Powdered and pale

Powdered Quaker

Catches in the trap continue to be modest on these cold and damp nights. Yesterday evening our house and neighbours were shrouded in a spooky mist, the sort which brings to mind murders and escaped convicts on the marshes. Such conditions also bring with them an eerie hush.

Common Quaker

The lamp shone bravely, though, and attracted three caddis fly plus an assortment of predictable moths: Common Quakers, Hebrew Characters and a Brindled Beauty. But there was also the pretty Powdered Quaker, above. Its name defies the simple traditions of the Society of Friends who have never been big on make-up. But it's a very pretty moth, I think they'd agree.

Pale Pinion

A Pale Pinion came for the second time this year, below. An interesting feature of this moth is that it emerges in the Autumn, overwinters in a hiding place under loose bark or in stone wall crevices, and then re-emerges in the Spring when it mates. It has two completely different diets, thank to this life cycle. In the Autumn it sups from over-ripe blackberries and ivy flowers. At this time of the year, it dines off catkins.

And again, from the side

Just pretending

     

          

One of the ways to tell a  butterfly from a moth (apart from browsing my handy guide  by clicking on the tab above), is to note the way that insects hold their wings.  Almost all butterflies clasp them together vertically above their bodies; almost all moths fold them back horizontally.

However, there are exceptions, as with almost every rule. Last night I was visited by one of them, the Early Thorn, a Spring moth which imitates the butterfly wing position when at rest.  It is not like a butterfly in any other way, with its dumpy body, feathery antennae and jinking, rather frenzied manner of flight. It can be on the wing from late February, so mine is rather a late Early Thorn. It's the first to come calling this year.

There were also several Common Quakers, Hebrew Characters and March moth (again, a little out of synch) in the eggboxes, some of which were damp after heavy overnight rain. Mr and Mrs Robinson's simple but wonderfully effective rainshield did its work, however, and my expensive mercury vapour bulb didn't blow.

Perched on another eggbox was the lovely Brindled Beauty below. A real tabby cat of a moth.

Daisy Hawkeye

Today's picture comes thanks to a sharp-eyed friend of mine called Daisy, who comes to church with her younger brother (lowering the average age of our friendly gang by a considerable number of years).

She nipped up to me just before proceedings started and said: "There's a Small Tortoiseshell up on that window". Sure enough there was, above a graphic scene of the disciples weathering the storm on the Sea of Galilee. Well identified, Daisy, and thanks also to my fellow-coppicer at Weaveley Furze, Martin Knops, who whipped out his 'phone and snapped the insect.

Just before leaving, I spotted a flicker out of the corner of my eye and realised that it was the shadow of the butterfly which had moved to another window, a clear one without stained glass, in its instinctive efforts to reach the light. There is much potential symbolism in this episode; you can imagine Alan Bennett's vicar saying: "I sometimes think that we are all Small Tortoisehells seeking a way out of darkness." And needless to say, the appearance indoors of butterflies like this on warm Spring days has led to various stories handed down from the past.

In theatres, for instance, a butterfly fluttering about at a premiere is held to be a good omen - handily, because it is more than likely that one of the two main hibernating species in the UK, the Small Tortoiseshell and the Peacock, will have found the huge, cosy folds of a theatre's curtain a good place to tuck away.

Daisy was responsible for passing on news last year of a very interesting moth found in a nearby village where she and her friends were playing out. It was the Convolvulus Hawk, the second largest moth found in the UK after the Death's Head Hawk. More here and on my own encounter with this relative rarity here.

A much-travelled Empress

 I am delighted to report more excitements on the Imperial front after the double hatching in the Palace nursery (actually a Tupperware box) reported in my last post.



Penny and I duly took the two beautiful moths to the grandchildren in east London, where the male put up with its hosts only briefly before spiralling away into a bright blue sky. The female, however, flew only as far as the family's garden fence where she stayed all day, presumably releasing her pheromones in the hope of attracting suitors. That's the granddaughter's finger, above, showing them the way.



Emperors have this habit, apparently attracting males from up to three miles away. It's part of an extraordinarily strong breeding urge in a species whose adult moths do not eat or sup nectar and consequently live only for a few weeks - and that after spending a summer as a growing caterpillar and then up to three, or even four years in a cocoon. Nature's ways, eh.

