Slowly does it

An interesting surprise in the veg patch this morning; from out of a sodden tangle of old beetroot and weeds, slithered a lethargic slow-worm. I think she was either pregnant, newly awoken from hibernation or sleeping off a good meal. They like slugs and are therefore bosom friends of gardeners such as myself.

These snake lookalikes, which are actually lizards, can move quite fast when they have to, but this one had no thoughts of escape and willingly took part in a prolonged photo session. I particularly wanted to get a picture of its enormous tongue which looks much too big for the creature's mouth. Here it is in both pictures below. The bottom one also has the spout of the granddaughter's watering can for scale (although I appreciate that since you don't know how big the watering can is, this is less helpful than I would wish. But you get the rough idea).

Slow-worms are impressively long-lived; the record is held by one which died in 2009 in Copenhagen Zoo where it had lived for 54 years. I last saw one here in April two years ago when I had a better camera and a slow-worm even more disposed to pose. See below.

Slow-worms are completely harmless and readily identifiable as such by their lack of warning patterns. I've added the picture below because by chance it includes my camera strap whose zig-zags are reminiscent of the thoroughly justified warning pattern on the UK's only poisonous snake, the adder.

Here's the real thing, photographed back in 2008 when I was taking a picture of a Peacock butterfly in the Yorkshire Dales and saw something moving very nearby out of the corner of my eye. It was this, below. As I wrote at the time, the camera shake was due to fear.

The Slow-worm contents itself by and large with dark stripes down either side of its body. Unlike snakes, which shed their entire skin at one go as they grow, it loses scales in a dandruffy way as shown in my final pic.

Plip plop

There is said to be nothing new under the sun and this is certainly true of my blog post headlines. Not today's, which is original, but Sunday's, which was 'Happy days are here again'.  Checking out a tiny micro which came the following day, I went back to May last year and - lo! - my headline on May 12 was 'Happy nights are here again'. Slightly wittier; but in recording terms an interesting reminder that 2015 had its slow moments in terms of moth arrivals, something which has certainly been a feature of this year until the weekend just gone.

Searching back was also useful because a midget moth which looks very much like the minuscule micro mentioned above came here last year as well, on 12 May.  The learned Ben Sale identified it as Elachista apicipunctella, a variant on a commoner elachista which is not even illustrated in the Micro Moth Bible. I will test this ID for this year's arrival with the experts on the Upper Thames Moths blog. Here are both moths:

Last year's Elachista apicipunctella

And last Sunday's

Meanwhile a very wet night did not deter some nice new arrivals, notably the delicate Least Black Arches in my top picture, one of the frailest-looking of the UK's macro moths and actually smaller than some micros. There was also this Flame Shoulder:

Common Swifts have made their 2016 debut too, moths which share a distinctive crouch but come in an impressive variety of patterns - not unusual - and sizes - less usual. My three ranged from almost stocky to the little chap photographed by my iPad Mini's camera lens for scale. Apologies for the poor focussing; if the moths are still around after breakfast, I will have another go.

Yet again, the rainshield designed by Mr and Mrs Robinson for their trap - the one I use and the Rolls Royce of the moth trap world - proved its worth. You can see from my final picture how much water seeped into the trap bowl (fortunately not harming any of its residents). But the bulb was unharmed and burning brightly when I ventured out into the monsoon at 6am to switch it off.

Off you go, kiddies

Rain has stopped play after two memorable, warm nights, but there was a notable event in the blog's life today nonetheless. Plodding across the wheatfields of Perdiswell Farm (soon to become part of the nation's Warburton loaves), I took the Emperor moth caterpillars to Weaveley Furze and released them into the wild.

The Irish mist was keeping the local birds at home and so I hope the 20-odd catties made it safely into the recesses of the hawthorn trees on which I deposited them. Meanwhile, I had the pleasure of disturbing a delicately pretty Green Carpet moth which tried to hide itself from my camera in the lush vegetation which is springing up, jungle-like, throughout the little wood.

Cherry blossom is meanwhile adding its beautiful coda to the overwhelming green of the furze and the carpets of nettles and other wild flora are studied with white deadnettle and blue violas. Altogether a lovely scene and one in which the Imperial brood will, I hope, thrive.

Something new, something Green

A wholly new moth arrived last night, an increasingly rare occurrence as I toddle into my twelfth year of running the trap. Behold a Frosted Green, a darkly handsome creature with a greenish tone to its black and grey patterning. It's classified as 'local', or common in some places (especially in the south of England) but less so in others. And very welcome it is here.

It was another good night for other reasons: the year's first Cinnabar came calling, a moth which shares the green-black relationship of the Frosted Green albeit in a different way. Often described as a red and green moth, it is actually red and black, but the effect of light at different angles often gives the impression of a green sheen. Unusually, my photo shows it as undeniably (and accurately) black.

By chance, the moth's position on the eggbox text has turned a letter 'g' into what looks like a pair of specs perched on the Cinnabar's head - a timely curiosity because last night's catch also included a Spectacle moth. Seen from above, as in the second picture below, this bears no resemblance to a pair of spectacles. Indeed you may be wondering why it is not known as the Moustache Moth after studying the pattern.

But look at this picture, below, of the moth's head seen from the front. Aha! All is explained.

Another interesting newcomer for the year was the Waved Umber below. I was looking at it with Penny and the granddaughter and the latter immediately got the point of the former's exclamation: "What brilliant camouflage for hiding on a tree trunk."  So it is, a very fine combination of appropriate colours and a measure of optical 'dazzle' to mask the insect's shape.

