Maidenly delights

The family of mochas and waves, known scientifically as the Sterrhinae, has been very good to me this year. The Mocha itself, a moth for which I have long hoped, at last paid a visit as did a Jersey Mocha or Blair's Mocha, whose identity is still in the hands of the experts at iRecord. 

My latest caller is a regular but only occasionally; one of the most delicate of the family and with perhaps the most appealing name: the Maiden's Blush. Here it is, blushing away on my pyjamas which appear on so many of my photos as I rise before morning tea to examine the trap.

A second nice surprise was the even more occasional arrival of a Bulrush Wainscot, one of the largest of another elegant family of moths, the Noctuidae, and a testament to the fact that we have plenty of bulrushes growing round here on ponds and beside the Oxford Canal. 

 

Below is a Common Wainscot, the most regular of the family to call here as its name suggests. I am sorry, I should have provided a scale but it is less than half the size of its Bulrush relation. Perhaps the magnification of the eggbox structure shows that. 

My examination of the trap's contents is watched these days by not just one but a pair of robins, possibly brothers from a Spring brood, which compete for territory in the garden. This is actually a bonus as they spend more time jealously keeping an eye on one another than watching for errant moths.

Here is a tiny scrap of a micro, the sort which I often fail to bother to photograph, but I am glad that I did because of the distinctive little pink mark.  I am currently trying to ID it and will update this when I do.

Next a Willow Beauty with a curious marking on its left forewing which I plan to ask about on the Upper Thames Moths Facebook page. Again, I will update if any interesting information comes from that.

Finally among the current moths, two Whitepoints in slightly different colour tones, exaggerated for good measure by the iPhone. 

The sunshine meanwhile continues to bring butterflies, which have been exceptional this Summer. Here is a Brown Argus on our vegetable patch and one of a huge new brood of Speckled Woods whose males engage in their curious spiralling combat flights in the mottled shade which they love so much.

And here's a female Common Darter dragonfly having a rest for once, amid its high-speed flights round the garden hawking for little flies, and lastly a hornet, fierce-looking but amiable although we're relieved that their nest in our eaves last year has not been revived.

Boo!

The Yellow-tails are back with a vigorous second generation; a surprising name for a moth which on first inspection turns out to be largely white with just a few flecks of blackish brown. But wait. If a male wants to draw the attention of a nearby mate, look what happens, below.

One of the half-dozen examples in the trap conveniently fluttered off to a window of our shed when I tickled it with a leaf. Through the glass, you can see the end of its body more clearly. This is where moths mate, tail-to-tail, and it seems appropriate that the spot is marked by a little heart. 

Silver Ys have been turning up regularly, an immigrant moth in my youth but now established as a breeding resident. They are one of the most frequently-spotted dayflyers in the country, little whirrs of grey nectaring at wildflowers in the manner of Hummingbird Hawk moths albeit duller and less skilful. I was cycling to meet Penny yesterday after her tennis and I stalked and photographed just such a one. A few minutes earlier, I saw another Clouded Yellow butterfly, a feature of this sunny Summer, but missed the chance to photograph it.

There are some nice Autumnal colours in the moth trap these mornings although the forecasters are predicting a lovely September before the seasons change.  Here is a Brimstone moth followed by a Frosted Orange, a Centre-barred Sallow - one of the commonest of my brighter arrivals since mid-August - and a glowing Barred Sallow with a similar palette but differently painted.

I've also been pleased to find some characterful smaller moths in the last three days: a Vestal with its mauve angled stripe like the Roman Vestals' toga, first one in its usual resting position and then a second more unusually shown with wings half outstretched. Then a spiky-looking Cypress Carpet whose colour and patterns slightly resemble the eggbox barcode on which it slept,  a Chinese Character with the reason for its name glinting brightly, and its fellow 'bird-poo moth', a Lime-speck Pug.

The Box moth which is causing such hedge devastation still pays weekly calls in spite of a neighbour successfully preserving her hedge - very unusually in my experience - by the patient chore of checking it daily for caterpillars and killing them. Then we have a couple of many Willow Beauties which appear night after night. Note the much-exaggerated, different colour as the otherwise excellent iPhone plays its digital tricks with the light.

Another very common moth at the moment is the Flounced Rustic, below, followed by its less common relative, the Square-spot Rustic.

Elsewhere in the busy Natural world, here is a neighbour's tortoise ravenously devouring a dandelion, a quartet of heron pictures from a wander round Wolvercote Lakes, a delightful small nature reserve, and a Nursery Web Spider,  also known as the Cunning Spider and Bridal Gift Spider. The names sound like something from a sinister murder story but actually come from the complex mating process, although this is a risky business in which death can occur.  I can do not better than quote Wikipedia before ending this post with a classic piece of 'art bollocks' involving a spider-like lemon squeezer whose use rather resembles the messy procedures of the mating Nursery Web.