The Empress' vigil was unrewarded, sadly, although she clung to her post through drizzle, heavy showers and even a violent hailstorm as the weather put on a vintage British Spring display. So come evening, we popped her back in the cocoon box and took her home. Not many Emperor moths can claim to have travelled 140-odd miles in their first two days of life.



I released her again this morning and she is now waiting patiently on a garden wall and I will check occasionally to see if her Prince has arrived. But meanwhile, I made an exciting discovery back in the Tupperware, in the course of trying to find out (unsuccessfully) which of my four cocoons were the ones from which the two moths had hatched.





On a hawthorn twig supporting one of the cocoons was this cluster of fresh eggs, below. Are they unfertilised? Or did the two moths get together during several hours of sharing their modest home? As they come from the same brood, will this affect fertilisation and growth? Many questions, whose answers will in due course, I hope, unfold.

Two years later...

Exciting news: two children of the magnificent female Emperor moth which visited the trap in early May 2014 have finally hatched. As recorded in various posts since the original arrival, the beautiful Empress laid a clutch of eggs on an eggbox - appropriately - and I managed to rear the 25 caterpillars until they formed cocoons.

A solitary male hatched last year but the others slumbered on, until earlier today when I checked their Tupperware home before heading off down to London to see the grandchildren. I brought the box into the house last week in the hope that warmer temperatures might encourage a hatch; I'd initially given the remaining cocoons up for lost, but Dave Wilton of the marvellous Upper Thames Moths blog urged me to be patient. Emperors often spend two whole years in pupation, he advised. Some have spent four years slumbering in their cocoons.

He was right. To my delight, when I checked this afternoon, there was a newly-hatched male in the box. I was in rather a rush because of getting other things ready for our London trip, but luckily I gave the box a thorough look. And there, tucked behind some sprigs of hawthorn (one of the species' many foodplants) was a lovely female too. What excellent things to show our little granddaughter, who has just been given a brother, four days ago.

Thus the moths are now in east London where I hope they make a life. We released both in the garden soon after arriving from Oxford. It's a remarkable life cycle, the Emperor Moth's. The adults don't feed and live only a few weeks during which their sole ambition is to mate. And yet they can spend over two years in the egg-caterpillar-pupa stages, just to prepare for this.

Alley moth

There is an understandable feeling among many of us that wildlife enjoys green fields and rolling hills as much as we humans do. This is not always the case. Some of the most unpromising landscapes in the country are home to a rich variety of animal and plant species. Take this alley in Walthamstow in outer east London which is where I found today's moth.

Tarmac, high walls and not particularly interesting vegetation. But it was enough to attract this littles crap of a micro-mothwhich fluttered in front of the buggy as Penny and I took our granddaughter for an expedition. I think that it's a Light Brown Apple moth, Epiphyas postvittana, which first made it to Britain from its native Cornwall in 1936. It has never looked back and is now found in most of England and Wales, a lot of Scotland and a fair part of Ireland. Please let me know if you disagree.

Our own little one was satisfied with it, after previous encounters with ladybirds, flies and a centipede on the short walk from home. I didn't know about the Australian connection at the time but will tell her when we meet again tomorrow.

Birth day moths

My mind is more on our day-old grandson than the moths, but I put the trap out last night nonetheless, to see if anything memorable might come to mark his arrival in the world. My moths have a very good record in this regard; I remember in particular a fabulous Large Emerald arriving to mark our younger son's birthday ten years ago or so. It was the first I had ever seen.

Last night was not on that scale, but it was very nice to find the handsome Pale Pinion, above, asleep in the eggboxes along with five Hebrew Characters - first pic below - and a Small Quaker - last pic. The latter is as pretty as a newborn babe, even if its colouring is the usual modest assortment of browns and greys which we associate with the Quaker family of moths. Caramel-y, perhaps, if one is looking for an appropriate link to human Quakers and their fine reputation - Rowntree, Cadbury, Fry - for making chocolate.

Have you been April Fooled? I was. Yesterday, we set up a fine pair of plump partridges, one of which spent ages on our roof ridge making distraught calls for its friend. This morning, Penny told me that there was a parrot on our neighbours' birdfeeder. And I believed her.

