Ruby Friday

I had a happy time chasing this beautiful moth this morning, humming the old Stones song Ruby Tuesday - with that incredibly low note on 'She would never say where she came from...' 

My quarry was a Ruby Tiger, common enough here (as it was in Leeds) but not so easy to photograph at its best. When resting, it hunches up and presents a largely dull, brown appearance - although, as always with moths, if you inspect more closely, the 'brown' turns out to be something much subtler; in this case a satiny sheen with traces of the red which account for the species' name.

Partly this is due to the relatively thin layer of scales on the forewings which allows the hidden glory of the moth, its red underwings and abdomen, to show through. In imaginative moments in the past, I have ventured in metaphor about the Folies Bergere to describe these tantalising glimpses of exotic lingerie. 

You spot them when the moth is in your hand, or eggbox, but capturing them on camera is another matter. Quite apart from the moth's reluctance to show them unless scared and on the run, my camera skills lead to the focus being baffled by the subtle distinctions between tawny, ruby and the other, pleasantly port-related, colours. I went back three times to the eggboxes, after each lot of pictures proved blurred, before finally using my iPad Mini to get the ones above. Appropriately, the green is not Astroturf or wallpaper but the iPad's case.

This was indoors and the moth rapidly warmed up and started scurrying about, as above. Eventually it took wing but fortunately returned to settle briefly on a one of our many pieces of Duplo, below, allowing me to take the picture at the top of the post.

Golden moment

The light of the moth trap has been overwhelmed by the glare of publicity for my birthday yesterday, which has had the right, satisfactory effect in terms of greetings, presents, balloons etc. So today is Martin's Birds, not Moths. Or in particular, one of my birds.

It's a goldfinch, a tribe which is numerous round here and encouraged to be more so by tiny thistle seeds in a special holder which nearly everyone includes in their range of feeders for garden birds. The finches are lovely creatures with their military shoulder stripes of gold plus flashes of bright red and black-and-white bits. Altogether a cheerful sight.

This one was strikingly unfrightened when Penny discovered it, pottering round the lawn in a rather dazed way which suggested that it might have flown into one of our windows, fortunately not too fast. This is the season for that sad phenomenon which is also extremely irritating in the case of a more than usually stupid blackbird - and that's saying something - which keeps attacking its reflection and leaving a greasy mess. Birds' wings are startlingly greasy, presumably to shrug off the rain.

The finch may also have been pregnant as I suspect last week's equally dopey slowworm was. It's that time of year. It won a further place in my affections by having a vigorous peck at a dandelion clock. Perhaps we could train a squadron of them to keep down these appealing but amazingly aggressive flowers.

Birthday king

Hooray!  It is my birthday! Traditional celebrations at home and then - clue below - guess what sort of outing we had yesterday for my pre-birthday treat.

I should explain that I am a great publicist for this joyous occasion, ever since a muddle when I was small and away at school which resulted in my getting only one card, from Mr Higgins of the Canada Life Insurance Company. He and it have always had a special place in my heart.

Anyway, the trap has been abandoned for the festivities but on our outing, to Hughenden Manor, the former home of Benjamin Disraeli and very well worth visiting, P and I had an interesting sighting, not of a moth but a butterfly. (There was an arm's length moth experience, illustrated above, when P spotted an informative notice board featuring the Striped Lychnis).

Here is our butterfly, above as a speck on the path through shady woods dappled with sunlight which Dizzy and his devoted wife Mary Anne created as a 'German Forest'. Zoomed-in on below, it's a Red Admiral, a common enough butterfly but not one I'd expect to see on the wing at this time of the year. However, on checking the Butterfly Sightings page of Upper Thames Butterfly Conservation - that noble body which also brings us the Upper Thames Moths blog - I see that there have been half-a-dozen similar encounters so far this year.

Researching further, it seems that the previous wisdom that the Red Admiral is a summer migrant, unable to survive the winter by hibernation in the way that Small Tortoiseshells and Peacocks do, has been modified. A few individuals used to appear in the Spring but the number has now increased to the point where a small resident population is thought to survive in the South of England all year round. I am sorry that the pictures are not better, but the butterfly was very jittery and we had to get home for cake and tea, pausing only to admire and enjoy this triumph of nature below. If John Major were still in power, we would have rung his famous 'Coneline' to celebrate.

