Wings Wide Open

My naturalist great-niece has been out again spotting wildlife in east London and her eagle eyes noticed the small brown moth above, buzzing about on the pavement by a privet hedge along with a group of similar ones. She's only four but children are very clever these days and she sent me a clear and detailed WhatsApp voice message and the photo on the top left above. This presented me with an interesting poser.

I homed in on the moth to get the enlargement pic, top right, and started puzzling away. Was it a small macro like the rarish Orange Underwing or one of the few large micros which hold their wings open rather than folded over their backs? I checked my books and Googled and was none the wiser and so finally emailed the great Dave Wilton, webmaster of the invaluable Upper Thames Moths blog whose help has never failed me in 13 years. 

Fortunately for my self-esteem, I kept to my tradition of never asking him for an ID without at least hazarding a guess. Thank goodness. Here's our exchange:

My belated success was due to escaping from the trap of thinking that moths will always look the same as they do in the books. I touched on this in my last post with pictures of a Chinese Character with its wings spread open rather than tightly furled over its back. The latter is so overwhelmingly the case that the open-winged moth looked like an entirely different species.

You can see the same in the conventional picture of the Carnation Tortrix at the bottom left in my first photo above; and here is another example. I photographed this micro below which looks to me very different at first glance from the conventional paintings of it in the Micro Moth Bible.

I'm sorry that it is rather blurred but like the Chinese Character it was on the move - the only time when you can photograph these moths not in their usual resting position. Now here is how it looks in the micro Bible (I have to admit that I am not absolutely sure which one it is but I think Hedya nubiferana or the Marbled Orchard Tortrix.

Anyway, many thanks to little Connie for setting me this challenge. Meanwhile the moths are coming in faster than I can record them now that the weather is making the garden as enticing as this:

Here below we have, from top left:  Brown Silver-line, Light Brown Apple micro (Epiphyas postvittana), Pale Tussock, Flame Shoulder, Treble Lines, Common Quaker, Lychnis, Figure of Eighty and Buff-tip:

followed by two very pretty Clouded Silvers, a Green Carpet seen from above and below, a Sallow Kitten from above and from one side and a Willow Beauty from above and below, photos which again, I hope, show how alert you need to be to identifying moths when seen from different angles or with the wings in unusual positions. 

Finally, the moths are not the only types of wildlife attracted by the light of the trap or our plants. The Maybugs have come in great numbers, inept and clumsy like insect tanks, and we have an annoyingly hungry but handsome deer which will not keep away when we chase him out.  

Our other and less damaging pest has been moles whose hills have stopped since Penny gave the lawn a sprinkling of castor oil. The cat which we are looking after for the time being caught one on the surface the other day which was sad but gave us the chance of looking closely at its extraordinarily powerful and effective digging paws.

Familiar Moth, Unfamiliar Angle

You may well wonder what this visitor to the trap is, even those of you with experience of UK moths. It's not uncommon and I've often featured it here, but never in the position shown above. It always appears in the crouch shown in the two pictures below, which has led me (and others) to nickname it the Bird-poo Moth.

 

Yes, it's the Chinese Character moth, a beautifully delicate little creature which showed its full glories when I gave it a little tickle and it scuttled away but crucially without taking off. It was constantly on the go which made focussing pretty trick, but I hope that these pics give a reasonable idea. The Chinese Character name is derived from the silvery-white squiggle on the beige oval which looks like one of those patterns which baristas make in the foam on capuccinos or flat white coffees.

I always enjoy the peculiarities of digital cameras and especially the way that they pick up and enhance light wherever they can find it. That accounts for the last, distinctly odd photograph in this series. The moth does not have that blue colouring, at least not to the human eye, but it's interesting how the camera highlights it.

The species' caterpillars feed on hawthorn and blackthorn, both in plentiful supply here, and produce two broods a year, one at the beginning of the Summer and the other at the end. This little chap will have pupated in October before patiently waiting out the winter in a cocoon.

It was a night for delicate, pale moths when the Chinese Character came - last Thursday at the start of the current warm spell. Its companions included these delights: a Seraphim, a Silver-ground Carpet and a Small Magpie, the latter a micro-moth although it is considerably bigger than the macro Chinese Character. Note the Brindled Beauty in the background.