Can I have a moth on my finger, please?

Almost a month has gone by since I last set the moth trap, but I couldn't resist the question which forms the headline to today's post. Penny and my little granddaughter came for Easter with her Mum and Dad and they were preceded by an email saying: "Emily is keen to see the moths." When they arrived, she duly popped the question.

The moths obliged, most winningly in the form of the Oak Beauty, above, which agreed to be transferred from my pudgy finger to Emily's delicate one before waking up and fluttering off, initially into a spider's web. Extricating it from this was a lesson in the effectiveness of the fibre's sticky, binding nature. I am not especially keen on spiders but their spinning is a marvel of the natural world, like the silk produced by moths for cocoons.



My retirement hobby of guerrilla knitting has made me extra interested in this subject, coupled with a Yorkshire background which has given me a lifelong interest in wool. I admit that I was bored almost to death and, so far as I can recall, actually to tears by a youthful, two-hour tour of the Wool Industry Research laboratories in Leeds. But I have enjoyed learning much since, including the close co-operation between Leeds University scientists on the trail of DNA in the 1930s and local hairdressers specialising in perms, a treatment which alters the DNA-related structure of hair (please forgive my amateur handling of scientific terms, but you can read more about this fascinating episode here).



Back to the moths. The eggboxes, and in due course Emily's finger, also played host to a Common Quaker, a Crambid micro moth which I must check out later and what I think is a Dark Chestnut, shown in order in today's pics.  Update: No, it's a Clouded Drab - very many thanks for speedy advice from Ben Sale in Comments. Further update: I have now checked on my supposed Crambid and realised that it's actually a macro - the March Moth, which has come at an appropriate time of the year, unlike some other species named after months (eg the August Thorn and December Moth) which have a habit of arriving early or late. The March Moth is one of a number of UK moths whose females are flightless and spend their lives scuttling up and down tree trunks. Let's hope that evolution eventually gets them a better deal.

Snugglepot and Cuddlepie

My Dad used to enjoy quoting the proverb: "March comes in like a roaring lion, and goes out like a little lamb." This year, March has come in like a rather damp lamb, but its mildness persuaded (a) me to put the trap out last night and (b) the moths to visit it.

The nicest was the male Pale Brindled Beauty, above, who would have been roaming our garden in search of the sadly flightless female of the species which scurries around on tree trunks when the weather is mild between January and March. Maybe his splendid antennae help in such searches, although scent is the great lure which female moths use to attract males.

Otherwise, the eggboxes contained a nine-strong meeting of Common Quakers, all of them oblivious to the Pale Brindled Beauty's worldly charms. Every single one was sound asleep in one of the many little crevices, nooks and cones which eggboxes provide. A slumbering assembly of Snugglepots and Cuddlepies. Remember them? If not, read more here.

Ten is a manageable number to photograph (and, I hope, examine), so here they all are:

This one is already damaged, though otherwise looking nice and new

Note the flexibility of moths' wings; a night folded like this will
 not affect their shape or effectiveness once the insect wakes up

Chilly and chilli

Hello again! I've been elsewhere for the best part of a month; not physically but in the sense of having my attention taken up by non-mothy things. This is not surprising because there are very few moths about. It's too cold.

I finally stirred myself to put out the trap last night because there was a crime drama on TV called The Moth Catcher which reminded me of moths, the blog, the universe and everything. I also went to the dentist today and misread the title of a magazine they have on their pile there. It's called 'Mouth' and you can no doubt guess my mistake.

The result of my brief return to trapping? Nix, which was not in the least surprising as it was very cold last night, Behold the iced-up collar of the trap in the top too pictures above. But the effort involved reminded me that on January 19 I did see a moth - although Penny spotted it first as is normal when moths venture into our house.

Particularly so, sexists may with some justification comment, as this one had sought out the corner of the loo where the loobrush lives, infamously not a part of the house where most men tread. I can claim honestly that I do (now; not for many previous years of my life, admittedly). But anyway Penny saw the moth first.

It's a Dotted Border, one of the few on the wing in the UK at this dark, dull and drab time of the year.  We've recently painted the loo in vivid Mexican-inspired colours which show nice and hotly in the pic above, hence my headline.  Digital camera position can completely reverse this, curiously, as in the picture below.

