Butterfly buns

I forgot to mention one butterfly and moth feature of Bempton Cliffs: the luscious buns produced by Katie Wheelwright who feeds visitors to the RSPB reserve (and good book and gift shop) from her trailer. I've always loved butterfly buns, and Katie bakes a variant which is more of a cup cake but just as light as the traditional buns with their double wings perched on cream. Here is proof that I (a) bought a bun and (b) ate it. Back home, the post brought another example of butterflies being used as appealing symbols: Leeds University's Reporter magazine has this Small Tortoiseshell accompanying an article about various programmes getting off the ground. The ancient Greeks were pioneers of this, with butterflies often engraved on tombstones. They called the insects 'psyche' which also meant the soul and gave us our modern armies of psychologists, psychotherapists etc. If I was one of these, I would gently recommend nature study to troubled souls, just as our local GPs wisely offer a leaflet on local, healthy mini-walks. Just back on buns, I had an unforgettable, melt-in-the-mouth bun in Harrogate when I was about seven. I have tried to find it ever since, so far unsuccessfully. Next time I go to Bempton Cliffs, I will describe it to Katie and see if she can bake one. If you Google her, you will find quite a lot online about her excellent ethical approach to catering. Wainwrights naturally approve of wheelwrights, of course. The pink smudge in the back of the bun pics, btw, is one of the many vast clumps of pink campion.

Many birds, one moth

I was at Bempton Cliffs yesterday with Chris Thomond, making another of our short Best Views films for the Guardian website. Best view it is, indeed. Everyone appreciates wonderful landscapes, but I also enjoy a view where something is going on, and there's no difficulty with that at Bempton, the biggest, easily-accessible seabird nesting colony in the country. Puffins, Gannets, Razorbills, Kittywakes (named accurately after their cry), fulmars, goodness, the whole place is quite amazing and so is the noise. Watching and chatting to the birders is also fun; we met an Australian family whose two small boys had talked about coming to see puffins all the way from Perth.

There was a sea-fret, or fog, in the morning which made everything spooky, but we went off to Bridlington and interviewed returning passengers from the Yorkshire Belle steamer who had enjoyed clear weather at the base of the chalk wall while we were plunged in grey gloom 400ft above. By afternoon the fret had gone and the views were marvellous. If you are anywhere within reach, I hugely recommend a visit before most of the non-gulls leave in late July for distant lands. Take the Belle's 'puffin cruises' as well, or just enjoy yourself in cheery Brid.

Sorry this is meant to be about moths. The top of Bempton Cliffs is no place to run excitedly after them, but thanks to Chris I got a quick pic of this micro (I think, although I always despairingly call these simply 'grass moths'). It then fluttered away to the concrete ruins of the Cold War listening base which added their own spookiness to a Bempton trip. You wouldn't want to see my bird pics, but I'm ending this post with a couple courtesy of Chris - gannets above, puffins below. "He's so focussed," says Penny, and here's proof of that. I, by contrast, am King of the Distant Blur, although I think it works (spooky again) in the cliffy pic above.

Return of the pink 'un

Happiness! After a year's absence, the most striking of all the moths which come to my trap has returned, and in style. Not just one, but two Elephant Hawks were slumbering on the eggboxes this morning, lovely in their tasteful, interior designer livery of pinks and olive greens. Penny tells the story of a friend who worked on a local paper which dropped it's Pink 'Un - the sports section, sometimes also a Green 'Un - and then revived it with the slogan 'Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! The Pink 'Un's out again tonight.' This was printed on the first Saturday of the return next to a picture of the paper's beaming managing director and his wife, causing much merriment.



