Brightly-coloured Jersey

The rise and rise of the Jersey Tiger moth is a reason for great happiness. Since 1990, when it was still an immigrant rarity largely confined to Devon, it has colonised rapidly across the Southern UK and is now being recorded from the North. As you may know and can certainly see here, it is a wonderfully colourful insect, so much so that in places such as the Upper Thames Butterfly Sightings web page it makes appearances as a sort of honorary butterfly.

It is also a glorious photographic trophy on Mediterranean holidays, as I've described in previous posts and you may have seen it in Rhodes' famous 'Valley of the Butterflies' which are in fact Jersey Tiger moths.

The 'butterfly' status is also partly a result of the species fondness for flying by day unlike almost all other moths and, when flying, showing those glorious hindwings which are usually demurely concealed when the insect is at rest. in that mode, the reason for its name becomes clearer, the tiger-stripes of creamy yellow and black.

In the second picture above, it is resting alongside a thumbnail micro which shows that, although not large, it is a decent-sized moth as well. When I have seen one suddenly zigzag across the garden on recent sunny days, I have often had a sudden thought - hope! - that it might be a fast-flying fritillary of the sort I've yet to see nearer here than Bernwood Forest 14 miles away or - a solitary female Silver-washed - at Boar's Hill's Matthew Arnold Nature Reserve half that distance from my home.    

I have never had much luck at persuading Jersey Tigers to show their petticoats by tickling them in the eggboxes because they promptly fly away, but in the case of the top two photos, I was lucky that one got into our garden shed and fluttered in panic against the sunlit windows. It quickly grew tired of these exertions and forgot to rest with its wings folded back. I got my photograph and then cupped it in my hands and sent it soaring off into the sky.

For more than 60 years, I have had two Jersey Tigers in my butterfly and moth collection, a relic from the days when cameras affordable by a schoolboy were hopelessly inadequate to capture decent images of butterflies and moths. Even the expert photographs in famous books such as Professor E B Ford's Butterflies in the Collins New Naturalist series were inadequate compared to the results from a modern iPhone.

Over the years, as you can see from the moths above and the Garden Tigers to their right and Cream-spot Tigers below, the colours have faded although it is just possible that the pinned moths are the form lutescens which replaces the red with yellow in both insects. Alas, I caught the moths on holiday abroad and no longer know, although I think that I would remember any rarity I found in those youthful, pot-hunting days.

Clouded sunshine

A butterfly which I've hankered to see in Oxfordshire since we moved from Leeds in 2013 is the Clouded Yellow, a familiar flash of colour in coastal areas of the South but much less common inland. I've enjoyed watching them in Dorset above the beautiful beaches near Weymouth and Bridport but not in the fields and hillsides near home. Every so often, however, we have a 'Clouded Yellow Year' when they daringly move inland.

This year is one such and this week my luck changed. On a lovely walk beside the Thames on one of its quietest stretches, between Buckland and Appleton,  I saw first one in Chimney Meadows nature reserve and then a second just north of Shifford lock. Shifford is a nowhere place nowadays, just a farm and a quiet old church, but in King Alfred's day it was the site of the first recorded parliament in our history, an assembly called by the king in 885AD to discuss the defence  against the Danes of the vulnerable fords across the Thames. One of them was the 'Sheep Ford', now Shifford.

Clouded Yellows almost always rest with their wings folded, showing only the lemony-yellow underwing, but one of my iPhone snaps coincided with the first insect's take off and a sliver of the brighter, custardy colour of the topwings can be seen. On the left is my only picture of the second one in the context of a little riverside greenery in the otherwise drought-parched meadow.

My family have also been photographing butterflies, a much harder task than recording sleepy moths, and my daughter-in-law took this lovely picture in their garden in Wiltshire of a Small Tortoiseshell, a familiar English butterfly but in my experience less flourishing in recent years than its close relations, the Red Admiral and Peacock.

