Literal Naming

 

When my granddaughter was small and enjoying the excitement of using language for the first time, she had a very straightforward system of naming toys as 'Yellowy Duck' or 'Greeny Owl', taking their colour as her guide. She was at one with some of the moth and butterfly-namers of 18th century England whose famed inventiveness with coinings such as the Clifden Nonpareil or Scorched Carpet went in tandem with a literalness, as in this occasional visitor, the Tawny-barred Angle.

Tawny, barred and angular it indeed is, as well as being slightly more common than usual this year. The day before the relatively smart specimen above arrived, I had my first example of the season; the more faded moth below which has been apparently around for a little longer or had a harder time.

The TBA comes in two main versions and both of mine seem to have a little of each albeit predominantly the colouring of the standard form. Here they are from the Moth Bible, followed by a photo which shows how deceptive cameras (or in my case my iPhone) can be. The moth was resting on the side of the trap's black bowl in a spot whose lack of light which played havoc with the digital, light-searching lens.

Busy times continue in the warm and sunny weather although I join with everyone else in the country in hoping for rain soon. There will be a huge amount of data processing under way this Winter as scientists work out how many moths and other insects have moved to the UK as a result of the warming of our climate. Here are some of my other guests: A Common White Wave pretending to be a Holly Blue butterfly; a Snout, an Angle-shades, a Clouded Border and a Tree-lichen Beauty.

Then we have a Broad-barred White, a regular visitor but in modest numbers,  a Common Carpet, a welcome sample of green with a Light Emerald snoozing in an eggbox alongside a Green Carpet, and the Light Emerald in all its own glory.

Onwards with a September Thorn on the rim of the trap's transparent cowl; all the Thorns often prefer the outside of the trap or cling to plants or walls nearby; a Lime-speck Pug (one of my two candidates for renaming as the Bird-poo, along with the Chinese Character), two Poplar Hawks which also preferred a grass stem and stayed on it all day, un-noticed by predators because remaining absolutely still; and a White-spotted Pug (I think but the bowl plays havoc with the camera as mentioned above).

So to a Silver Y (just after my Light Crimson Underwing neighbour sent a vid clip of one in her house),  a European Cornborer micro, Ostrinia nubilalis, which was a rare immigrant until its population took off in the 1930s, a Maiden's Blush - lovely name and lovely moth but in awful light here - and ditto a September Thorn and Orange Swift, forming a rather appealing duo. 

And finally a Sallow Kitten, showing its pretty colouring from the side, and a Ringed China-mark micro which rejoices in the far from micro botanical name botanical name of Parapoynx stratiotata.

Brightly-coloured Jersey

The rise and rise of the Jersey Tiger moth is a reason for great happiness. Since 1990, when it was still an immigrant rarity largely confined to Devon, it has colonised rapidly across the Southern UK and is now being recorded from the North. As you may know and can certainly see here, it is a wonderfully colourful insect, so much so that in places such as the Upper Thames Butterfly Sightings web page it makes appearances as a sort of honorary butterfly.

It is also a glorious photographic trophy on Mediterranean holidays, as I've described in previous posts and you may have seen it in Rhodes' famous 'Valley of the Butterflies' which are in fact Jersey Tiger moths.

The 'butterfly' status is also partly a result of the species fondness for flying by day unlike almost all other moths and, when flying, showing those glorious hindwings which are usually demurely concealed when the insect is at rest. in that mode, the reason for its name becomes clearer, the tiger-stripes of creamy yellow and black.

In the second picture above, it is resting alongside a thumbnail micro which shows that, although not large, it is a decent-sized moth as well. When I have seen one suddenly zigzag across the garden on recent sunny days, I have often had a sudden thought - hope! - that it might be a fast-flying fritillary of the sort I've yet to see nearer here than Bernwood Forest 14 miles away or - a solitary female Silver-washed - at Boar's Hill's Matthew Arnold Nature Reserve half that distance from my home.    

I have never had much luck at persuading Jersey Tigers to show their petticoats by tickling them in the eggboxes because they promptly fly away, but in the case of the top two photos, I was lucky that one got into our garden shed and fluttered in panic against the sunlit windows. It quickly grew tired of these exertions and forgot to rest with its wings folded back. I got my photograph and then cupped it in my hands and sent it soaring off into the sky.