Well, our pink 'uns have been away too; but we have plenty of rosebay willow herb which their caterpillars love and I am glad that they are clearly established here. I have mentioned this story before but I don't expect any but the most diligent reader to go hunting back through more than two years of posts, so please forgive me repeating myself. The great John Armitage, curator of natural history at Leeds City Museum when I was a boy, encouraged my brother and me to go out looking for Elephant Hawk caterpillars in the abundant willow herb on the verge of Leeds ring road. Wait until August, when they will have changed colour from green to grey, he advised, because they will be easier to spot. Sure enough, there they were, and we hatched six adult insects. When freshly-emerged from the chrysalis, their colours are ravishing.

Why elephant? Here's a picture of a mature, grey caterpillar which I think explains. I pinched it from the website of the excellent Wickford Wildlife Society in Essex (www.wickfordwildlife.co.uk) to whom grateful thanks. Young readers, or young-at-heart ones, check out your willow herb in two months' time.

The very sleepy caterpillar

Here's an unexpected turn of events. The other day, I couldn't dislodge one of the Poplar Hawks into a safe, gloomy spot beneath a shrub to keep it concealed from the birds. It was clinging too tenaciously to the eggbox and I didn't want to damage it. So I tucked the whole box inside the loquat tree, which I mention a couple of posts below, and forgot about it until this morning when I was tidying things up after last night's trapping. When I went to retrieve it, the Poplar Hawk was long gone, but in its place was this dozing caterpillar (above). I will try to identify it - Waring, Townsend and Lewington have some caterpillar pictures - but if anyone beats me to it, then many thanks.

The moth catch meanwhile was excellent and varied. Trapping last night was a bit of an experiment as we had a tropical monsoon in the early evening and everything was soaking when I finally stirred myself at 11pm. The air was like being in a sauna when someone has upended the entire contents of the bucket on the coals. Still, the forecast was for a dry night thereafter so I turned on the lamp and we went to bed after admiring its glow diffused through countless drops of evaporating moisture. Lo and behold, the late-night moths were out and here are some of them (pictured from the top, right): a Buff Ermine, a Golden Y (Plain or Beautiful?
I will try to decide later unless, again, someone does it for me); a Blood Vein; and two which I will enjoy identifying later via Messrs W,T & L. Unless... A little later: I think the bottom one is a Brown Silver-line, one of those unfortunate moths whose namers were suffering from exhausted imaginations when they Christened it. I'm also going for Plain Golden Y, and Common Rustic for the dark but richly-patterned moth. No - that last one's a Dusky Brocade, I'm now sure. I briefly hoped that it might be a Confused, one of my favourite moth names, along with the Uncertain. However I am now certain..

Fast breeder

A fecund and colourful arrival this morning - this Brimstone Moth. The species is notable for producing as many as three generations a year which keep adults on the wing between April and October. I had one in the trap a few days ago which flew away when I knocked its eggbox, but they are late here this year. I guess this is because of the cold weather which delays their hatching according to Waring, Townsend and Lewington. It continues coldish at night and there were relatively few moths dozing away, but they included two Poplar Hawks, this season's first double for them, a Spectacle and a Small Magpie, one of the most macro of Britain's micro-moths. It too flew away before I could deploy the camera.

A fine night

It was the year's first truly mothy night last night - you could sense it in the very late twilight at 10.30pm. Warm, still and scented; no wonder they came out in rich variety and good numbers. I didn't have time to deal with the smaller and browner ones - plenty of carpets and pugs - but here are some of their handsome companions: a Pale Tussock doing an imitation of Gandalf the Grey; an Iron Prominent with its interesting colours, a White Ermine in a properly white rose Yorkshire setting and, finally, our familiar Poplar Hawk in an unusual pose. Having photographed it just the other day, I was trying to shake it out of the eggbox into a gloomy refuge below our loquat tree. It wouldn't budge, but spread open its wings to show the lovely russety patches on the hindwings which are usually concealed. Thank you! Eventually I hid both moth and eggbox deep in the natural labyrinth formed by the loquat's big, crinkly leaves. We don't actually get loquats, but it's a handsome tree, a gift from Roy Harry, the Guardian's motoring correspondent long ago, who brought back a tiny sapling from a Mediterranean holiday.
Note the fine antennae on some of these moths. The variety in these sensory instruments is remarkable, from slender threads to objects which look like the most complicated of rooftop TV aerials. I wonder how many channels they can receive.