There were various pugs and micros in the eggboxes too, plus a Green Carpet and a large black beetle along with this minute mini-micro which looks like a prisoner in solitary pining for freedom. I have work to do, to try to establish his or her ID.

Meanwhile the school for Emperor Moth caterpillars is developing fast and I plan to release the little chaps in the wild tomorrow.  The pictures below show interestingly different rates of development, considering that these are brothers and sisters from the same clutch. Here for a start are three separate instars, or stages of development, munching hawthorn together:

Then three sturdy chaps and their less-developed sibling:

And finally a newcomer to the latest instar with his or her sloughed-off skin from the previous stage on the twig behind:

My Mum used to keep us going on boring walks in childhood by giving us young hawthorn leaves to nibble and telling us that country folk knew the snack as 'bread and cheese'. There never seemed to be the remotest similarity to us, but the leaves had a slightly refreshing, salady sort of effect.

Happy days are here again

Taken with the iPad Mini

And with the camera

I stole out early this morning to keep a step ahead of the grandchildren, whose presence at moth identification adds to the fun but also to the confusion.

Joy! The very first eggbox was home to the Pine Beauty, top picture, Brimstone moth, just below, and Lunar Marbled Brown  - third picture, showing the tiny moon shape which gives it its name.

Safely on an eggbox

Less safely, on the granddaughter's leg

The prolonged 2016 Spring moth famine really seems to have ended, because further into the trap, there were several Hebrew Characters, Brindled Beauties, Quakers and Drabs  and a Shuttle-shape Dart, tucked away in an eggbox cone, below.

Also a lovely Buff Ermine:

and then this, another excellent moth to show thechildren when they wake up.  It's a Ruby Tiger, a very smart moth from its tawny-red fur collar to its cardinal red knee breeches.

Questing further and deeper into the eggboxes' recesses, I found this tortrix micro-moth below, but which is it? Expert help most welcome. Update: I have been a bit dim here. As Dave Wilton kindly points out on the unbeatable Upper Thames Moths blog, this is 'everyone's favourite: Epiphyas postvittana' I really should have known, sorry.

And there was also this pug moth, a fearsomely tricky family to ID correctly, and I would again be very grateful for help. My guess would be the Golden Rod.Update: Dave inclines more to the commoner Oak Tree Pug. And we have an oak tree but no Golden Rod.

On a wall nearby, meanwhile, there was another Brindled Beauty and this Early Grey:

A great day for the trap, therefore, and here is a collective picture to round things off:

Later in the day there were further excitements. We picnicked down by the river Cherwell and found a series of these curious little beasts. Are they baby crayfish? Or dragonfly nymphs? Update on 17 May after unrelated research into Maybugs and Mayflies. It's a Mayfly nymph.  I hope it enjoys its nymphood as adult Mayflies are notoriously short-lived. The record for brevity was a female which died of natural causes after five seconds.

And finally, when I was mattocking part of the beg patch in readiness for planting sweetcorn, I just providentially missed this pupa.  What will it turn out to be? Neither I nor the grandchildren can wait...

Little fingers

The grandchildren are here and that means little time for reporting on the world of moths. It does also mean, however, that there is great youthful interest in the contents of the eggboxes.

Luckily the weather has played ball and a sequence of lovely sunny days has alternated with much warmer nights in place of the day/sun-night/frost pattern of late April.

Yesterday's morning's new arrivals for the year included this Pebbled Prominent (top two pictures and just above beyond grandson's nose) - I hope you can see the 'pebble' which accounts for its name - and a Flame Shoulder which I failed to get into focus amid all the cheerful confusion. There was also the lively green bug shown above.

Old faithfuls included Hebrew Characters, assorted Quakers and this Brindled Beauty (above) and Clouded Drab (below)  which the granddaughter offered to her little brother by various means including a teaspoon.

Not quite ten

A couple of warmer evenings have been followed by nights which were still pretty chilly and the moths are consequently struggling to reach double figures in the trap. Last night's ensemble was the biggest for a good while, but more typical of early April in a normal year than the start of May.

The visitors were: the handsome Early Grey in my top picture, a rather life-battered Powdered Quaker (second picture), a Brindled Beauty and five Hebrew Characters. In the sunshine yesterday, however, I saw Brimstones, Orange Tips and Small Whites and our Beating the Bounds walk on Sunday was joined by a Small Tortoiseshell.

Our main involvement with flying things, however, came in crossing the end of Oxford airport's runway where interesting potential aspects of the public footpath can include aircraft over-run, prop wash, jet blast and fast air movement. To avoid such excitements, the airport kindly provided a fire crew jeep and its friendly driver Colin to see us safely across. Many thanks!

Well wrapped-up

After three nights with just one moth, it was almost overwhelming to find three in the eggboxes  on this beautiful but frosty Mayday morning.

What do they have in common? Warm clothing. The Brindled Beauties are snug in their tabbycat coats and the Muslin Moth's yellow breeches and shaggy mop are shown to good effect above.

I have quoted it before, but this Yorkshire textile verse about Queen Elizabeth's Mum bears repetition:

Anne Boleyn had no breeches to wear
So t'King got a sheepskin and made her a pair
Leather side out and woolly side in
Eeeh! It were warm in summer for Anne Boleyn.

At least the maker of the Muslin Moth got the breeches the right way round.

We are off to Beat the Bounds today, camera ready for butterflies which may also plan a day out.