Time to say Goodbye, for now

Right, we really will stop now. The weather has chilled again and the mornings are getting dark. I'll leave you for 2010 with this fine Angle Shades which came the other night in spite of rain. It found a dry perch underneath the trap's plastic collar and was snoozing undisturbed when I braved the drizzle. Also there was the moth below, providing a textbook Laura Ashley example of how much slip to show (short enough to be interesting, etc). It's a November Moth, which seems a suitably seasonal note on which to conclude. I'm umming and erring about doing a monthly trap over the winter, just to see if anything is about. There is, for example, a handsome insect called the December Moth which I remember catching at our porch light in Leeds when I was a boy. But otherwise, see you in April, and many, many thanks for all the interesting and helpful comments.

Coffee morning

I'll stick my neck out this morning and say that this arrival last night (above) is a Green-brindled Crescent, although nothing about it is green. That is because it is the aberration capucino, named like the drink from the brown and white habit of Capucin monks and found almost exclusively in formerly heavy industrial areas such as Leeds. It baffled me at first, in spite of the distinctive white marking, because there didn't seem to be anything quite like it in my Waring, Townsend & Lewington, but a photo on UK Moths' excellent website (see list on left above) looks identical to mine.

It is a newcomer here, as is this second moth, if I have identified it correctly as a Pale Mottled Willow. There are a number of similar species but the clincher for me has been the PMW's fondness for peas. We have grown more peas this year than ever before, which isn't actually very many; maybe ten dinners' worth. But that would be a mountain of feasts for a PMW caterpillar, and something certainly burrowed into part of our crop.

A green thought in a green shade

Back in Leeds, back at the trap. Lots of interesting visitors thanks to the warmth. Just one of them for now: only a Red-Green Carpet, but isn't it a lovely thing? More tomorrow because I must now to bed, after a happy day down in Dorridge with the in-laws and many other assorted members of the Wainwright and Dharmaratnam genuses of the Homo sapiens species, clustering around Radha's Sri Lankan curries like so many intoxicated moths.

 

Packing-up postponed

I was going to say that our revels now are ending. But even in the Lake District, the weather has been astonishingly mild and I'm minded to keep the trap going for the next few days, back in Leeds. Last night we all went out to eat at the Woolpack near Brotherilkeld, at the foot of the great, wild curve of upper Eskdale, and although it was blowy, the wind was as balmy as in the South Seas. During a day's round of Burnmoor Tarn, the lofty heights above Wastdale's Screes and back up lost little Mitredale, we found plenty more Broom Moth caterpillars around, an elusive brown, dotted moth jittering about in the bracken in daylight (any identification ideas, anyone?), and a Comma resting on a Forestry Commission warning sign about tree-felling. In the evening, yet another Small Tortoiseshell fluttered into Penny's and my bedroom and came to rest on Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna (above). There's a great, human and instructive read, as the butterfly seemed to know.

Kingsolver btw is the sister-in-law of a very nice American academic called Mark Whitaker who has written a biography/analysis of the murdered Sri Lankan journalist Sivaram Dharmaratnam, younger brother of my in-law Suri and Uncle of our Tom's lovely Abi, supplier of interesting news of moths to this blog from Mexico City. I live in hope of meeting BK one day. Details of Mark's book are on www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Politics-Sivaram-Revolutionary-Anthropology/dp/0745323537

Small things in big places

I walked from Boot to the Jaws of Borrowdale yesterday, over Scafell and Scafell Pike.  Fifteen words to describe eight hours in Paradise, especially as the mist lifted shortly before I became, for half-a-minute or so, the highest person in England. Thereafter the sun shone and shone. My Paradise opinion seemed to be shared by a Small Tortoiseshell which was basking in the sunshine on Broad Col. This is pretty impressive, as the col is 3030ft high and the weather there volatile. Only yesterday, four of our party were driven back down from just the same spot by rain, thick mist and even hail. 

What was the Tortoiseshell doing then?  Maybe it flew up yesterday from the nearest bunch of nettles, its larval foodplant which isn't to be seen anywhere near Broad Col. Or perhaps it finds shelter deep in the omnipresent piles of stones (see the pic of the Pike's summit, Broad and Ill Crags, above) which also make excellent storage heaters to bask on when the sun does shine. Either way, I was so surprised to see the butterfly that I failed to sort out my camera in time. But down in Borrowdale, I saw three more on the roadside verge between Seatoller and Rosthwaite and here is one of them. Also a dead shrew on the fellside between Burnmoor tarn and Scafell summit. There is, or was, a lot of life in them there hills.