For more than 60 years, I have had two Jersey Tigers in my butterfly and moth collection, a relic from the days when cameras affordable by a schoolboy were hopelessly inadequate to capture decent images of butterflies and moths. Even the expert photographs in famous books such as Professor E B Ford's Butterflies in the Collins New Naturalist series were inadequate compared to the results from a modern iPhone.

Over the years, as you can see from the moths above and the Garden Tigers to their right and Cream-spot Tigers below, the colours have faded although it is just possible that the pinned moths are the form lutescens which replaces the red with yellow in both insects. Alas, I caught the moths on holiday abroad and no longer know, although I think that I would remember any rarity I found in those youthful, pot-hunting days.

Clouded sunshine

A butterfly which I've hankered to see in Oxfordshire since we moved from Leeds in 2013 is the Clouded Yellow, a familiar flash of colour in coastal areas of the South but much less common inland. I've enjoyed watching them in Dorset above the beautiful beaches near Weymouth and Bridport but not in the fields and hillsides near home. Every so often, however, we have a 'Clouded Yellow Year' when they daringly move inland.

This year is one such and this week my luck changed. On a lovely walk beside the Thames on one of its quietest stretches, between Buckland and Appleton,  I saw first one in Chimney Meadows nature reserve and then a second just north of Shifford lock. Shifford is a nowhere place nowadays, just a farm and a quiet old church, but in King Alfred's day it was the site of the first recorded parliament in our history, an assembly called by the king in 885AD to discuss the defence  against the Danes of the vulnerable fords across the Thames. One of them was the 'Sheep Ford', now Shifford.

Clouded Yellows almost always rest with their wings folded, showing only the lemony-yellow underwing, but one of my iPhone snaps coincided with the first insect's take off and a sliver of the brighter, custardy colour of the topwings can be seen. On the left is my only picture of the second one in the context of a little riverside greenery in the otherwise drought-parched meadow.

My family have also been photographing butterflies, a much harder task than recording sleepy moths, and my daughter-in-law took this lovely picture in their garden in Wiltshire of a Small Tortoiseshell, a familiar English butterfly but in my experience less flourishing in recent years than its close relations, the Red Admiral and Peacock.

She also kindly sent the photos below of two rather similar mountain butterflies seen on a brilliant holiday in the Austrian Alps with our grandchildren.  I think that they are respectively an Arran Brown and a Large Ringlet.

Finally, here's a Red Admiral in our greenhouse. I shoo them and other butterflies out as soon as I can because they are quickly overcome by the heat.

Fourth in July - Little Buttercup is my latest new moth

July has come to an excellent end with a fourth new species to add to my list. After the Mocha, the Light Crimson Underwing and the Oak Eggar, here's a warm welcome to the debut of the Small Ranunculus. 

Its bigger and more gold-speckled brother, the Large Ranunculus,  below, has been a regular visitor for years and has prompted me to muse in the past about buttercups, which are known botanically as Ranunculus and form a foodplant for both species when they are caterpillars. Little Buttercup of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta HMS Primrose was once featured here. If she were a moth, she would be a Little Ranunculus. 

The species, which is specially fond of brownfield sites, is another of the great Comeback Kids among UK moths, like the Clifden Nonpareil and the Crimson Underwings. Once common in the UK, it was reckoned to be extinct by 1912 because of changing farming practices. Then in 1997 it reappeared in Kent and has spread rapidly since. 

Another very pleasant arrival last night was the Purple Bar, a pretty member of the Carpet family which has previously visited on Penny's birthday, always a distinction. It is showing exceptional nouse in the photograph above by actually resting on a purple stripe in my pyjamas - my normal wear when examining the moths in the morning before making tea. 

It chose this exact spot itself, I promise. It is much too small and shy to be posed. When I first saw it, it was on an eggbox (pic below) but I disturbed it when lifting the box out and it fluttered away. I thought I had lost it, but then it made a beeline for me and my pyjamas.

Other distinguished visitors included the Bright-line Brown-eye, below, followed by two nice members of the small green spectrum in UK moths, the Green Carpet and the Coronet, and a Flounced Rustic - a good name which makes you think of haughty young ladies flouncing out of the room.

Then we have a very handsome Poplar Kitten alongside a bright Orange Swift, seen from sideways and above, a Mother-of-Pearl micro of which there are currently dozens around, and a Brimstone moth to cheer things up even more.

Finally a Gypsy Moth and a Turnip and an enormous spider which I thought was dead until it scrambled in an ungainly fashion back to life.  My iPhone says that it is a Giant House Spider and I am not arguing with that.