Stately moths (Part 3)

Update: In view of my faltering ID reputation, I took the precaution of sending a list and link to this blog to Tony Prichard, county moth recorder for Suffolk, who has very kindly and quickly replied with some corrections. I will insert these within the posts but essentially they are that the 'Rustic Shoulder-knots' below are in fact Nutmegs; the two Dingy Footmans (Footmen?) in the last post - Stately Home Moths (2) - are actually Orange Footmans/men and the micro which I ID-ed as Agriphila straminella is in fact Chrysoteuchia culmella. Very many thanks to Tony.

Here is a Stately Home Moth in situ to launch my final despatch from Cavendish Hall in Suffolk, the lovely Landmark Trust mansion where we lolled in cosy companionship to celebrate a friend's 90th birthday. It's a familiar but very beautiful moth, the Burnished Brass, whose scales both reflect and refract light to produce that metallic sheen.

Here it is close up on one of my Granny's immensely sturdy croquet hoops, made by a Leeds blacksmith and now shamefully in need of a coat of white paint.  Below, you can inspect it closer still and less blurred. One of my favourite UK moths. Looking back a post or two, you can see that it has also been on the wing in Oxfordshire, and that applies to most of my Suffolk catch. 

Here are the winners in terms of numbers, below, in order: Treble Lines, Marbled Minor (which could be the standard MM, the Tawny or the Rufous; you can only tell by examining the male's genitalia. The Moth Bible pronounces this practice to be 'easy' but it is not for me). Then comes the Setaceous Hebrew Character whose dark marking resembles the Hebrew letter Nun, and the Heart and Dart, a name whose origins are, I hope, obvious. The H&D attracted some of my more interesting moth correspondence many years ago when a New York soap shop called Heart and Dart came across this blog during an online search and was very chuffed to learn of the moth and its flourishing presence in the UK.

I feel the need to offer you something a little prettier now, so here is a delicious Silver-ground Carpet, first with a Common Wainscot on an eggbox and then on its original perch at the bottom of the trap bowl, whose black colouring plays pop with my camera. Actually, I must apologise that some of the photos are grainier than usual; I had to fall back on my iPad Mini when the camera went on strike and jammed.

Here is its close relative, too, a Common Carpet, which suffers even more severely from the gloom of the inner bowl:

Now it's time to meet some Cavendish micromoths, tiny splinters of lepidoptera which cause headaches when it comes to ID but can be bewitching under competent magnification (ie not mine). They are, in order: Crambus lathoniellus, Agriphila straminella (Update: no, it's Chrysoteuchia culmella - see top of post) , Scoparia pyralella and Hedya pruniana. Most micros have only Linnean names which tend to be as long as the moths are short, but a few, including Hedya p are common enough to have earned English ones too, in its case the Plum Tortrix.

For completeness, here are most of the other moths which came to see me over the three nights - much the biggest catch on the first which was cloudy and warm, far fewer on Saturday when the sky was clear and temperatures fell, and a decent pick-up on Sunday when the clouds returned though the temperature didn't get back to Friday night levels. I should add that there were several other species which I didn't photograph in all the confusion of interested spectators demanding moths on their fingers. These included a Bloodvein and a Snout, among other which I'm afraid I do not recall.

My thumb and a Bright-line Brown-eye, not be confused with the Brown-line Bright-eye which is a little rarer. Like me, the Bright-line Brown-eye enjoys tomatoes, or at least its caterpillars do. Adult moths are generally content with nectar

The curiously-shaped Pale Prominent; very good camouflage when hiding amid twigs and fallen leaves.

Straw Dot, coloured straw and with a dot. Under magnification, the dot contains a  smidgeon of that rarest colour among moths, blue.

I think that this is a Rustic Shoulder-knot but please correct me if I have blundered yet again. Update: I have; as per the top of the post, this a Nutmeg 

And I think that this is another one. Update: it is - another Nutmeg.

Large Yellow Underwing, a common but fine moth which flashes its orangey-yellow underwear when disturbed.

And another, snuggled up with another Scoparia pyralella micro.

And that's it, apart from another study of the Burnished Brass, left, this time not on a croquet hoop but the top of a ring-pull beer can in whose contents it showed interest - never forget that one of the traditional ways of catching moths before the advent of light traps was smearing rum and treacle on trees for the little creatures to get enjoyably stuck.

Thank you once again to our birthday friends - 29 species of macro moth and four micros - and to the Landmark Trust for a really excellent weekend.