God (or Nature) and Man (or Woman)

A bright flutter of colour sprang up yesterday outside the Screes pub in Nether Wasdale when Penny and I cycled up for lunch. After this summer, I automatically assumed that it would be a Peacock or Red Admiral. They have far outnumbered the third of the lovely Vanessid trio (see learned post some weeks below on the origins of this insect family name). But no. The flutter was indeed that third: a lovely Small Tortoiseshell. Apart from exalting its beauty, even with the camera struggling to cope with the Screes' dazzling whitewash, there isn't any more I have to say. Except, perhaps, to contrast it with a similar work of man: my pillow here in Boot. A good effort and lots of hard work, but not really comparable. Not very comfortable either, with the sequins, until I turn it over.

Ratty and Badger (and Jiminy too)

After yesterday's tick, it seemed only proper to investigate the River Mite, which flows into the Esk not far below Boot. We were helped by the famous and invaluable Little Ratty railway, seen here with the Charles Darwin doll which is symbolising these few days of  walking and incidental nature investigation in the Lakes.

Caterpillars though - nix. After two days of having to tread carefully to avoid Fox moth woolly bears and what - thanks to Worm's comment in the post below - I now know to be Broom moth larvae, we didn't see one on a long and beautiful hike back up the dale from Ratty's terminus at Ravenglass. This included what seemed to be their ideal conditions - boggy and soaking - on parts of Muncaster Fell, and also the exotic flora of the Edwardian Japanese garden in Giggle Alley, Eskdale Green. Volunteers are slowly bringing this back to its original startling state. I'm continuing to research the fine name.

There was a dead badger, though, the second in four days. We passed the other on the roadside near Ulpha. Sad, but a small sign of how common Brock has become, thanks to effective animal protection laws. And this cricket (above) - a much more vivid, limey green than the picture suggests, which leapt out of our group's way into a puddle, but managed to leap again, to safety.

Tick box

Yesterday was caterpillar today. Today it's ticks. To be accurate, one tick, which fastened itself to the shapely leg of one of our Lake District band, Margaret McGowan, an educational adviser whose website will shortly be up and running on  www.educationadviceonline.co.uk. It latched on to her halfway up Scafell via Cam Spout where the more muscular half of the group went adventuring. Penny and I and a couple of the others meanwhile perambulated round Eel, Stoney and Burnmoor tarns below Slight Side and found an enormous number of Fox moth caterpillars, plus plenty of the sleek, stripey ones you see below.



They appear to have been designed by the manufacturers of Hi-Viz vests which doesn't help them to hide but probably puts off predatory birds. I remember finding these as a boy in bracken on the Deer Hill at Bolton Abbey and noting how the younger ones had the comely livery of yellow with British Racing Green, the latter changing to brown in those close to pupation.


I've done a quick check on the net to see what they are but without success, and have to get my boots on now. Will try harder later.
The tick btw is very dead, the result of immersion in a cup of boiling water. I'm not going to try, but I imagine that it might test like an extremely tiny shrimp. It is the size of a pinhead.

Coincidence time again

Here is my son's Charles Darwin doll (no, no, we weren't that much of pushy parents, it's a fairly recent joke). He's sitting on the summit of Green Crag above Boot in Eskdale, whence this post comes. It seems a bit improbable, surrounded by vast mountains and without a peep of phone connection, but wifi is penetrating right into the kitchen of the farmhouse we're staying in, which was built in 1703. I can this bring you news of another glorious date match, like the Blair's Shoulder Knots and Black Rustics which faithfully . Like Darwin, I am slowly building up a scientific case on moths' flying seasons, not that it will be news to any scientists.

Anyway, on the way up Green Crag, which is a very excellent little mountain with interesting approaches and descent up two different 'peat roads', used for collecting fuel with carts, we found three of these caterpillars. Guess what, in the first week of October last year, we did the same thing on the Floutern Pass which connects Ennerdale, where we were staying at the time, to Buttermere. Provided that no one treads on it, it will turn into a Fox Moth, as pictured here. The caterpillars seem to like boggy uplands. As I noted last year, Arthur Ransome collected them as a boy on the fells and hatched the moths. The famous Gipsy Moth biplane also had a relative called the Fox Moth, shown here in action for Australia's flying doctor service.