'Males of this species offer a nuptial gift to potential female mates. Some Pisaura mirabilisspecimens have also been observed to use thanatosis during courtship.After presenting the nuptial gift to the female, she bites on to the gift and the male moves to her epigyne to deposit sperm with his pedipalps. Throughout copulation, the male keeps a leg on the gift so as to be ready if she tries to escape with it or attack him. At this time, the male may feign death – his limbs become straight and he is dragged along with the female while holding on to the gift. When the female stops, the male slowly "resurrects" and continues attempting to mate.'

Elegant arches

 

A distinguished visitor at the beginning of every September is the Feathered Gothic, which I consider to be my 'architecture moth' because of the way it almost exactly imitates the framework of a mediaeval Gothic church window.  The fact that it fills the gaps between its lines with modest shades of grey and even black only adds to its appeal as a design type. Varied or bright colouring would risk cheapening the effect.

Its caterpillars form a sort of lawnmower as grass is their foodplant and they start eating the blades and then creep down when a little older and demolish the stem. Perhaps this slender diet inspires the narrow lines of the wing design. I don't suppose that this thought could ever be proved. But equally, it probably can't be disproved either.

Another seasonal regular is the September Thorn, above, the plainest of the interesting Thorn family whose members share this crouching posture, a little butterfly-like in the holding of the wings above the body rather than flatly folded across it like most UK moths. Alongside it in the trap last night were a couple of Small Blood-veins, a third species which flies towards the end of the Summer.

The most interesting moth in this post, however, called on a neighbour rather than myself. She emailed me anxiously with the photo below, asking if the insect was in some way crippled or damaged when emerging from its chrysalis. The answer is no; it is the delightful and very distinctive Lilac Beauty which adopts this curious creased and folded-back technique on the leading edge of its forewings when at rest. The effect makes excellent camouflage as it resembles a dead leaf.

I have only ever had a Lilac Beauty here once, in July 2013, and here is its photograph below. I posted about it at the time and you can read that here, time and interest permitting.

Always on the go

Perpetual motion doesn't exist as I understand it, although I am no scientist, but the Hummingbird Hawk moth comes as close to achieving it as anything I have seen. I have spent much enjoyable time trying to photograph these busy nectar-feeders as they dart about on sunny afternoons and only once have I seen one stop in flight.

Today's photos are rare for me, therefore, taken thanks to Penny spotting the familiar triangle sight of a moth afloat in a puddle caused by this week's extremely welcome rain. When we carefully salvaged the inect and put it gently on a plant, it came to rather erratic life, staggering about but unable to use its soaked wings. These later dried-out but here is the moth pictured while it was immobile with its hair looking slicked with Brylcreem. 

It brings my hawk moth tally for this year to six, along with the Poplar, Privet, Large Elephant, Eyed and Lime; a modest total compared to previous Summers which have seen both the Pine and Small Elephant arrive regularly and, once, a Broad-bordered Bee hawk. I still dream of Silver-striped and Convolvulus which others have hosted during thi sunny Summer but not me. So far.

The unexpected arrives more often than usual, however, and I have just had a modest example of that on a walk across Walthamstow Marshes from my younger son's home in Clapton to a niece's in Walthamstow. The parched landscape resembled Death Valley more than anything watery and I didn't expect to find much of interest en route.

Instead, I first glimpsed this little dot of red in the overwhelming sandy-brown, then watched a Clouded Yellow fly hectically past and managed to photograph a Small White, Small Copper and lovely Common Blue.  I have often remarked on how beautiful these are in spite of their dismissive name. The same goes for Holly Blues which have become one of the dominant butterfly species of the English suburb. 

There were flowers dotted about the apparent desert and the butterflies had found them out.

Back home, the moth trap is busy but pretty routine and here are some visitors from the last few days. In each case clockwise from the top left, we have have Flounced Rustic,  Single-dotted Wave, European Corn-borer and Gold Triangle, the last two both micros which I am now describing by their very welcome vernacular names instead of the heavy duty Greek and Latin mixture of the Linnaean system.

Then we have Light Emerald, Black-headed Conch, Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing and Straw Underwing

Next Willow Beauty, Spectacle, Red Twin-spot Carpet and Common Carpet

And finally, a Riband Wave in two forms of the digital camera's light-gathering,  a vivid Purple and Gold and a spidery-looking Orange Swift.