Something new every day

It's not often you learn a new word at my age, but here's one: halteres. You can see a couple in this picture of a Daddy Long-legs or Cranefly, the first of its kind ever to make this blog. Huzza! They are the little appendages with a knob on the end, like a Morris Minor gearstick, poking out on either side of the insect where its hindwings would be, if it had them. Aeons ago, daddy long-legs had hindwings, as dragonflies do, but they evolved into halteres, which are best described as flight guidance instruments. Through vibrations, they send messages to daddy long-legs brain control, and keep the insect on course and the right way up etc. Mind you, I wouldn't want to rely on them in civil aviation. Have you ever seen a daddy long-legs in flight? Harking back to my Airfix kit days, it compares with your average fly in the same way that a Lysander or German Stork plane did to a Spitfire or ME109. if you click on the pic, it will come up much bigger.
I took my second picture on an excursion up to my tree house, which I am getting ready for a visit from Ian Mayes, who is writing the latest history of the Guardian. The connection is, that panelling from the old Cross Street head office, which the London paper did not want in its general abandonment of all things Mancunian, now forms part of the tree-house's top floor. This was originally called the Isles Skylounge, after some neighbours who kindly donated me some fake stained glass windows, but it is now the C.P.Scott Room in honour of our greatest editor. I must now email Ian putting him off for a few weeks, because a pair of wood pigeons have chosen to nest right outside the tree house's first-floor windows and the mother got into a terrible panic when she saw me.

Vote Belarus!

Rain and moths don't mix. So the trap is tucked away 'til the weather settles down. The rainshield is brilliantly effective at protecting the bulb (and therefore my wallet) but it doesn't stop water getting into the bowl and that would mean death by drowning for at least some moths. Never fear, however. The subject of entomology is seldom out of the news. Normally it's a case of scaremongering articles about species extinction, but last night was the turn of the Wonderful Butterfly Dresses of Belarus.


Much-flagged in advance, their appearance in the Eurovision Song Contest was brief, but then so is the life of a butterfly. They 'hatched' on the girls at the end much as the wings unfold from a broken-open chrysalis (an experience which everyone should see at least once in their lifetime), and they were lovely. They didn't however save Belarus from coming second to last in an epic which Germany deservedly won. Guess who came last, if you don't already know. Yes, the good old UK. I am not a very good judge of these things, but I had the impression that our guy couldn't even sing, although Penny, who is an outstanding member of Horsforth Choral Society says: "A lot of them can't sing, so that isn't anything unusual." (She also says with characteristic kindness that it must be very difficult in front of an audience of 18,000 people, which the HCS seldom attracts).
A footnote to butterfly-themed clothing, and another guessing game: who wore a butterfly waistcoat at his older son's wedding last year? Yes, ME! I would really have liked a Belarus-style jacket but it isn't done to attract too much attention from the bride and groom, and I was very satisfied with the handiwork of Stitchy-Witchy, the finest seamstress in Shipley (49 Bradford Road, Shipley, West Yorks BD18 3DS). Here it is, and if you click on the pic you can observe details such as the spindly body (the butterfly's, not mine) and - if you look very carefully - the sewn antennae.

I become a moth...

