Back to the moths

Right. After the diversions of our Greek holiday and the Black Hairstreak discovery, it's time to return to the normal subject of this blog, my regular tally of visiting moths. There have been some lovely ones in the last few, warm nights; none new but a great variety and some beautiful species. I'm starting with the Scarlet Tiger, a regular visitor adding colour and fun to the daytime rather than the dark, because it flew unprompted into the house. 

Next, a lively pair of male Drinker moths - sexed because of their antennae and smaller size than the paler-coloured females whose caterpillars we used to breed at school. They were easy to find because they climbed long stems of grass in the cool of early evening to sip drops of dew; hence the species' name. These two were preparing to leave and I took this very short clip which shows the classic moth process of warming up the muscles enough for flight.

Finally, this photo includes one of my beautiful thumbs to give you an idea of the Drinker's considerable size. The one below gives scale by the different ploy of showing the moth trap's rainshield in the background, as well as a smaller, 'ordinary-sized' moth slumbering nearby. Plus those terrific antennae and a clearer view of the wing markings, like beads of spilt dew.

The Drinker is almost in the league of the hawk moths which have started to call here every night.Here is a trio of the lovely Eyed, the very familiar Poplar and the socking great Privet, the UK's third-largest moth. An Elephant arrived last week too, but I have seen so many in my mothing time that I lazily neglected to photograph it. Never mind, there will be plenty more.

Here's the Privet Hawk again, below, on a leaf of one of the many Paulownia tomentosa trees which we have grown from seed collected in London and Oxford. My final picture shows views of the wonderful collection of 12 mature Paulownias in the Sir Charles Clore courtyard of the Saïd Business School at Oxford, a hidden glory of the city. Paulownia leaves can grow so big that when a North Oxford primary school used one in a playlet about the Garden of Eden, it hid the whole of both Adam and Eve.

Tempted down from the treetops

In early July last year, our local butterfly recorder tipped me off that Black Hairstreaks had been seen in a classic 'butterfly field' a couple of miles from our house, a sunny patch of undisturbed meadow on the edge of dense woodland fringed by blackthorn, brambles and briars. I went and spent a happy morning encountering White Admirals among other butterfly glories and, at the very end of my ramble, found my prey on flowering brambles by a row of run-down garages. Like rare birds, elusive butterflies often find surprising places to tuck themselves away.

A more typical photo. Black Hairstreaks prefer the treetops where they lick up aphid honey, only making occasional forays down to briars and brambles from late morning

The site

A fortnight ago, the same recorder told me that the 'Black Hairstreak' season for this year had started and could I go and check out the field again for sightings, as she was busy with other demands on her life. I couldn't go immediately because Penny and I were preparing for, doing and recovering from a 20-mile walk in the current blazing sunshine for the charity World Child Cancer which the said cousin chairs. Friendly fate, however, had a treat in store. I took my cousin and her partner for a walk round the 'Big Field', right on our doorstep, and in a sunny woodland ride (second picture above), guess what we saw.

Same with added bike

I immediately interrupted our chatter with a schoolmasterly "Shush!" and "Don't move, just for a sec" as an unfamiliar butterfly, reminiscent of a Hedge Brown but smaller and definitely bigger than a Blue, flickered about on blackthorn with sudden, soaring sallies to some young ashes, way beyond my iPhone range. Then down it obligingly came and click!  We have a new Black Hairstreak site to add to the 60 or so on record, and it is almost in our garden.

There were two of them on this initial visit and the following day I called by on my bike coming home from Oxford and had ten sightings, sometimes just of one, sometimes of two, but never as close as the first encounter. The picture immediately above was the best I could do. I will keep an eye on them but I am sure, given the mount of blackthorn, briar and bramble we have around here, that there will be other local sites. Butterfly Conservation do well to describe the species as very elusive rather than very rare. There just aren't that many people who know what they are and are looking out for them.

Last year's sighting was followed by my first-ever encounter with a Brown Hairstreak and I described 2022 as an annus mirabilis as a result. I reckon that 2023 has also earned that status now, at least so far as hairstreaks are concerned.

There was also a happy coda to this adventure. I unwittingly lost one of my bike's propellors which must have got entangled in the scrub which the hairstreaks so much like. Luckily, the bike is well-known round here and some Good Samaritan found the prop and stuck it on our gatepost. So now, like a hairstreak, I can fly again.

Shiny dung-collector

The butterflies steal the show in the Mediterranean, but my top find on our Greek holiday was this glowing metallic dung beetle. It was one of the bonuses of moving a tad more slowly as age advances; P and I were having a rest on the exploration of a fortified Maniot village when it scurried busily past. 