Stately home moths (Part 2)

Continuing my account of a weekend's trapping at Cavendish Hall in Suffolk, here is the familiar bowl and lamp in its unfamiliar setting. What a cosy place to check out local moths! Very many thanks to our friends who invited Penny and myself to the Big Birthday, and to the Landmark Trust which saves such historic properties by running them as holiday lets.

I wasn't sure whether it would be practicable to operate the trap, with possible problems over running a wire outside without leaving a window or door open, or keeping fellow guests awake with my wondrously bright mercury vapour light. But all went well, thanks to a small, limited-opening loo window and plenty of shrubby cover. And the moths played along excellently too.

Update: In view of my faltering ID reputation, I took the precaution of sending a list and link to this blog to Tony Prichard, county moth recorder for Suffolk, who has very kindly and quickly replied with some corrections. I will insert these within the posts but essentially they are that the 'Rustic Shoulder-knots' in the next post - Stately Moths 3 - are in fact Nutmegs; the two Dingy Footmans (Footmen?) below are actually Orange Footmans/men and the micro which I ID-ed in the next post as Agriphila straminella is in fact Chrysoteuchia culmella. Very many thanks to Tony.

The most numerous were old familiars which have also been thronging to the trap at home in recent weeks: Treble Lines, Heart and Darts, Setaceous Hebrew Characters, Marbled  Minors, White and Buff Ermines, Common Swifts, Pale Tussocks and a pleasantly large population of Figure of Eighty moths, one shown here:

This is an excellent moth to show intrigued friends new to the game, with the strange little marking which looks so much like an 80 (on the other side, an 08). How has natural selection arrived at this? Discuss.

Here are some of the other moths which had us all chattering around the breakfast table as our friends inspected the eggboxes and were intrigued by the number, beauty and interest of their small fellow-guests:

Light Emerald

A couple of Poplar Greys. On all three mornings, there were two of these on the bulbholder.

Dingy Footman; rather a mean name, but still. Update: and not one applicable to this moth which is actually an Orange Footman - as per Update higher in the post. It is a bit early for Dingy which has more of a melon-pip shape. 

Here's another one, even less deserving of the title. Update: it is another one - ie Orange, not Dingy. Thanks again to Tony 

Pale Tussock, snuggled in the hedge by the light.

Common White Wave; a delicate bride of a moth.

Swallow Prominent; you can imagine this influencing aerodynamic racing car design.

Scorched Wing, a moth whose de-focussing 'dazzle' camouflage has always intrigued me.

Poplar Hawk, a general favourite, here somewhat overflowing from its egg-cone berth.

Drabber than the male: a female Common Swift

And here's a male, in shadow but still showing more glam.

The Small Magpie, one of the larger of the UK's micro-moths. Plus my attractive new nightie, a birthday present from P's 98-year-old Mum who lives with us and also takes an interest in entomology.

Another trap refusenick - a Buff Ermine which preferred to doze on the lawn.

Plus a second one, which did venture into Eggboxland.

And finally their relative the lovely White Ermine, which you feel would be at home in the House of Lords.  (A hard-working peer was of the human company, so this was appropriate)

Final episode tomorrow. You are missing nothing from here back in Oxfordshire where the weather has turned foul.

Stately moths (Part 1)

The moth trap has been on an excursion, an unusual turn of events but I couldn't resist adding it to a catalogue of pranks to celebrate the 90th birthday of a long-standing and characterful friend. Eleven of us were billeted in great comfort and grandeur at Cavendish Hall near Sudbury in Suffolk, one of the wonderful array of historic properties maintained as holiday lets by the matchless Landmark Trust.

This was rather a different set of surroundings than usual for my shining light and although there were plenty of familiar faces among the moths (which arrived in large numbers and posed dutifully on the nonagenarian's finger instead of my usual grandchildren's), there were novelties too. I was specially pleased to meet a Treble Brown Spot - second picture - a moth which never called in Leeds and has yet to do so in Oxford.

One of the Laura Ashley school of delicately pretty, pale teenies, it reveals its underwear in my third picture, just below,  taken as a gust of breeze caught it in mid-photo session on my hand. Unlike most of these small and frail moths, this experience didn't prompt it to flutter off and it returned to doze for some more photography.

The TBS is a cheering example of a moth whose numbers are on the rise; had I been to Suffolk before my birthday in May, I would have been informing you - courtesy of my much-loved 2003 first edition of the Moth Bible - that it was only thinly distributed in East Anglia. But the new, third edition which Penny gave me as a present, reveals that it is now fairly frequent there, and that the Rothamsted network of light traps has recorded a whopping 4,300 percent increase in its numbers between 1968 and 2007.