Meanwhile I'm glad to say that the main moth catcher in the TV play was innocent and basically nice, though the character who helped him was neither.

Shuffling off the mortal coil

The wintertime lethargy of this blog is interrupted again by Penny's discovery of a sad little prisoner inside one of those twirly light bulbs which we are encouraged to use these days as 'eco' products. Be the eco benefits as they may, the coils are not a good place for a moth to be; the result risks being a modern version of the ancient proverb which refers to moths and flames.

That's what it was in this case, although the victim has been well-preserved in all his or her delicate beauty. What is it? I do not know but am about to enquire of the experts on the Upper Thames Moths blog. it's perhaps a bit supine not to have a guess, though, and mine would be Crambus perlella, because of the long palps. Second choice,  Elachista argentella. Both are summer moths but I've no idea when it died.

Out of doors has at last gone icy and frosty, as it ought to do in winter, and both I and the trap are having a well-earned break.

Woolly moths

Happy New Year belatedly, and apologies for the sluggish pace of the blog at this eventful time of the year. Eventful in human terms that is: not merely the demands and excitements of Christmas and New Year celebrations, but the dutiful start on all sorts of time-consuming resolutions. I am struggling to get our family photo albums into the 1990s, for example. Goodness knows what we will do when we reach the digital era's cornucopia of pictures which started around the turn of the Millennium.

The moths are contrastingly quiet, although the rain and dark mornings have deterred me from putting out the trap for almost a week now. Today's offerings are therefore inanimate but I hope interesting. They certainly excited me when I opened them as a present from my younger sister and brother-in-law.

One of my other retirement interests is guerrilla knitting and this has made life easier for those seeking to get me Christmas or birthday presents (none ever turned away; my birthday is on 18 May). The said sister brilliantly combined the two with the knitted glowworm above - first lit up and then slumbering with its teeny battery exhausted; and the outstanding knitted moth card below.

This comes from a wondrous knitted products website called Max's World which you can enjoy here which specialises in moths and reproduces them with an accuracy which astonishes an apprentice yarnbomber such as myself. This moth is Tatargina picta, found in Thailand and points east, and I'm grateful to Thaibugs.com for the picture on the left below.

Moths and woolliness have a track record together; one of my favourite caterpillars as a child was the 'woolly bear', the classic undulating hairy beast like an elongated Chewbacca which, if you are lucky, turns into one of the Tiger moths. There is also the matter of the devastation to high quality knitwear and subsequent shame brought to the whole moth world by a couple of Tinea micro 'clothes moths' but we will draw a (synthetic) veil over that.

Final moth of the year

Ring out the old! And this year we can bid farewell to 2015 with an actual moth rather than reminiscences of past triumphs or disasters in the trapping field. There seemed to be nothing in the eggboxes when I picked them out one by one after shining the lamp throughout yet another of this December's exceptionally mild nights; but as I put them back again, I spotted this Pale Brindled Beauty asleep on a side panel (above).

On a different eggbox, wings more orderly

It is a lovely moth and this one is playing the calendar by the book - the Moth Bible suggests that although its official time on the wing is January to March, examples may sometimes be found in late December. Having said that, this year has notoriously rewritten the rules in terms of climate and you may recall that a startlingly battered Pale Brindled Beauty visited me on the night of December 7/8th. Nothing is surprising in current circumstances which have daffodils about to bloom in the garden and primroses, cowslips, roses and even geraniums all flowering happily away.

Safely back outside

I would normally put the trap away for a month or so now, but the weather and Nature's response are so intriguing that I plan to carry on for a while. Rain permitting. As you will doubtless have read and seen, the UK is suffering the misery of widespread flooding. We have been spared up to now, but it only needs the Atlantic storms to track a little further south for our defences to be out to the test.

Like compatriots further north, there is little we will be able to do if the rainfall is as far above average as they have experienced. But I do have confidence in one piece of protection. The deceptively simple rainshield on my Robinson Trap (famously designed by Mrs as well as Mr Robinson and I bet she was responsible for the shield, women being generally so practical) is extraordinarily efficient. The picture below shows how little water seeped into the trap after a night of steady rain last week.