The happy presence of a spider's web in the eggboxes allows me to show you the underwing of another pretty black-and-white moth, the very familiar White Ermine which can be disturbed during Spring cleaning from the folds of curtains and other overwintering nooks. Here's a trio of pictures including that one, followed by another White Ermine snoozing on a wall near the trap.

Here some more trio-pics, first of an Oraneg Footman, again including an underside thanks to its position on the transparent, if murky, trap cowl:

Then a Scallopped Hazel, a regular at this time of the year:

And lastly three other arrivals: a Flame, a micro which I will ID soon and a smart Common Rustic. 

Seventy miles West of here, my granddaughter has been doing well too. Here's a recent selection from her Actinic trap: from the top left: Brindled Beauty, Shuttle-shape Dart, worn Seraphim, Hebrew Character, Caddis Fly, Waved Umber, the lovely Clouded Silver which hasn't reached here yet, Yellow-barred Brindle and a nice Cinnabar.

Finally, away from the moths, we had a pleasant visit from this slowworm with its excellently flickering shown as shown in the short clip below:

We gave it a hand off the barren stonework of our patio and away it slithered into the cool shade of some scrub.

Moths of a feather

I have just had an interesting experience of moth distribution and how it differs even within the modest frame of our garden. I put the lamp in a shady corner beneath a hornbeam grown in the fastigiate way which resembles an exploding firework, among bluebells, forget-me-not, cow parsley (or Queen Anne's Lace in the more attractive American version) and the like. Here's the first moth I saw in the morning:

It's a beautifully fresh Green Carpet, a species whose colour fades rapidly as I remarked the other day. Now, here are the second, third and fourthmoths I found in the eggboxes:

And here below are the next ten. Clearly the conditions are ideal for this species which otherwise comes in ones or twos when the trap is in its usual position out on the lawn. This pictures of our wisteria show the dramatic effect of positioning: the top one shows the part of the plant which faces South East, the bottom one the section facing North West.

The following morning, I had a different lesson which bears out a point which I have often made about the effectiveness of deterrent camouflage. Much the biggest moth in the trap was this recently-hatched Poplar Hawk which I carefully put on a chair beside the garden table where I was sorting the moths:

I was checking out the next two eggboxes when something caught my eye from the direction of the hawk. I looked and saw its wing position changed to reveal the warning glow of red on the hindwings which the moth flashes when alarmed. Here it is:

And here's the reason. The impudent robin which I've often cursed on this blog had swooped in to take a close look. Whether I was sufficiently distracted for it to have grabbed and made off with the moth, I cannot say, but the deterrent certainly seemed to work nand prevented that. 

Other nice arrivals in the last toe, blessedly dry and quite mild evenings include this Pebble Prominent like the one which visited my granddaughter's trap last week:

There were also a Least Black Arches, a Dotted Pug, a worn Nut-tree Tussock and a Silver Y, probably one which has over-wintered, a newish phenomenon thanks to milder weather.

Next, a daylight moth; while tidying up the allotment, I disturbed this Phtheochroa rugosana micro, a very odd-looking creature whose version of dazzle camouflage - the other main form of this defence along with deterrent - unfailing mucks up the camera's focus. Its name is also a real challenge to say.

And here are some indoor moths we ound this week - a good occupation when the rain comes and one at which P is especially good. There was a Muslin moth slumbering on the dining room windowsill when we were having breakfast and this beautifully delicate Small Dusty Wave on an internal glass door which allowed photography of both its top wings and underside.

Away from the moths, my butterfly sightings are gradually increasing and I managed to get reasonable photos of this Peacock and Holly Blue who were enjoying the sunshine yesterday.  The latter almost never spreads its azure blue topwings but the powdery colour of the underside is very appealing too.

Orange Tips were out in plenty too but they are incredibly restless. Here's the best I've managed so far, of a male trying in vain to get at the pollen on a big shaggy Iris and a female - no orange - enjoying the local farmer's Spring crop. 

Lastly among today's minibeasts, here is a handsomely shiny Cardinal Beetle found by the grandchildren and to round off the blog, some pics of our lovely swans who have just produced four cygnets in the reedbeds where I normally go to cut new treehouse thatch.  I'm more than happy to pause operations and enjoy these wonderful birds.