Beauty's beast

May is such a lovely month that it seems perverse that its name is given to this weird-looking creature, the 'May bug' or cockchafer whose crazed, accelerator-pedal flight with minimal navigation skills can cause consternation if it hurtles indoors.

Entirely harmless, it has been equipped with shields, potential weapons and a strip of dazzle camouflage which suggest that it must be the insect equivalent of a security van, carrying valuable items between moths' homes.

It is actually a beetle and one loaded with legend and lore, ranging from being put on trial in a court in Avignon in mediaeval times (and sentenced to stay within certain limits because of the damage it did to crops), to being harnessed to a small flying machine by the inventor Nicola Tesla - whose name is returning to fame via the electric car firm. He used four of them, apparently successfully, for his little aeroplane when he was a boy.

There have also been four Royal Navy gunboats called HMS Cockchafer, a name which doubtless led to saucy humour among the tars. (Other nicknames for the beetle include Spang, Kittywitch and Midsummer Dot). But the widespread notion that they only live for one day is wrong. It comes from confusion with the Mayfly which is indeed very short-lived. I have watched them emerge by a stream in swarms, only to be mown down by voracious birds like a squadron of Blitz bombers at the mercy of Spitfires.  Quite apart from that, they cannot eat and their digestive systems are filled with air. One female was recorded as dying a natural death after five minutes.

But I diverge.  Also in the trap on this beautiful May morning were Muslin moths, Common Swifts, a late Brindled Beauty (above) and a small carpet warehouse of Green Carpets, some shown below:

Footnote: my researches into mayflies this morning have had the bonus of discovering what the little aquatic creature was, which the granddaughter discovered in the river last week - below. A Mayfly nymph. Hooray!

Yum yum

One of the loveliest-patterned of UK moths flew in last night - this Coronet with its subtly beautiful dress of purple, olive and a dozen other subtle shades. If this hasn't influenced a dress designer or wallpaper artist, I will eat my hat (a Tam O'Shanter in Black Watch tartan made of flimsy tourist wool and so probably easy to digest).

Thinking of which, is Gary Lineker going to honour his promise of last December to present Match of the Day in his pants if Leicester City won the League? It still seems to be an open question. Update: it sounded from an interview with him yesterday on Radio 4 as though he is.   

P

Back to the moths, and here is the Coronet from the side. It was a fairly sparse night in the trap but this arrival was more than enough to satisfy me. Oh, and I can never resist putting up a picture of that blaze of sulphurous yellow, the Brimstone moth. Its eponymous butterfly counterparts are here in force during the day, one of many reasons - along with hawthorn blossom, cow parsley, forget-me-nots et al for rejoicing in this wonderful month.  And the day after tomorrow is my birthday!

What is this, finally?  I shall settle down in front of the News at Ten and try to work it out. Update: after I completely failed to come up with any candidate apart from a moth only seen in the UK once in the last 100 years, the expert Dave Wilton on the Upper Thames Moths blog (there is none finer) suggests Scrobipalpa acuminatella which I'd never have recognised from the Micro Bible. So, very many thanks yet again.

On the run

Look who I've just met in the garden.

I'm fairly sure that it's a field vole, if only because these are reckoned to be the commonest mammal in the UK. The Mammal Society suggest that there are 75,999,999 others.

So where are they all? I mean, the UK population of humans is only 64.1 million.

The answer is, that if you want to win at Hide-and-Seek, don't play it with a field vole.

I am pretty sure (from its surprisingly slow efforts to outrun me, compared with mice which almost break the sound barrier), that it is heavily pregnant.  So, more field voles then.

Petal

I had low expectations this morning after a notable drop in temperature last night and the meagre guest list in the Eggbox Hotel came as no surprise. Apart from three Muslin moths, the commonest visitor at the moment, there was this little scrap of lovely patterning and colour, like a fallen piece of fruit tree blossom, which one of the Agonopterix family of micros.

