the reasons for the species' name is evident: the smart, shiny button marks on the forewing. Along with the light-coloured streak, they give the moth an air of working on the lobby staff of a grand hotel.

I was very encouraged about this as my archiving task is likely to see me spending rather a lot of time in the roofspace, like Montaigne in his tower though perhaps not so productively. My day was made complete by a hibernating Peacock which got into such a tizz about the attic's light being unexpectedly on, that I let it out of a window into the cold. I never know whether one should do this to creatures woken from hibernation. But at least it wasn't raining, and if it does, the butterfly can surely creep back in.

Variety show

 

The nights are getting colder and our late-sown Morning Glory and Cosmos are struggling to bring to flower the buds which they have bravely produced in the last few weeks. I'm finding it similarly tough to keep putting out the moth trap in the hope of a few surprises, especially as the mornings are also pretty dark when it's time for P's and my tea.

However, the arrival of a swept-wing Oak Hook-tip a week ago cheered my outlook and I was intrigued by the almost entirely featureless but dainty moth below. I think that it is one of the Winter/Autumnal/November brethren whose colour and pattern scales are even more indistinct than usual and perhaps mssing scales;  but it is nonetheless gracefully pretty along with its reflection and it had no problem in flying away.

The eggboxes have since maintained at least a show of variety, with below (l-r) a Cypress Carpet, a Sprawler, a Scarce Umber and the dart-shaped micro Udea ferrugalis, also known more appealingly as the Rusty-dot Pearl.

Then we have the iPhone's two takes on Feathered Thorns, a nice Beaded Chestnut and one of a regular series of December moths which do at least look suited to the month with their woolly coats.

Next an unknown type of fly, though my new ID ally the iPhone bug-identifyer suggest Mesembrina merediniana or the Noonday Fly. I will check that out further but accept it for now.  Then we have another Rusty-dot Pearl. and a second example of digital camera colour changes with two Mottled Umbers, the first unusually showing its petticoat underwings.

Lastly, a third and much more isosceles Rusty-dot Pearl, a Light Brown Apple micro, Epiphyas postvittana, and two November/Winter/Autumnals, the first showing its petticoats too, albeit a little more shyly than the Mottled Umber.  Not a bad range in a week as the final month of the year draws closer.

Thank Goodness, the Merveille has made it

The night sky is busy with lights at this time of year - Guy Fawkes above and Hallowe'en below. Can the moth trap hold its own against such exciting alternative attractions. Fortunately the answer is Yes, it can. 

And fortunately too, there are still lovely things out there for it to tempt, above all the fabulous Merveille du Jour which has always visited me here in the late Autumn. I love the name as much as the subtly-coloured moth itself, although strictly speaking it is a Merveille de la Nuit. The composite below is interesting because the closest by far of the four images to what the human eye sees is the one at the bottom right. iPhone cameras are marvellous but their relentless search for light can play pop with colours and tones. 

Elsewhere among the eggboxes, I have been visited by this distinctive micro below,  Acleris variegana or the Garden Rose Tortrix. I've posted two pictures so that you can tell from the eggbox what a mite it is.

Then we have another of the many Emmelina monodactyla micros which my garden clear-ups are disturbing by day; and after that a fourth micro whose focus is, I think, too blurred for a definite ID.  

Finally, a typical souvenir of another visit to the grandchildren, a ladybird late to hibernate and meanwhile dallying next to a grandson's brightly-varnished nail. You may be able to see from the photo that his thumbnail is blue. They are as bright as any Brazilian butterfly. 

Busy end to the month

 

Much the most exciting moth I've seen since my last post is this Silver-striped Hawk, needless to say not here but on the door of some friends in Spain. They sent the picture with a request for ID which I was only too happy to provide. One day, maybe, a friend or relative of this lovely creature will turn up here. 

The Mottled Umber, above, is a perfectly decent substitute for the time being and also a 'garden first' for me this year as I did little trapping in January and February when the moth may also be around on warmer evenings. I was also very pleased to get this strikingly well-marked Autumnal, Winter or November Moth - three species which are so closely alike that I can never hope to be certain which is which.

There are lots of them about at the moment, both in and around the trap and fluttering like little Hallowe'en ghosts in the car's headlamps. Here are another half-dozen, less distinctively-marked apart from the darkish one on the left of the bottom row. 

I've been busy repairing the trap in between times; the transparent cowl is gradually increasing its ratio of Sellotape to plastic but should keep going another year or so.

The eggboxes have been only lightly populated as I'd expect this late in the year but the variety is holding up well and there are some interesting contrasts like this beautifully fresh Red-green Carpet on the left below which arrived the same evening as a much more careworn cousin, on the right. 

Goodness knows what the almost entirely descaled moth below might be. You seldom see them quite that denuded of the tiny little tiles on their wingswhich give moths their colours and patterns. It seemed quite happy on one of our home-grown parsnips and was perfectly able to fly.

Other visitors below have been Lunar Underwing, Sprawler, Yellow-line Quaker, Large Yellow Underwing, the delicate micro Emmelina monodactyla, another Large Yellow Underwing, the first December Moth of the year in its nice warm gaberdene, a Black Rustic and a handsome Feathered Thorn (sadly pounced on by one of our robins when it flew off).

Another excellent arrival was this Green-brindled Crescent, the standard form with the green metallic scales - enlarged on the right - as opposed to the milky brown ones of the variety cappuccino which came the other day.  It was also good to have the Silver Y below, a nice fresh specimen which I suspect only recently hatched from its chrysalis. It's one of the few UK moths which can be seen in every month of the year.

Here are three of the moths already described along with a nice bright Barred Sallow, bottom right. As you know if you've been reading regularly, I'm having fun with my updated iPhone and here's another of its features: the ability to copy parts of a photo, which appear excitingly circled by a ring of light, and then paste them in as standalone moths, as below. It's a very useful ploy for livening up emails to the grandchildren. 

Nearly there. Sorry for the very blurred focus, but I had fun stalking this Light Brown Apple micromoth, Epiphyas postvittana, along the canal bank in broad daylight, while below it is another interesting moth in the eggboxes, a Snout, common earlier in the year but seldom seen by me this late.

Finally, here's an Oak Bush-cricket, I think, and to end with, a water vole scampering across the towpath to safety below the reeds.