Beauty contest

 

Competition for the prettiest moth of the year is hotting up, with the arrival of my first White Ermine of 2025. This is a very common species but nonetheless absolutely delightful. I remember a young cousin, then a teenager of about 15 who you'd have thought to be immune to such uncool things, finding one in a curtain at home and bringing it downstairs to show us, as pleased with its delicate beauty as we were. 

The Spectacle meanwhile isn't pretty but wins a special award for characterful appearance. Seldom has a moth been better-named - and that is quite a compliment in the exceptionally rich world of butterfly and moth nomenclature in English. The specs are nothing to do with the insect's vision; the moth's actual eyes are not very interesting and are positioned well below, but they look extremely convincing.

Finally for today, another Nut-tree Tussock, one of two in the trap along with a trio of Hebrew Characters. Things are definitely looking up although the nights are still cool. But lovely sunny weather is confidently forecast for the coming week.

Nice new arrivals

The first big, bold moth of the year arrived last night, this Pebble Prominent with its cream-and-coffee colours, two large 'pebbles" and, in the picture below, its resemblance to a crouching cat when at rest.

Nearby was a Brimstone Moth which always brightens up the trap; the first to come and see me this year although there will be dozens more if not scores in due course.

The thirf newcomers were these two, slightly different Shuttle-shaped Darts with their needle's eye or spinning machine shuttle on their neatly-folded wings.

 

Apart from these, the guest list in the eggboxes was sparse as the temperature fell considerably with nightfall; just a few Hebrew Characters and a couple of Common Quakers. Sounds like some sort of ill-attended religious convention.

Cat Trap

A solution to my morning Robin problem, as described three posts ago, unexpectedly offered itself this week. I was checking the eggboxes while keeping a wary eye on the pestilential bird, which darts into the eggboxes if I turn away for a second, when I saw a bigger movement out of the corner of my eye.

It was the cat which we've been baby-sitting for a while and it leaped up nimbly on to the garden table and examined my activities, as in the photo above. After a while, it jumped back down on to a garden chair and busied itself with grooming, the endless pursuit of these commendably fastidious pets. It took no interest whatever in the moths within inches of its nose, including a series of Brindled Beauties whose coats much resemble its own.

The Robin scarpered immediately and stayed well away for the rest of my session checking the night's arrivals, even after the cat had wandered off to find something more interesting to do. I can't rely on its returning so helpfully on a regular basis, but maybe the Robin will be more prudent for a while.

Here are more of the Brindled Beauties, below, whose arrival in good numbers has coincided with a visit by our grandchildren. Moths have been sparse during their stay but they were also treated to a decent influx of Muslin moths and were interested to see their TV aerial antennae and yellow kneebreeches, the latter enjoyably at odds with their generally sober appearance.

The Beauties have good antennae - though only the males which are the ones which come to the light trap; females are seldom seen. But the Muslin moth is better; here it is below, both in the conventional perching position and then showing its two striking features, as described above. 

Elsewhere in the eggboxes, among a lot of Hebrew Characters and Common Quakers, was another new species for the year, the soft, grey Powdered Quaker, an attractive moth which is well-named. Beside it was the caterpillar below, whose ID I will try to track down.

I've also added another butterfly to my list for the year; the common but delicately patterned Green-veined White whose prominent rear wing veins on the underside are actually grey but trick the eye into seeing a greenish tinge. I'm sorry that my photo is so poor but the butterfly was restless and fluttered off every time that I got anywhere near.

Night and Day

 The recent sharply divided weather - lovely and sunny by day but cold to the point of frosts by night - has divided the entomological world into two as well. Walking down the canal into Oxford yesterday was like being in a bygone era (at least in the eyes of many doomsayers about today's world) with Speckled Woods dancing all the way, lots of Orange-tips and occasional Brimstones and my first blue of the year, the pretty Holly Blue, above.

Pretty but irritating. It is very rare indeed in my experience for Holly Blues to open their beautiful wings when at rest and so the azure topwings, so visible in flight,  cannot be seen. I can only remember one glorious exception, on a walk celebrating P's birthday in 2023 which took us to Maidensgrove in the Chilterns, where I managed to get the photos below.

A perfect male, almost certainly recent-emerged. I nearly died with excitement. And I'd forgotten but have just discovered while looking for the Maidensgrove pictures, that I got a reasonable glimpse of a female's topwing with its smoky black and grey tip, in the grandchildren's garden in London way back in June 2015, below.