Which am I?

It's unusual but regular, the picture above: a moth pretending to be a butterfly. Maybe because of the current monsoon, which seeped into the trap a little in spite of Mr and Mrs Robinson's excellent rain shield, this little Carpet took refuge high up on the eggboxes and adopted the folded wings position used by butterflies. Usually this is one of the indicators of difference between butterflies and moths - other principal ones being that all British butterflies have clubbed antennae and fly by day, whereas almost all moths have enormously varied antennae and fly by night. But there are exceptions to all three rules on the moth side, and this is one. After my Quaker bungle yesterday, my identification nerve has gone completely but I think it is a Common Carpet. A bit boring, I agree, but after yesterday's foray into fine art, I have to say I like the background colours. Here's another one (left above), reading the egg instructions, and a third (right) whose identity I'm definitely not sure of. It could be another CG, a Red Green Carpet, or one of several very similar ones. Dean or Ben to the rescue... Help! PS And Lo! Dean has come to the rescue instantly. Thanks so much. The first is a Common Marbled Carpet and the second an RGC

Moths can be art critics too

There is a moth called the Pod Lover, albeit never seen by me. Now I nominate this overnight visitor (above) as the Art Lover, because it had the nous to settle on this copy of an oil painting when I decanted the eggboxes in our kitchen, safe from the rain. It's a distinguished portrait because the painter was Nick Penny, now head of the National Gallery. We were schoolboys together in Shrewsbury where an exhibition including this picture opens next week. The subject is another of our 17-year-old contemporaries, Ron Smith, who was a talented and original artist like Nick. I didn't know him well and long ago lost touch, but the expression is how I recall him; an outsider and never seeming quite at ease.

The exhibition is launched on 9 October at Shrewsbury School's art building; I'm not entirely sure how generally open it is, but in my day the place welcomed all and sundry, as indeed it should, given its wonderful facilities and grounds, in which we frolicked happily all those years ago. One of those involved is John Alford, a fine painter himself who with Arthur Broadbent, a wonderful Irishman with a past career in wartime camouflage, ran an inspirational art department in the 1960s. Quite apart from their teaching, including Arthur's slides of outstanding European buildings which were almost all obscured by his Morris Traveller, their art school was a sort of independent republic. A basement window was never locked and much-used to escape Cadet Force and similar nonsense. I cannot prove that this negligence was deliberate but have no doubts myself.

And the moth? I'm pretty sure that it's a Common Quaker (but see PS below). Less distinguished than its lined relations in the previous post, but trim. Its main flight season is March-May but small numbers emerge in mild autumns, and it's mild now (though soaking). Talking of which, I surprised this vast amphibian (below) outside our back door while setting the trap. It's toadlike in size but froglike in shape. Could it be a late, mild autumn pregnancy? Another question: why on earth have we got the hosepipe out in current conditions? I haven't the slightest idea.


PS Dean has put me right in Comments. It's a Yellow-lined Quaker after all. Sorry.

Society of Friends

There was a Quaker meeting in the trap last night. Only two different friends, but attractive ones. Indeed, they may be new here, both of them, although neither is uncommon. I will check back. Autumn is their time of year. Above is the Yellow-lined Quaker and below, the Red-lined one. Quaker moths were so named because their neat appearance resembled that of members of the Society of Friends. Some use the word 'plain' but I don't find that the case, any more than it was with Prudence Pym, the heroine of The Quaker Girl, whose simple bonnet and dress became the height of fashion in Paris, after she was thrown out of her home by her parents for drinking a glass of champagne.

Prudence was played originally by that lovely flower of Bradford, Gertie Millar, who was born in Manningham, where I also once lived in Southfield Square. I can't resist adding a picture of her too. If you swap over to my other blog, True North, you'll find an entry on her there too, on 18 January this year, because I have two books, one on Famous People from Bradford and the other on Famous People from Sheffield, which both claim her. But Bradford is right. Quakers btw got their name from a sarcastic judge in Lincoln, after George Fox 'bade him tremble at the word of the Lord.' My red-lined Quaker is duly trembling, preparing for take-off from the bowl of the trap. Fox gave Quakers one of the best pieces of advice for life that I have ever read: 'Walk cheerfully over the world, seeking that of God (or you may prefer to read Good) in others.'


PS I just checked back and the Yellow-lined Quaker has been here before, but not the Red one. Huzza!