She also kindly sent the photos below of two rather similar mountain butterflies seen on a brilliant holiday in the Austrian Alps with our grandchildren.  I think that they are respectively an Arran Brown and a Large Ringlet.

Finally, here's a Red Admiral in our greenhouse. I shoo them and other butterflies out as soon as I can because they are quickly overcome by the heat.

Fourth in July - Little Buttercup is my latest new moth

July has come to an excellent end with a fourth new species to add to my list. After the Mocha, the Light Crimson Underwing and the Oak Eggar, here's a warm welcome to the debut of the Small Ranunculus. 

Its bigger and more gold-speckled brother, the Large Ranunculus,  below, has been a regular visitor for years and has prompted me to muse in the past about buttercups, which are known botanically as Ranunculus and form a foodplant for both species when they are caterpillars. Little Buttercup of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta HMS Primrose was once featured here. If she were a moth, she would be a Little Ranunculus. 

The species, which is specially fond of brownfield sites, is another of the great Comeback Kids among UK moths, like the Clifden Nonpareil and the Crimson Underwings. Once common in the UK, it was reckoned to be extinct by 1912 because of changing farming practices. Then in 1997 it reappeared in Kent and has spread rapidly since. 

Another very pleasant arrival last night was the Purple Bar, a pretty member of the Carpet family which has previously visited on Penny's birthday, always a distinction. It is showing exceptional nouse in the photograph above by actually resting on a purple stripe in my pyjamas - my normal wear when examining the moths in the morning before making tea. 

It chose this exact spot itself, I promise. It is much too small and shy to be posed. When I first saw it, it was on an eggbox (pic below) but I disturbed it when lifting the box out and it fluttered away. I thought I had lost it, but then it made a beeline for me and my pyjamas.

Other distinguished visitors included the Bright-line Brown-eye, below, followed by two nice members of the small green spectrum in UK moths, the Green Carpet and the Coronet, and a Flounced Rustic - a good name which makes you think of haughty young ladies flouncing out of the room.

Then we have a very handsome Poplar Kitten alongside a bright Orange Swift, seen from sideways and above, a Mother-of-Pearl micro of which there are currently dozens around, and a Brimstone moth to cheer things up even more.

Finally a Gypsy Moth and a Turnip and an enormous spider which I thought was dead until it scrambled in an ungainly fashion back to life.  My iPhone says that it is a Giant House Spider and I am not arguing with that. 

Mine's a Mocha - Two!

It's very satisfying when a new moth for my list re-appears soon after its debut, suggesting that the species has established a local toehold. This happened last night with the arrival of a second beautiful Mocha which was resting demurely on the edge of the light trap's transparent cowl. As you can see, it is darker than the first moth which I featured here half a dozen posts back.  The same has happened with the Oak Eggar, another new species for me, which has now arrived twice this July.

Meanwhile, I'm also delighted to welcome my first Jersey Tiger for the year, after previously seeing them in London and at the grandchildren's in Wiltshire where they are all over the place. I managed to tease mine into showing a little of its vivid rear-wing petticoats which cause many to confuse it with Red Admirals or other Vanessid butterflies, especially as it often flies by day.  We have always had Scarlet Tigers here, earlier in the year, and it is excellent to welcome the Jersey, whose rapid advance across southern England in recent years has been amply recorded.

Manoeuvring the moth into a position where you can glimpse its underside is another good way of showing what lies hidden, though nothing like as vivid as a flash of the topwings.

Other welcome newcomers for this year last night included the Lime-speck Pug, which shares the title of Bird-dropping Moth in this household with the Chinese Character, a Tawny-speckled Pug - another of the very few in this minuscule, nightmare family which is easy even for me to ID - showing the trap with its eggboxes below nd the mercury vapour bulb, a micro Udea ferrugalis or the Rusty Dot Pearl which is common here just now and fourthly a very battered puzzle. Maybe a passing expert can unravel it.

I'll leave you with another look at my second Mocha. What an exquisite moth!