No pictures today because I am too tired. The reason? I have been a human moth, staying up all night to cover the Thirsk and Malton by-election result. It finally came just before 4am. Now, my story done, and Tweets complete, it is 5.13am and I have to drive home and then to a job in Sheffield. Yet I am nowhere near as drowsy as the inhabitants of my trap. Hooray! Let us see what tomorrow will bring. Meanwhile here is the result: good for the coalition, extra good for the Lib Dems, bad for Labour:

Anne McIntosh, Conservative 20,167 (52.9%) Howard Keal, Liberal Democrat 8886 (23.3%), Jonathan Roberts, Labour 5169 (13.6 percent), Toby Horton, UKIP 2502 (6.5%), John Clark, Liberal 1418 (3.7%). Majority 10,281 (26.8%)

Notional result for 2005 (for parts of Vale of York and Ryedale which now make up Thirsk & Malton): Conservative 27889 (52.8%) Labour 13202 (25%) Liberal Democrat 9663 (18.3%) Other 2099 (4%) Majority 14687 (27.8%)

Electorate 76231 Votes cast 38,242 (50.04) Postal votes cast 9991 (26% of the total).

Light and shade

Here are two cousins, or possibly even brother and sister, both of them Scalloped Hazels in spite of their very different colouring. The dark one is the form Nigra which occurs in small numbers in an interesting range of places, not just those associated with pollution, past and present. Does this mean that it is melanistic, as in the famous example of the Peppered Moth whose dark version has declined with pollution (and in inverse ratio to the national improvement in health as evidenced by the number of people getting 100th birthday telegrams from Buckingham Palace - see previous posts)? Or is it just a different colour pattern which has arisen for other reasons? Observations welcome, and I shall enquire more widely too. this particular one looks to have had a brush with a bird or bramble, judging by the streaks along its wings.I had an exactly similar visit from two different Scalloped Hazels two years ago, so there is a small contribution to the recording system.

Also visiting, the first of this year's Flame Shoulders, an instantly-recognisable arrival and therefore warmly welcomed by all of us who cannot tell our Pugs and Carpets apart.

Big boy

The trap's biggest regular visitor, by some margin, has arrived: the Poplar Hawk. It is quite a feat for these insects to conceal themselves during the day and fly un-noticed at night. You can see the disparity with the little Red Twin Spot Carpet (Sorry, Flame Carpet - see Ben's Comment) in the photo above, which also shows the hawk's unusual habit of resting with its forewings behind its hind ones. Moths this size keep up my spirits, as a dilettante observer, after nights when everything which arrives is small and brown. They should be here for a while now; looking back through the blog, I see that they visited well into June in 2008 and last year. Two years ago, the somewhat smaller but much more vividly-coloured Elephant Hawk also paid a couple of calls but there were none last year. I live in hope. Poplar hawks are very docile after a night in the trap and sleepily accept transfer on to sprigs of plants in the interests of photography. If you look back to June last year, you'll find a pair of them posing on a bamboo cane, perfectly aligned like a dancing combo.

Very Nice

Penny and I have been away for a long weekend to mark our joint 120th birthday - in Nice, which is well-named. Moths weren't my priority but I wonder how they get along with the city centre's unusual nightscape which includes seven of these large illuminated figures, perching on slender metal poles like St Simeon Stylites. The daytime butterfly world was dazzlingly sunny but I didn't see anything unusual, just some Speckled Woods gambolling in the dappled light on the old castle hill plus what looked like an over-sized Orange Tip. There was also this butterfly-themed advert in the window of a dry-cleaners (left). The use of butterflies and moths in advertising, and culture more widely, always interests me, and I was grateful for some good examples when I sounded off the other week about National Moth Day on the Guardian's website. They were given by readers in the article's thread, like so many enterprising little clothes moths browsing on this piece of cyber-fabric.
Goodness, what similes; the sun must have got at me. So finally, here is the only butterfly I managed to photograph in Nice; a slightly worn female among lots of beautiful Blues skittering about the very impressive Roman ruins below the Matisse museum (all civic museums are free in the city and there are plenty of them - vive la France!). I don't know precisely what type of Blue she is, but she looks like a Common one - proof yet again, that beauty is not confined to fine breeding. By chance, my two illuminated men were blue when I snapped them; they change colour all the time.

