Gents' Club Sprawler

  We have had the electricity board here carrying out their five-year cut of treetops which threaten the local high voltage power lines. As a result, we have a large pile of chippings on the lawn which offered a good opportunity last night to site my moth trap somewhere different.  Whether moths aim high at light, given the chance, I do not know; but it would seem to make sense if the theory that their antennae-based navigation systems are tuned to reach for the moon is correct.

The best result was this Sprawler below, the last moth of my regulars due to arrive and a fine fresh specimen which rewarded the wait. You can get a sense of its hairiness, useful at this chilly time of year, in the second photo and my finger gives an indication of its size in the third.

It turned out to have an exciting period of life ahead after visiting me, as I was giving a talk about moth-trapping to a small group and so took it with me. Here it is below on a table decoration where I left it snoozing contentedly.

Another arrival last night is rather similar but has been here quite a few times this Autumn: Blair's Shoulder-knot. Then we have a second genuine newcomer for the year, which I had clean forgotten, in the two photos below that: the Mottled Umber with its more relaxed and less dart-shaped appearance and pleasant shades of beige. Bringing up the rear, a Cypress Carpet whose marking are curiously similar to the unrelated Cypress Pug although their caterpillars' diet of cypress is the same. I should have mentioned earlier that the Sprawler is named, not after a tweedy gent in a London club as I once hoped, but because of a strange defensive attitude struck by its caterpillar.

Finally, a moment of swanking: I have unexpectedly got two photographs in next year's calendar of the Friends of the Trap Grounds nature reserve in central Oxford.  I wonder if users will linger a little longer than usual over February and July...  If you buy one, you will be supporting an excellent cause.

Trump's Tiny Moth

 

We've had a cold North wind this week and the season continues to wind down, but the guests in the moth-trap eggboxes are still pretty numerous and varied. Here, for example, is a doughty immigrant micromoth, above, the Rusty-dot Pearl or Udea ferugalis which somehow contrives to reach our island from overseas at this time of the year.

The lovely Merveille du Jour is still putting in frequent appearances, with examples getting more and more faded at the edge of their forewings. I've also hosted a Yellow-line Quaker, an aptly-named Lead-coloured Tortrix micro, aka Acleris sparsana and very boring-looking, a Beaded Chestnut, a Red-line Quaker, a handsome Satellite and a Black Rustic. 

We'll have a short break now for a tiny little woodlouse, which has the grand and appropriate Linnaean name of Armadillidium vulgare. It looks just like a tiny armadillo.  As you know, these creatures have a suicidal habit of living under stones and bricks in the garden and millions must be crushed annually when such rubble is moved. Still, there also appear to be millions left.  I have posted it on iRecord to see who the woodlouse verifier is, and meanwhile enjoyed its many evocative names on Wikipedia which include roly-poly, common pillbug, slater, doodlebug and - I have yet to find out why on Earth - carpenter.

More of my moth visitors after that interlude: a Light Brown Apple Moth, aka Epiphyas postvittana, a Turnip Moth and one or other of the impossible-to-tell-apart Autumnal, November and Winter moths. We've also been graced by a lot of Red-green Carpets Moths in recent weeks and here are four of them.  Beautiful creatures.

In a different part of the moth world, I'm giving a little talk today promoting light-trapping and the organiser has waggishly added 'the Future of the Republican party' to my topic.  I have little to say about this apart from sharing the global happiness that the familiar old United States is clearly alive and kicking - kicking hard and where it hurts.

However, the challenge prompted me to Google 'moths and the Republican party' and the omniscient machine immediately came up with these combinations, below. I recommend following up both with your own research. The Trump micro is a satisfyingly minuscule memorial to a tragically over-inflated ego.

Fur-coated Finale

I always think of the December Moth as the last of my annual regular guests, although I still have the Sprawler due, a moth named after the habits of its caterpillar rather than a gent in a London club, dozing in an armchair over his glass of port.

The December Moth is perhaps better-suited to such metaphors, with its rich fur coat in chocolately colours; a welcome change from the governess greys of the November and Autumnal family who form the vast majority of arrivals at present and will continue to do so in the coming weeks. 

There is still a little colour around, including Merveille du Jours such as the one below with its enemy the Robin perched on the garden roller behind. I have mentioned previously the slightly brown tinge which I have seen in some of this year's Merveilles and that continues as they age and fade, as shown in the examples in the second photo below:

The one on the left is the Brownie; not strikingly different from the standard form on the right but enough for me to notice. Here are some close -ups of the standard form on the top row and the Brownie below. Note that the black and white fringe which marks most freshly-emerged moths and butterflies has completely worn away in the later specimens.

The occasional Silver Y calls in too, a moth which I have known longer than any other, first seen as a child on Summer brmble flowers near our home in Leeds. Ditto the odd Green-brindled Crescent, another reason to stay cheerful as the weather gets colder and wetter, thanks to its metallic green wing scales.

Can a fly be beautiful? I dislike the buzzing, irritating things as much as most people, but this one's golden circles really struck me when I saw it in the trap. It's a Noonday Fly which starts life as a solitary egg in a fresh cowpat - the adult lays just one per pat - where the maggot lives on smaller dungeaters like an underworld character in a novel by Emile Zola. 

While we're on such creatures, here is a late, sleepy wasp, always a sting hazard if I am clumsy with the eggboxes, and an ichneumon fly which has the horrible habit of injecting its egg into other insects such as moths and using them as a living larder for its family.  The Noonday Fly in my picture above is being approached in a menacing fashion by another one.

I'll end up with another example of moths in culture, a printing plate from the Royal Worcester museum which we enjoyed visiting last month, a Lacewing having a rest and finally one of the most unfortunate forms of life in terms of a name in the UK: the Dog's Vomit Slime Mould, known as Witches' Butter in Finland, Holland and some other parts of the Continent. Suitable for Hallowe'en...

 

Curled up Cattie

 

The march of moths through global culture continues apace: while I persist in my efforts to track down the caterpillar which stars in the opening sequence of the latest Sense and Sensibility film. The Economist's obituary the other week (a rather over-stylised column but let that pass) kicked of with a moth and an interesting story about it.  

On cue I found a brightly-coloured cattie myself just now, although it showed no inclination to explore my fingers. I have to admit that they are a bit less appealing than those of the young woman playing Marianne in the film. but maybe caterpillars don't see it that way, and its inertia was just due to the cold.

My iPhone Bug ID suggests that it will turn into a Large Yellow Underwing and iRecord has just concurred when I uploaded a couple of photos and the identity there. By happy chance, the egg boxes also contained this chap below, an adult Large Yellow Underwing, whose identity only became apparent in the third and last photo, although you can see the yellow and black pattern dimly from below in the second image.

From yellow to green, and here is a Merveille du Jour, still brightening up the trap as we move towards Hallowe'en and November.

Then a Winter/November/Autumnal moth first pretending to be a butterfly and then in its usual resting pose, followed by a Cypress Pug, a Light Brown Apple Moth micro and a Turnip moth.

And to finish up with a pair Harvestman parents with their family, now all expelled outdoors with the help of Penny's wonderful and supposedly humane suction-operated spider-catcher. I hope that a change of temperature will be merely bracing for them.