But which?  My first assumption was Agonopterix alstroemeriana, named after the equally beautiful patterned flower whose virtues have earned it the nickname of the 'poor man's orchid'. But it lacks the red sections of the two central splodges which are usually found on that moth. So I am wondering if it is Agonopterix yeatiana instead.

If any passing micro expert can adjudicate, I would be grateful, but I have also asked the question of the experts on the Upper Thames Moths blog. They are unfailing and swift to reply so I should be able to bring you the answer soon.

Update: sure enough, they have acted with their usual despatch and this is neither of my guesses (typically) but Agonopterix arenella, which I have had here before and should have recognised. Oh well.

Teeny weeny. If you know about eggboxes, you can see how small this moth is

Down to earth

After my romantic notion yesterday that the moths had recognised P's and my wedding anniversary, reality kicked in this morning. In two ways. The first was a dearth of new arrivals following a change in the weather; it has got colder again and there is even talk of frost.

More strikingly, such moths as were in the trap turned out to be yesterday's visitors, so bereft of get-up-and-go and the chance to make the most of a moth's life that they had simply stayed put. I am a great fan of eggboxes myself, having photographed their many variants cloe-up for many years, but you would have thought that an evening washed with the scent of flowers and blossoming trees would be more appealing.

It was nice, therefore, to find one newcomer: the Green Carpet at the top of the post, a relative of the one I spotted in Weaveley Furze on Monday while releasing my Emperor moth caterpillars. Here too is a useful contrast in Common Swifts; both males, I think, but one plain-coated and the other with a bit of glam.

Anniversary supplement

I'm having a lovely wedding anniversary morning scrabble-hoeing in the veg plot, which I love doing, while P paints a bedroom wall blue, something she greatly enjoys (and does very well).

But I've just bobbed in to make coffee and quickly upload this: my hoeing is being much enhanced by an Orange Tip which keeps floating past like a restless shopper, examining flower after flower but seldom staying with any of them long.

Even better, my first Holly Blue of the year came jinking along, perching very briefly on bits of mulch doubtless to sip at the flavoursome juices within. I love blue butterflies, flowers and birds and here, in the poem Fragmentary blue by Robert Frost, may be part of the reason why. My picture is hopeless, even given the butterfly's annoying habit of showing only its pale blue underwings when at rest, but I will keep trying for a better one as the day goes on.

WHY make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?
Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)—	5
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

37 up

It's our wedding anniversary today (number in the headline) and the moths usually lay on something special. Realists might say that this is because mid-May is generally a good time in the mothy year, but I prefer to believe that they somehow know that today is special.

After all, there is the tradition of 'telling the bees' in which beekeepers always announce major news by nipping out, tapping on the hives and saying something such as: "Bees! Bees! Bees! My daughter Meg is to be married to Saul the shepherd's son."  Then the honey will flow.

Anyway, the moths duly did their bit. Last night brought the year's first hawk moth, this fine Poplar Hawk, albeit looking as if it has made a forced landing after being shot up by a Messerschmidt - note the hole in its wing. How that actually happened is an interesting puzzle. A near miss from bird strike? Or caught on a hawthorn spike while nectaring?

Another welcome newcomer was this Chocolate-tip. Apologies for the focussing but this is an excellent;y distinctive species with its particular way of resting and its perky shape. The chocolate's colouring suggests one of those rose-scented sweeties favoured in my youth by great-aunts.

I was also glad to see the trio above: a Brimstone moth, a rebuke to those who persist in thinking that moths are grey or brown,  a Pebble Prominent with its eponymous 'pebbles' and that master of camouflage, a Waved Umber (please forgive my tatty thumbnail).  And here is a sequence of three different Muslin moths, showing how their patterning varies in small but noticeable ways. It reminds me of the tiny adjustments we made at school to our uniforms to assert our individuality.

Standard type

Indistinct central black spots

Central black spots joined to form lines

These are all male Muslins in spite of their governessy, Jane Eyre cloaks. The female is a translucent white, like a faint imitation of her posh relatives the White and Buff Ermine moths. But she seldom comes to light.

Finally, an appropriately cosy image for Anniversary Day: two snug little caddis flies nestling in an eggbox, with a passing beetle giving them his (or her) best wishes.