Labour's very own moth

A couple of weeks ago, on 14th September, Black Rustics came to the trap for the third year running on that precise date. Here's a couple of other punctual returnees: Blair's Shoulder Knots, which I also recorded on 30th September last year. That time around, I noted that Brown was on the TV news, rather than Blair. Now it's Ed Milliband, who is already making veterans such as Jack Straw and Margaret Beckett - both on the 9pm BBC news - seem ancient. They resembled the life-battered yellow underwing and Shuttle-shaped Dart which I feature a few posts below.

Blair's Shoulder Knot is a fine success story and counter to species-related gloom. It was first recorded in the UK only in 1951, by a Dr Blair whose home on the Isle of Wight was one of the first light traps encountered by migrants after flying over from the European mainland. That's why he has no fewer than three moths named after him, the others being Blair's Mocha and Blair's Wainscot. Since then, the moth has adapted so well to our island shores that it is common everywhere. Hooray! You can also enjoy a picture of its underside here, as one of the pair ended tummy-up when I gently decanted them from the eggboxes, and lay there like a cat waiting to be tickled. Not that I did.

A final connection with the Labour party is also evident in its 'eyebrow' markings, visible in this head-on view. Denis Healey or what? There were other good things in the trap after a dry night, albeit cold and with prolonged mist after all the earlier rain, but I will save them for tomorrow in case it's wet again this evening.

Calling all tiemakers

The rain it raineth. The trap it sleepeth. The moths they snore. I hope I get another night's work before Saturday, but meanwhile here is an appeal to any tiemaker, or friend of a tiemaker, who may chance on this.

I don't like ties, after years of having to wear them at school, but on special occasions I use this one, which I bought at a very excellent tie shop in the main square in Tallinn, the capital of Esonia, back in the 1990s. What I would really like, because of my habit of spilling soup etc, is a back-up one, but this time featuring moths.

I did go back to Tallinn a couple of years after getting this tie, but although the shop (in the corner, near the famous old apothecary's), had similar ones of aeroplanes, pigs, flowers etc, there were no moths. Anyway, there we are. This is my prayer. The internet is so vast and serendipitous, you never know. I will pay. Tomorrow to Saturday meanwhile, fingers crossed, I will return to the hunt.

Spotting the spots

Things are really autumnal here. The weather has come down like a soggy lid and the first leaves are falling. This means, sadly, that my trapping season is almost done. I shall tuck everything away on Saturday. No moths at the moment either, because of the continual drizzle, but this small creature has spent a few days in our house. He, or she, first appeared last week when I was in France, joining Penny as she had her lonely supper. It was back again yesterday, hiding under my bowl of watercress soup. Sorry about the rather blurry pictures, but the beetle - assuming that's what it is - was extremely lively, although it seemed to get its legs stuck from time to time on our kitchen table. I wonder if they have some sort of secretion or little hairs/spikes which help them to grip in their usual habitat. Penny carefully put it outdoors, but maybe it will find a way of creeping back in. Does anyone know what it is? I have Googled assorted references to 'beetle, black,white and spots' but so far to no avail. I specially like the way the black-and-white livery applies to the antennae too.


Success! Dean has kindly identified this as an Ichneumon Wasp - a dreadful enemy of butterflies, moths and caterpillars. See comments, and here's a better pic of one, courtesy of Gary WK's website: www.pbase.com/bowdood/insects&page=all

The Leeds of France

This is cheating slightly, but there wasn't much time for moths yesterday as ma mere et moi skedaddled from Paris to near-Calais via this place (above). Leeds, is it? Or Darlington? Neither, although it is jumellee avec Darlington in the twin towns scheme. It's Amiens, a redbrick wonder which reminded me of home. It shared a sense of unexpected wonders and pleasures with Leeds too. Prime among them are Les Hortillonages, allotments accessible only by boat along small canals - a visit which I recommend absolument. I'll add a weblink when I have more time. 

Plenty of butterflies flitted about - Whites mostly, which was not surprising considering the vast amounts of home-grown salad and veg. Dragonflies also. But given that this is supposed to be about moths, I've delved into my unused photobag to bring you this tiny Tortrix micro which I didn't feature at the time (late July). Think in terms of half a jellybean. I'll track down its name but must now go and have petit dejeuner, et ensuite, Le Tunel.