On a wing and a prayer

There's not a lot left of this gallant old Small Tortoiseshell which must have had an eventful life. It will have hatched last August, I guess, and survived since then in the beautiful surroundings but often bracing climate of Grassington, where Penny and I found it on Cove Lane, on our way back into the village from Grass Wood. The sunshine brought out plenty of other butterflies - Speckled Woods, Orange Tips and Green-veined Whites and it was also great to see an Oystercatcher powering its way along the gravelly curve of the Wharfe. They have fine beaks!


Back in the trap, it's Littly time, which always drives me mad in terms of identification.
I'm pretty sure the blurred one is a Dwarf Pug and the prettily-patterned percher on the trap's plastic cowl, a May Highflyer. The third is one of the carpets, I'll hazard, but I have to get up now to do some work. I'm hopeless at arranging text and pictures when I've got rather a lot of the latter, so apologies that this post looks a bit of a dog's breakfast. Oh and thanks for the Oystercatcher picture to the website www.discoverislay.com. Discovering Islay is a good thing to do. There is no way I'd ever have got a picture of ours in flight, but too much faffing with the camera can spoil the moment, so I don't mind.

Lilies and Lychnis

A lovely day, a lovely walk. Penny and I marked my extreme age by meandering from Grassington via Linton Falls and the Wharfe bank, through Grass Wood and back again to the village for tea. Many decades ago, my Mum took my brother and sisters and me to Grass Wood to see the wild Lily of the Valley. They were sparse then but have prospered and are abundant this year, one of them providing a boutique hotel for this Daddy Long Legs. The reason is that the excellent Yorkshire Wildlife Trust is gradually restoring the wood after years of misguided management, and has very good notices explaining its thinking and asking us all to be patient, as the full effect will not be seen for 200 years. The way that genetic replacement of our failing body parts is going, I look forward to that. One of my cards said: "You say you're still-middle-aged..." and the inside "How many 120-year-old do you know?" Ha, ha....err, hum.
At home, the trap produced this handsome Lychnis; at least, I'm pretty sure that's what it is, although there are a number of moths which look annoyingly similar. One of them has the nice name of Pod Lover, but I think that's too rare to be this moth. If it is a Lychnis, it is out early for the North, but that would accord with the number of species that seem to have moved our way since my Waring & Townsend & Lewington guide was published in 2003. Other candidates include assorted Rustics, Minors, Brindles and Brocades. So you can see that I'm covering myself, but I'll stick with Lychnis and wait for your more expert views.

Hanky rescue

Yippee, it's my birthday when I always hope that something good will happen. It usually does - last year, for instance, on my younger son Olly's birthday, the most magnificent Large Emerald came to the trap. I've already had one present: the Pocket Handkerchief tree (Davidia involucrata) which we've had for years has flowered for the first time. Here are some of the bracts - the hankies or ghosts which give the tree its other name. We collected a seed at Bristol Zoo with a favourite aunt and uncle, put it in a pot, forgot about it, found a weird spike with a solitary leaf a couple of years later and planted it out. That was ages ago but it's been worth the wait.
More maybug merriment. There were 15 in the eggboxes this morning and this quartet landed upside down when I was sorting rather dozily through. In the callous manner of nature observers, I sat down to see whether they could right themselves and, if so, how long it would take. They did, in this first case in 47 seconds. The method is to waggle the legs methodically to tilt the centre of gravity, maintaining the movement in a disproportionate way (I couldn't quite work out the mechanics at this early hour) to increase the momentum until the tilt allowed an outstretched leg to get a hold. It was then used as a lever, followed in quick succession by others. Bingo! The whole process was methodical and done without panic. I suspect that maybugs fall on their backs quite often.