Gloriously Common

 

'Common' may be a derogatory term in some usages of English but it is also a proud one, as in the Common People of Magna Carta, the House of Commons, the Commonwealth and the concept of Common Law. In the same way, it is a badge of pride for some of our most beautiful butterflies, which are all the more to be valued because they are easy to find. 

The male Common Blue, above, is a glorious example even if he makes you wait before he opens his wings. By far the commonest way to see him or his female mate, whose top wings are much darker but also exquisite, is with their wings folded as in the photo below.

Patience is a virtue and if you stand quietly, the butterfly will often (although not always) give you a little glimpse of its hidden beauty as below.

Wait a little longer and you may get more, before the ultimate reward of fully-spread wings as in my first picture. The closely related Brown Argus butterfly is the same but on this occasion, in the Trap Grounds nature reserve by the canal in central Oxford, I did not have to wait so long for it to perform.

Dragon and damselflies were out in the delectable sunshine too, including this female Ruddy Darter whose large round eye catches the light in my second picture from at least 50 yards away.

Finally for today, Penny found this lovely little nest on the gravel in front of our house. We think that it must be a wren's because of its very small size. No wonder that the workmanship which goes into creating these lovely, cosy homes has made 'nesting' a much-favoured word in the English language.

A Gypsy's Life

The Gypsy Moth is an unmistakeable fixture in my annual calendar of reliable visitors and I worship once again its tremendous antennae which are among the best in the moths' world. Readers will maybe recall that antennae are the one gift granted to moths but denied to humans which I hopelessly envy. I would love a pair.

At rest, the Gypsy more resembles an Old Lady moth with its big brown, black and grey overcoat swept grandly around it. Not everyone likes it as much as me; when it established a toehold in London in 1995 after years of extinction as a resident UK species - just a few migrants recorded annually - it was subjected to an eradication campaign by the agriculture ministry because of its caterpillars' fondness for very large amounts of leaves from broad-leafed trees.

The men from the ministry were on a loser; the species spreads via the wind blowing its tiny larvae uncontrollably all over the place. The catties' tastes are so catholic that once they have landed, they almost always find a foodplant nearby. I have been getting the moths for nearly ten years now and don't except to say goodbye to them any time soon.

The moth is more famous in the wider world as the name of a nimble 1920s biplane which evolved into the Tiger Moth military trainer, beloved of fictional heroes such as Biggles as well as real-life flyers. The De Havilland aircraft company used the name 'moth' because the wings could be folded back like a moth's (horizontally and not vertically like a butterfly's). Gipsy with an 'i' rather than 'y' was the name of the improved engine which replaced an earlier and less powerful model called Cirrus. 

It is a good season for big moths generally,  including the Privet above, with its wings spread out and at rest, and the Poplar and Eyed below. Lots of people are also having delectable visits from hovering Hummingbird Hawk moths too, especially if they grow lavender.

The impressive Oak Eggar paid a second call and I got this nice underwing snap through the cowl, second pic below, of a Black Arches, one of my top favourites.

Many, many other moths further down the size scale are arriving too, including the Brimstone (outside the trap on our rather burned-out lawn), Willow Beauty, Least Carpet and Coronet.

Also a Straw Dot, a neat little macro, and its lookalike micro, Udea ferrugalis or the Rusty Pearl, which is very similar in size, a pill-shaped Dingy Footman (actually not dingy at all) and a delicate Latticed Heath, showing how the black and white pattern extends to the moth's body in the form of stripes. Following my mention above the moths folding their wings flat on their backs, note that this is one of a handful which behave as ifthey were butterflies.

Finally a Lychnis,  a lively Copper Underwing (they are unparalleled scurriers-about in the trap), a Yellow Shell in very good condition, a Cloaked Minor, a White-spotted pug on a nicely-coloured eggbox and a handsome Grey or Dark Dagger.

Oh, and a bewildered young blackbird which fortunately survived one of those collisions which happen rather a lot on sunny days when your house has large windows.