Paris in the autumn time

Bonjour! Je suis en Paris pour les vacances et des visites familiales avec ma mere venerable. Nous avons le soleil, le chaud - OUI le chaud - et aussi cet Small Copper a la musee de Quai Branly, pres de la Tour Eiffel. OK, that's enough showing off (although I'm not sure of the genders etc, and I also messed up with my camera on a more interesting butterfly; a small Blue of some kind, although being a female it was brown). It was flitting about in my cousin's garden at Le Pecq, where there were also plenty of Whites enjoying the truly impressive municipal blooms - great swags of flowers on lamp-posts, railings, everywhere - and not just in the main streets. Mum and I also observed this very large bee on escallonia hedges at Quai Branly which were smothered in flowers. It was like walking through a honey jar. Oh, and there was a Red Admiral at the Tunnel's entrance near Folkestone, inspecting the big painted signs on the approach road saying France.

(No Red Admiral in the pic btw. It had flown away).

Wear and tear

I imagine we all feel a bit old and worn at times. Do we show it as evidently as this pair of visitors to the trap seem to do? Moths and butterflies seldom live long - a few weeks - apart from the small number of hardy species in the UK which hibernate as adults. Those are exceptional in seeing a spring as well as autumn, whereas I am  about to clock up sixty of both. Penny and I watched a good TV 'drama-documentary' the other night, about a wartime Spitfire pilot. Today's moths remind me of his plane after one near-disastrous sortie. Riddled with bullet-holes and torn ragged at the edges of its wings, it still flew.  I've seen plenty of moths and butterflies with hardly a coloured scale left on their wings and great chunks cut out which can do the same. It sometimes affects their performance but they can still scramble as effectively as any fighter squadron did in 1940. These two have avoided the worst, in terms of losing bits, but their glory has gone. What are they? The bigger one is a Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing; its companion needs some homework or a kindly and more knowledgable helper. Worm..?
Later: check out Comments for all (including my mistake re the yellow underwing) to be revealed...

Return tripper

A small entry for a small moth. Here is a little micro (tautology? not necessarily, as some micro-moths are surprising large) which flew in and settled on the plastic collar. Belying my usual vagueness - see post below and others ad infinitum - I suggest that it is Dipleurina lacustrata, a member of the family Pyralidae and subfamily Scopariinae. This burst of erudition is thanks to a learned Commentor, Martin Harvey, when the same (or a very similiar) moth came to the trap on 30 September 2008 (see left). Both were out a month later than the authoritative website UK Moths suggests they should have been. Make of that what you will.  I called the 2008 one the Crossed Fingers moth, but the marking on this year's is not so distinct, either through wear and tear or because perhaps it is a cousin rather than the grandchild I presume it to be. 

Lively night

Our moths had an exciting night. Neighbours had a superb firework display (I know some people dislike these, because of pet dogs, cats, lizards etc, but there can't be too many so far as I am concerned). Then it rained steadily. In the interests of science, I kept the trap on and the results were an amazing testimonial to the trap's rain shield - like the best gadgets, a very simple plastic disc whose position above the trap entrance round the bulb has been precisely calculated.

In spite of all the goings-on, there were 25 moths asleep this morning: yellow underwings, a Setaceous Hebrew Character (see earlier posts) and two Autumnal Rustics (see post directly below). And this. It looked initially like the absolutely bog standard small, brown, boring moth and I was almost hesitant to photograph it. I did, though, using a torch to try to shed some light (my failing eyesight and old specs don't help).

Then I remembered that, courtesy of the Guardian, we have a small camera with digital micro. Look at the result below. Suddenly, the 'small brown boring moth' puts on a coat of great subtlety and beauty. I'm not exactly sure what it is, because I can't do the same digital micro trick on Richard Lewington's lovely pictures in my moth Bible. Maybe, a Rustic pure and simple? Or a Clay? I'd be over the moon if it were a German Cousin (v. rare) but I'm pretty sure it isn't. I will consult Jax of Yorkshire Butterfly Conservation (or would much appreciate other expert observer's views).



Disgracefully late PS (cos have been in France): thanks to Ben, I now know that this is a variety of the Chestnut, a highly variable moth. The ones shown in Richard Lewington's illustrations in my indispensable field guide are much more orangey, From the guide's text, I note that 'less frequent forms are heavily dusted and/or streaked with brown or grey'. I think that this is one of those. Less frequent, huzza! The Chestnut is a doughty moth. It goes on the wing in September and can survive as an adult all the way through to May. Well done it.