Saturday 5 November 2022

A long season

 


The Clifden Nonpareil, whose regular appearance here in the last four years has been the most exciting event of my moth trapping, is enjoying another excellent season. This one was tucked away in the eggboxes on Monday 17 October, much the latest date in my experience. I had a look at my records to compare notes with other enthusiasts on the Upper Thames Moths blog and here they are: 

2019 One on 19 September (my first ever)

2020 Three on 3 September followed by seven more, the last on 2 October. Annus mirabilis - the year March Botham entertained six in one evening.

2021 Three on 20 September

2022 One on 5 September and now this one.

My post prompted others to comment with Dave Wilton, the vastly-experienced blogmeister, saying that the whole CN season in Oxfordshire appeared to be later this year. To back him up, another trapper recorded one on October 26.

I took a short film of the marvellous visitor warming up before it took off to the safety of an oak tree. I haven't put the lamp out much since then, but who knows, another may still be around,.


The Nonpareil came with an interesting set of companions, yet another Box Tree moth - shudder if you have box hedges - and a fine Feathered Thorn, the first of this Autumn. Meanwhile in the world of the grandchildren, a Pale Tussock caterpillar has been captured and obligingly formed a nice cocoon inside an insect collecting box borrowed from a schoolfriend. 



The Pale Tussock has an interesting history, especially in the hop-growing world which by chance we visited last week. The excellent Hop Trail at Scotney Castle took us through the only hop farm owned by the National Trust, with the usual excellent info about the poles, the former owners' initials on the oast house vanes and the crude little corrugated iron hamlet in the woods where the pickers from London's East End used to spend the season. It was a sort of holiday, albeit back-breaking work for the grown-ups who included stiltwalkers to cut the top of the hop binds which curl 20 feet up the poles.




The place of the Pale Tussock in this was its role as a hazard. The caterpillar's fuzzy spines can give people a nasty rash and hops are its favourite food plant. The species were nick-named 'Hop Dogs' and they were as unpopular as the local farming children who ambushed the pickers at night in the woods as  they came back from the pub, pretending to be ghosts.  This tradition was ably upheld by the National Trust for Hallowe'en at Scotney, whose visiting little witches, ghosts and pumpkins were met with skeletons, spiders and a fountain dyed red to resemble blood into which they could (and did with relish) throw 'eyeballs' the size of tennis balls.




Here's a Pale Tussock which Penny and I found in an Open Garden back in March 2018 when I mused on the hop connection, including a link to an excellent hoppy website.

Visiting the grandchildren also gave Penny and me - and them - the chance of some excellent sightings of a Jay and a Cormorant holding its wings in that characteristic posture which is almost certainly a way of drying its wings:


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