Darling bug of May

The arrival of this daft-looking creature, the maybug or cockchafer, always makes me smile. You couldn't make its appearance up. This one was much too dozy to fly but when they do, they cannon around like demented rockets. I wonder why they developed such impressive armour and so intimidating an appearance. There is any amount of entertaining information on cockchafers, which were one of the most obvious pests in simple farming times. They were put on trial in mediaeval France, used as toys by children (some of whom may have become entomologists...) and eaten in various startling recipes, one including sugar. My favourite reference is Thumbelina, where the lady cockroaches sit around discussing how ugly Thumbelina is - " Why, she has not even more than two legs!—that has a wretched appearance." " She has not any feelers!" cried another." Her waist is quite slender—fie!" In his gentle way, Hans Christian Andersen makes his valid point about beauty and the beholder.
Otherwise things continue very quiet, but at last it is getting warmer.
Here is a pug - I'm assuming a Brindled one, because most of them are at this time of year - adopting a 'butterfly pose' as they do when disturbed. The cockchafer certainly can't so this; its wings lie concealed and folded under its armour-plated wingcases, although a little scrap was sticking out above the tail of mine, like someone who hasn't tucked in their shirt properly.

Change the date?

Lat night was National Moth Night, apparently, which seems to me an unwise choice of date. There are not that many moths around in mid-May and the cold spell has further reduced their numbers - as indeed my postings here. The organisers, various bods including - I'm sorry to see - Butterfly Conservation, flagged the event with journalist-tempting data about moth numbers 'tumbling by a third' in the last 40 years. Poor results will perhaps appear to bear that out but (as faithful readers may not be surprised to hear), I am sceptical about this gloom. When I have time, I will try to find out more but in the meanwhile, if my learned and faithful pals like Phil and Ben are reading this, I'd be very interested in your views, and indeed anyone else's. My particular worry is that well-meaning, Guardian-reading etc households will have mobilised their children into moth frenzy, and everyone will have ended up disappointed. Let's have another go, in June or July.

For my own part, I have only used the trap intermittently while it has been so cold, and the arrivals lounge has been almost as empty as a British airport's during the volcanic ash-spew. The other night there were three Brindled Pugs and a Hebrew Character. Last night, one Clouded Drab and this nice Shuttle-shaped Dart (above left) - more details on that particular moth several posts below. Penny meanwhile continues to cover herself with entomological glory. She found this chrysalis in a towel brought back by our younger son from Croatia last year and left folded-up in the garden shed. It is now sitting in our warm kitchen, under constant scrutiny during what I have unilaterally declared to be National Chrysalis Month. The bootlace at the top, in case you are interested, is my temporary dressing-gown cord.

Washing and whispering

Thanks to the continuing chill, and now damp, the moth trap is mothballed (ho ho), but Penny is more than making up for its absence. She has become Chief Mothspotter of Leeds, and in the most unlikely circumstances. We went for a walk yesterday in Whisperdales, a lovely little valley inland from Scarborough protected against too many visitors by dreary approaches through 'industrial' Forestry Commission plantations. We had a picnic in the sun by Whisper Beck and as we left, Lo!, P spotted this Clouded Drab nestling in a fold of her anorak. The big, and unanswerable, question is: did it creep in from the mixture of primroses, violas and cowslips on the mossy bank where we ate the finest produce of Thomas the Baker's, Helmsley? Or did it come with us from Leeds, thus adding a tiny chapter to the endlessly fascinating story of species distribution within the British Isles? Whichever, its future lies in Whisperdales now.



Back home, P discovered this Brindled Pug on our washing machine. As you can see from its halo, it is also a Holy Moth. That reminds me of Maid Marian on children's TV which used to have us in stitches when the boys were young, especially the episode involving the Holy Hot Waterbottle of St Charlene. Still, there are people who believe these things, so maybe our little moth portends good. A glorious reign of what looks like our coming coalition government? Both our Sainsbury's and my Mum's are in Liberal Democrat seats now - Bradford East and Leeds North West. Their car parks are radiant in the New Dawn and their produce positively glows.