Not a lot of excitement in the world of moths, however, though the tally of species new for the year creeps up. Here is a Muslin moth and below it an Oak Tree Pug, both of which shared the trap this morning with Hebrew Characters and a solitary Brindled Beauty.

I'm not putting the trap out when the evening's cold, which is the case tonight. More soon, I hope. April showers and cloudy weather seem to be moving in so we may get fewer butterflies this week, but more moths.

First real haul

We had a lovely evening last Wednesday and the moths came flocking for the first time this year, a very welcome arrival which has since slowed down again as clear skies have brought colder nights - but, touch wood, none of the frost which turns our beautiful magnolia blooms into loo-paper at a stroke.

The sunny days - a truly wonderful stretch which happily coincides with a prolonged visit here by American friends - have also upped my butterfly count, with restless Orange-tips roaming the garden since last Tuesday and several Peacocks and a red Admiral adding to the ranks of hibernators emerging blinking into the sunshine.

The moths which gave me most satisfaction were the Herald with its zebra legs and shield-shape, both a herald of Spring and a natural equivalent of heraldic finery, the Chocolate-tip with its perky tail and the Least Black Arches, the minuscule baby of that tribe.

I took some of the haul down to see some friends at an Oxford pub where they escaped to freedom, causing a flurry of concern about cashmere sweaters which I expertly allayed. Only two micro-moth species represent a threat but the good name of every moth is sadly and often besmirched by their caterpillars' devastating work.

Chocolate-tip

Least Black Arches - very teeny

Other arrivals included the flamboyant little Streamer below along with a Double-Striped Pug, the micro Diurnea fagella, a Common Plume, two Early (rather than tea-related Earl) Grey and half-dozen each of Common Quakers and Hebrew Characters.

Common Quaker

and another, a little browner in tone which is variable in this species

More soon, I hope.  

Cocky Robin

My new Robin is a great improvement on the one which pestered me over the moth trap for the last two years. That was a rather battered bruiser with the nearest equivalent a bird can manage to a nasty look. This one is...well...here he is, above.

He's also better-mannered and doesn't attempt quite such reckless dives into the eggboxes as his predecessor, giving me time to inspect and photograph the visiting moths. I am well aware that most moths end up as bird or bat food and are a very important part of the animal food-chain in consequence, but I don't see a role for myself as an interfering human aiding this process.

The moths have been unspectacular since I last posted with the variation in the weather, including some cracking sunny days, not extending to the nights which have been cold.  Hevrew Characters are easily the most numerous guests, but I get half-a-dozen Small Quakers a night like the one above, lots of Common Quakers and and plenty of Clouded Drabs including the three below.

Looking back on 2024

I started this post back at the end of January and then got diverted. That is why it begins like this...

We don't have snow or icicles at the moment but there's a frost most nights and I think that the season qualifies as the very dead of winter, certainly in moth-hosting terms. Time for me to don my slippers, light the proverbial pipe and cosy up in front of the fire, pondering back on the year that's gone and its moths.

Well, we certainly don't have snow or icicles now, as the end of March approaches, but behind the lovely Spring weather as I type, there still lurks the threat of frost. We always cross out fingers tightly for our two magnolias and their many local counterparts, which are all coming beautifully into bloom.  One late frost can make those glorious blossoms look like loo paper.

So, looking back to 2024, in common with other recorders, both in this part of the world and nationally, I experienced a fall in numbers; not drastic but noticeable. However, the species list kept up nicely and I had six newcomers: the Brown-veined Wainscot, Buttoned Snout, Kent Black Arches (second picture above), Oak Nycteoline, White-marked and Jersey Tiger (top picture above) among the macros and Anania perlucidalis the sole novelty among the micros.

I would never have identified the Brown-veined Wainscot, immediately above, without the help of the Upper Thames Moths experts, to whom I paid tribute in my last post, nor the White-marked (just below) which falls fatally for me into the category generally entitles Very Similar Brownish Moths. 

I did manage to crack the curious Oak Nycteoline, though, (first moth below) which romantically made its debut here on the eve of St Valentine's Day. Finally among the macro-moths, the Buttoned Snout (second below) first joined me in the vegetable patch and then appeared in some numbers in our storage attic very late in the year.

The solitary new micro, meanwhile, may well have been here before but mistaken by your famously incompetent observer for a Mother of Pearl. Here it is, Anania perlucidalis whose attractive vernacular name is the Fenland Pearl. 

Not a bad line-up of new species. AND the Clifden Nonpareil came back again, in late August which is one of my earliest records for it.