The same applied with this cricket, above, with its Nike-like swoosh. I always remember seeing a typical company slogan on a railway platform in New York state: 'You can rest when you're dead'.  We weren't dead, I'm glad to say; indeed we were very alive to the world around us. You had to be to spot the southern Peloponnesian moths without the help of a light trap. I didn't find many, but here are few:

I will attempt to ID them later unless a passing expert on Mediterranean insects passes helpfully by. Meanwhile here are some more curious flying creatures from our lovely fortnight. It helps to like, or at least not to mind, bugs of every type if you live around the Med:

The following are not insects, although I tried to kid my grandchildren on WhatsApp that the remarkable Shell Butterfly was one of our finds. Unsuccessfully. I also cannot resist posting one of my few photos of the lightning-fast local lizards.

Finally, on a visit to the excellent museum in Gythio, our nearest town, I thought that I had found a picture of a Maniot butterfly collector. But no.  She is netting small, edible birds, one of the ways the 19th century locals made a living in this beautiful but often barren part of the world. 

Next time: I will tell you about my excitement at finding Black Hairstreak butterflies half-a-mile from our front door.  Here in England, not Greece.

Tomorrow finally comes

  Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...  I gaily wrote 'more tomorrow' on my last instalment but here I am five days later, only just getting round to it. Sorry! Diversions have included a wonderful 20-mile walk in aid of the charity World Child Cancer and, just yesterday, the thrill of seeing two Black Hairstreak butterflies less than half-a-mile from our front door.  More on that soon (though probably not tomorrow).

So, to round off our lovely fortnight near Gythio in the Greek Mani, here - first picture above - are the cat-catching moths of the Demestichas taverna at Mavravouni beach. Cats are familiar at all Greek tavernas, waiting for scraps and leftovers, usually patiently but not always - see picture below (taken at a different taverna up in the hilltop village) and there were plenty at the Demestichas including two agile kittens. As dusk fell and the outside lights came on amidst a small grove of trees, this pair started leaping into the air.

We looked more closely and discovered that they were catching moths, extremely deftly with a concentrated look followed by what must have been rapid calculation of height and distance, and then a leap and a swipe with a small paw. Down went the moth and up it was scooped. Crunch!  Here's one of the victims, some kind of yellow underwing which was plentiful in the branches of the stunted evergreens.

Here's a final picture showing the invisible process of the kitten calculating how far to jump after the moth - the latter that little grey blur.

Out of curiosity, I typed 'cats catching moths' into Google and guess how many references there were: 1,090,000. You'll be familiar with the perils of getting diverted by viral vids with titles like 'No need for a fly-swatter when you've got a cat', but the general conclusion seemed to be that the practice adds protein to the feline diet, so long as they avoid a small number of toxic species such as the Garden Tiger.

Back in Greece, we had a different take on the entertainment when we went to the same taverna a week later. The cats were making hopeless attempts to catch swallows which nested in the restaurant and the proprietor, a man with an appealing twinkle, startled everyone there by suddenly throwing very loud firecrackers at them. They fled and the moths had a quiet night.

Holiday time

  

No sooner did I stir from my lethargy - or to be fair, business with other things - to post here, than Penny and I were off on holiday in Greece. It was our first long break since before the pandemic and I can much recommend the Southern Peloponnese in the last two weeks in May. We wandered round even grade one, five-star sites such as Mystra, Monemvasia and the Diros caves with very few other visitors. 

   The wild flowers were still flourishing too, including the lovely Madonna Lily, below, the sort of thing you usually only see at weddings or in flower arrangements in the UK. This one was nonchalantly growing out of a mixture of thin-looking soil, tree-roots and rock on a track down to a beach.

   Butterflies always come up to the mark in Greece. They were called 'psyche' in ancient times, a word more famously used for the soul and thence transferred to all the various branches of mental health affairs. In modern Greek they are 'petaloudhi', a pleasant word which means 'something that touches against flowers'. It stands comparison with the French 'papillon', German 'schmetterling' or Spanish 'mariposa'.

  My top pictures show two of the best: the 'English' Swallowtail and the Scarce Swallowtail. They were abundant, floating gloriously around, but seldom willing to settle in iPhone photo range. I got just a couple of chances and luckily they paid off.  I was lucky, too, to stalk successfully the even more jittery Clouded Yellow shown below. I saw dozens of others but they were always furiously on the move. 

   We also had White Admirals, possibly a magnificent Twin-tailed Pasha and assorted Brimstoney butterflies but none of them deigned to pose. Those that did are shown below: a handsome Mediterranean version of the Speckled Wood - two pics of slightly varied specimens - a Comma, some sort of Meadow Brown, the remains of a Painted Lady, a Common Blue, a Small White, a Skipper awaiting ID and a very pretty Geranium Bronze, topwing and underwing, one of a large family which lived in lush geranium plantings outside our bedroom window. The species is South African but was introduced to Europe in the 1980s and has flourished, including in the Southern UK.

Tomorrow: Greek moths and the cats which catch them.  Plus some other flying residents of the Southern Peloponnese.