Mine's a Mocha

 

Two posts ago, before our holiday in Greece, I was saying how unusual it is to have a completely new arrival in the moth trap. That was in the context of an overnighting Lunar-spotted Pinion which I thought at first was a debut, but then discovered in my records of quite a few years ago.

Today's star moth really IS new and it's one which I've long hoped-for: the Mocha, with its delicious pattern and colour reminiscent of a cup of frothy coffee. That's where the name comes from; in 18th century England when the entomologists were drawing up names, Ethiopian coffee was often known as Mocha after the Yemeni town Mokha through which it was exported.  The coffee frequently had a chocolatey taste which played its part in today's use of the word for a mixed coffee and chocolate drink. 

The Mocha is quite a scarce moth, categorised as Nationally Rare B, but I suspect that it may have been here before and gone un-noticed by me because I have always had the idea that it is quite a lot bigger than is actually the case. Here is the first photo I took of it on one of the eggboxes, showing how it actually comes into the overcrowded spectrum of the Riband Wave, Fan-footed Wave and many others of that size and pale colouring which are very common callers.

The moth trap is extremely busy on these heatwave nights with hundreds of arrivals, the smaller ones completely unmanageable. Here are pictures of the very smallest which comes in shoals and whose identity defies me, and others showing how many of the little white web-spinning ermine micros are turning up.

Ermines feature too in these next photos of a pair of Red Twin-spot Carpets followed by a Common Carpet and then that subtly delightful moth, the Tree-lichen Beauty whose discreet greens and greys are a feast for the eye and worth a prolonged look.

Ruby Tigers have started coming to the light, the smallest of a very brightly-coloured tribe. They have a remarkable glow, even without the sun on their backs, and fine red underwings and knee-breeches on their front legs.

The first Dusky Thorn of high Summer paid a call as well:

Out and about, I disturbed one of the many Yellow Shell moths which live in the hedges round our local Big Field and are very easily roused by passers-by. Back home after the walk, we had a hawk moth whispering sesssion with one of my sisters who is staying with us; the big insects are very docile and everyone enjoys the slightly tickly experience of having one clinging to a finger.

This striking micro below meanwhile intrigued me and I have enjoyed tracking it down in the Micromoth Bible. The AI identification which is now blessedly standard on my iPhone is very good but cannot produce a completely trustworthy ID for a little splinter of moth like this. It's Epiblema foenalla which is actually rated common, although I do not recall seeing one here before.

Two other micro visitors also defied the AI ID which guessed that they were American species - and to be fair, always warns me hat it may be wrong. The first is Calamotropha paludella, a tricky one to nail down and for a while I thought that it might be the macro Silky Wainscot. It is only locally found. And then we have Udea prunalis, a fairly regular caller pictured alongside part of my knee. A welcome development in UK moth affairs is the gradual giving of vernacular names to all UK micros via iRecord and these are respectively the White-foot Bell, the Bulrush Veneer and the Dusky Pearl. 

Two special macro favourites from the eggboxes next: the lovely Herald which pays visits from May onwards, and the pale, creamy Swallowtail moth, on my finger and through the trap's sort-of transparent cowl.

Now for a trio of dainty moths in the Same as the Mocha category which I mentioned above: a famously-misnamed Single-dotted Wave, a pretty Least Carpet and a Latticed Heath,  the moth which thinks that it is a butterfly because it always holds its wings folded up vertically over its back when at rest, an unusual habit for a UK moth but invariable in our butterflies..

And so to a Yellow-tail, discreetly hiding the reason for its name, and finally both forms of that menace to owners of neat hedges, the Box moth.  Quite a haul today and more of the same, I suspect, tomorrow.

Greece 10 - England 14

We have just had ten lovely days on the Greek island of Hydra, basking in sweltering temperatures but managing to keep up our walking tally because a beach or a taverna or both lay at the end of every trek. I always enjoy discovering the butterflies, moths and other creatures on overseas holidays and Hydra came up trumps with a new species for me.

It's the delicate little Blue shown above; not blue in the picture, because like almost all the members of this delicate, fast-flying species it likes to rest with its wings folded, hiding its vivid topwings. Actually it was Penny who spotted this one, using her legendary powers as our Finder of Insects Indoors; in this case, it was fluttering about on the glazed glass of our little studio's front door. 

It's a Zebra Blue, also known as Lang's Short-tailed Blue (you can just see the short tail between the 'eyes'), or the Plumbago Blue, the last name being appropriate in our case as a lovely big plumbago towered over the house. The underside patterning is absolutely delightful and repays a long leisurely look.

My second favourite of the holiday was an old but always lovely familiar, the Scarce Swallowtail, which coincidentally has a rather zebra-like pattern too, though the name Zebra Swallowtail is taken by another relative found only in Canada and the United States. We don't get the Scarce in the UK and our native Swallowtail is of course a great rarity here. I saw a couple of them on Hydra but did not get the chance of a photo.

Here, however, is my Scarce Swallowtail which obligingly nectared at a nearby plumbago while we were tucking into a Greek salad at a lunchtime beach taverna. I zoomed over with my iPhone after glimpsing it halting its majestic, swooping flight, to the interest of other lunchers.

A more familiar butterfly on Greek Summer holidays is the little Geranium Bronze, faithful to its foodplant and recently recorded in the South of the UK, and spreading northwards here. There were lots of these darting about and flying in pairs - either courting or males fighting - and also plenty of Common Blues nectaring on swags of lavender and other flowers. Again, in both cases, the wings are folded but one Common Blue - sorry that my pic is rather blurred - had a tear which allows a glimpse of the glorious topwings.

Two Geranium Bronzes partying in the sun. The lower one shows a glimpse of the bronze topwing which gives the species its name

One of our favourite swimming spots on the island was Vlichos, a couple of miles' walk along the beautiful coastal path from Hydra port, which some guidebooks refer to as 'Butterfly Bay', citing dark brown and black butterflies flipping about in the shade. Sure enough, we found quite a few of these - Freyer's Greylings which share the habit of the English Greyling of clasping their wings tightly together at rest, sliding the forewing back to form a triangle with the hindwing and then tilting towards the sun to cast the least possible shadow. All this makes them a bit of a nightmare to photograph, but I got a couple of snaps of examples just showing their bright eye, one of them on the blue shoe of a fellow coffee drinker in the port.

The skippers are always well-represented on Greek wildflowers and here are a couple of pictures of a Mallow Skipper and below them, a Sage Skipper, I think.

 

There was no shortage of Whites, meanwhile, both Large and Small...

...and the Painted Ladies which have been so successful in England this Summer were out in force on Hydra too.

Finally, some other enjoyable insects from the island: a shining Copper Chafer beetle which P spotted on one of the port's vertiginous flights of steps in time to stop me treading on it:

And a fine-looking grasshopper - possibly the Twin-striped:

Excellent butterflies from Greece then, ten species in all, one for each day of our holiday, plus a solitary and very familiar moth: a shy Silver Y. 

BUT, look what I discovered on my first day back here in Oxfordshire. FOURTEEN different butterfly species in our garden alone: Small and Large White,  Brimstone, Marbled White, Ringlet, Peacock, Red Admiral, Holly Blue, Hedge Brown, Common Blue, Small Skipper, Large Skipper and Meadow Brown.  The one I have (so far) failed to photo was yet another Painted Lady. The heatwave, the third this Summer, has created a butterfly paradise.