It was also excellent to see a Hummingbird Hawk moth nectaring on the mansion's terrace, though since my friend was in mid-reminisce, I felt that it would have been rude to leap up and stalk it - almost always a lengthy process with HBHs because, like Fidgety Phil, they will not stay still.  In terms of finger-sitting, the moths also came up trumps with a Poplar Hawk, a Pale Prominent and the plump female Ghost moth shown below.

I must add that the Elephant Hawk getting ready to take off from the Birthday King's finger is not a Suffolk native. In case of problems with the trap, I snuggled it away with some willow-herb leaves after it came to the trap here on Thursday night, before we left for the weekend. It survived the journey without harm and, after posing politely for a few minutes at Cavendish Hall, winged off into the night. I hope that it finds a nice East Anglian mate.

More from the mansion tomorrow.

Big boy

The biggest of my regular visitors called last night for the first time this year, and while I photographed it, I had the pleasure of hearing my first cuckoo of 2017. There has been publicity recently about the numbers of this fascinating bird falling in the UK, so it is reassuring to have one in full song on our doorstep.

The moth was not alone, as you can see. Far too many to count this morning

Not such good news for small birds of other species, perhaps. But the cuckoo's lazy and ruthless habit of laying its egg in other birds' nests has provided the human race with endless fascination and rich metaphor. Moths have their share of the latter too, with 'moths to a flame' and the Biblical reference to moths and rust afflicting Earthly treasures. I have always wondered, and must find out, whether 'moth' in the Bible comes from an ancient text or was the invention as a metaphor by William Tyndale.

Anyway, my jumbo moth is a Privet Hawk,  actually a common moth but not one which makes many appearances other than at moth traps or lighted windows on a warm Summer night. It has a fine sleekly black 'head', the body of a vast pink wasp and the only legs which I've experienced of a UK moth which can give you an (unintentional) nip.




Its fine green, stripey and horned caterpillars like privet, hence the name, but also enjoy lilac - I'm glad to say, because we planted one this Spring. They eat voraciously - and they need to. One of the remarkable talents of this species is that the larvae can dig down up to 30cms to make a little chamber for their chrysalisation.

The moth is our largest permanent resident although smaller by some distance than those distinguished immigrants, the Convolvulus and Death's Head Hawks. Neither of the latter has come here, yet, but eagle-eye Penny spotted a Convolvulus at a cousin's wedding in Cornwall and I memorably went to inspect a Death's Head hatched from a caterpillar found on potatoes at Kirtlington, just a couple of miles from here. It made a run for it but wasn't quite quick enough, and two more pupae were found shortly afterwards in the lucky discoverer's spud patch.

On its heft

I went beagling once and was interested in the way that the chase went in a circle round the group of hunters on their hilltop, rather than an erratic dash across the countryside as the quarry (which I'm glad to say escaped in my case) seeks refuge. In the same way, I long ago learned about the 'heafs' or 'hefts' of Herdwick sheep in the Lake District, which become completely loyal to 'their' patch f ground.

There is also the better-known example of birds, especially robins, whose males guard 'their' territory with comic ferocity - albeit not comic if you are another male robin straying on to the patch. So it is with looking for moths and butterflies; the best tactic when you spot something interesting but it flies off, is often to hang around patiently for a while. They very often return.

This was certainly the case with the little micro in my first two pictures, taken during a day of grandparenting down in east London. I was pleased to see it flitting round the small garden in exactly the same spot as I found it first last year. It is Pyrausta aurata, common enough to have a venacular name - the Mint Moth, given because of its attachment to herbs, especially mint and thyme. It is extremely small as you can see, I hope from the detail of the leaves, but a little gem when the eye or camera finally gets it into focus.

I mentioned in the last post the way that optical camouflage in moths can confuse the lens of both eye and camera in the particularly striking case of the Scorched Wing. I referred to the Peppered Moth having the same effect and here are two examples. Something about the patterning must cause the lens to shift its focus about as it tries to make sense of the mixture of black and white. Presumably this has the same effect on moths' great enemies, birds, even though their eyes are very different from ours. But I have always found that movement is the fatal giveaway for a moth resting anywhere near to a bird.

Thanks tio the grandchildren, one Peppered became unusually animated after its night's sleep and I was able to get my final picture, of a different posture. In this, the shading of the wing (I think) helps the lenses to calm down a bit. In any event, what a beautiful creature it is.