Blue, blue and more blue

There are still four nights to go until the first anniversary of my first-ever Clifden Nonpreil which was the realisation of a wistful boyhood dream. In the last 11 nights, I have had SEVEN, with a pair sleeping quietly in the eggboxes this morning.  I have been publicising this extraordinary phenomenon locally and inviting neighbours to come and have a look, so I didn't get round to taking photographs until 9.30am instead of the usual 7am or so. On this lovely sunny days, the moths were getting warm and both took off - a most impressive sight - before I could persuade them to show the full extent of their lovely blue-banded underwings. 

Significantly, one of them (on the left in the top picture and the right in the second one) was a mint condition specimen, so hatching from chrysalises is almost certainly still going on and I have no doubt myself that the moth is breeding nearby.  I hope this situation is known about more widely and expertly; every time I report a Nonpareil to iRecord, I get the automatic 'Record Cleaner' email - not a challenge to authenticity but signalling that there are no records within ten kilometres.  So what? Well, it appears that anyone searching for Clifden Nonpareil records in Oxfordshire would not find them, nor others which have been on the Upper Thames Moths blog as part of this extraordinary phenomenon.  That would be a shame, and I am seeking reassurance that anyone researching the subject would find the full extent of the revival via other databases, including the UTM blog and this one. Otherwise we risk unneccessary further gloom over species decline - not to play that problem down, but the data needs to be comprehensive, so far as possible, and accurate.  Meanwhile, here is the fresh Nonpareil again, closer too but - sorry - without the blue. Other moths tomorrow.

Misty morning

The sun is up now and the mist burned off but it really was a Keatsian Autumn morning today. We get lovely Scots mist with being near a river and a canal. I remember Oxford from student days as a misty city, especially in the Michaelmas term.

My photographs and news are appropriately on the arty (possibly) side as the moths were standard fare albeit very beautiful as always. My weakness for Brimstones continues as you can see. I keep trying to find new ways of getting their delicate loveliness across.

Penny spotted the spider's web and I had an enjoyable time trying to get it into some sort of focus. I sometimes wonder about getting an actual camera but I doubt I will. The iPhone has its limitations and can produce some odd and unrealistic colours. But essentially, it's amazing.  Specially compared with my childhood Brownie 127, much as I loved that.  Now for some more moths; first, a couple of tortrix micro regulars,  a Light Brown Apple moth, Epiphyas postvittana, and a male Large Fruit-tree Tortrix, Archips podana, with a second picture of it for scale.

Next we have a fresh and fine-looking Rosy Rustic, followed by a Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing pretending with its damage-forked wing tails to be an Angle Shades. 

Then a common enough moth but one which I haven't seen in the trap for quite a while, a Shuttle-shape Dart, possibly a third generation specimen after this generally warm year. After that, the third, brownish form of the Lunar Underwing, then a Black Rustic which was actually almost invisible against the interior wall of the trap's black plastic bowl (the iPhone playing light tricks again), and then to add a brighter range of colours, an Orange Sallow and an August or September Thorn protected in its perch on my pea netting. Update: actually a Dusky Thorn - thanks as ever to Edward in Comments.

Finally, here's another everyday but beautifully coloured and patterned regular on the transparent cowl of the trap, a Common Marbled Carpet.

Showing it all

 

This thumbnail-sized visitor with his green eye fixed beadily on you has done me a service. The Gold Triangle micro, as its name implies, normally rests in a neat triangle with its wings folded back. Unusually, this one has decided to show its glorie in full. Known more cumbersomely as Hypsopygia costalis, it has the same colour scheme as the two Pyrausta micros, aurata and purpuralis - the latter the often-seen, day-flying Mint moth - but is not related. A curiosity of its behaviour is that, like a little cuckoo, its caterpillar which eats dead vegetation has been found living in squirrels' dreys.

Butterflies very occasionally spend a night in the moth trap and this morning I found this Red Admiral which roosted just long enough for one photograph and then, with that little click which you often hear as a butterfly takes wing, was soaring away.  Alongside it were 150 or so moths, among them this Lunar Underwing in the second, dark brown colourway, a handsome Black Rustic and an Angle Shades which preferred to sleep on the lawn nearby.

There were also lots of the various yellow underwings and - again very unusually as with the Gold Triangle - one of them was showing the reason for its name. I have combined it with one of my recent Clifden Nonpareils and the Red Underwing which came last week to create an image which I hope to flog to the media come the next election.

New guests for the year

The Summer-Autumn changeover in moths is in full swing, with four species new for the year but entirely expected as we reach mid-September. The first is the Black Rustic above, aka to me as the Darth Vader moth although its pristine white petticoats, just visible in the photo above, perhaps hint at  a more feminine side.

Then we have the Deep Brown Dart, a sturdy but unexciting moth, the Lunar Underwing of which there will be dozens to come in three separate colourways, and the Setaceous Hebrew Character, whose first name means 'bristly' which must refer to some discreet part of its otherwise rather soft-looking body.

Beyond the world of moths, Penny and I found this strategically-placed fly on the explanatory noticeboard at Godstow Priory, a picturesque ruin beside the Thames on the northern edge of Oxford, and a cheerful little grasshopper on our shed.

Oh and a nice little follow-up to yesterday's Hummingbird Hawk moth: I put the pictures on the village Facebook page and a local Mum said how pleased she was that they had been visited by one too, very shortly before her daughter headed off to university. In looking up the moth, they discovered its happy role in folklore which most unusually is also mentioned in the generally rather staid Moth Bible. The HH is one of very few entries to have an actual folklore section in the book, owing to the fact that its arrival is seen as a sign of good fortune in Mediterranean countries, a swarm crossed the Channel on D-Day (albeit in the opposite direction to the invasion fleet) and another called in on the garden of one of the authors on the day their daughter was born.  I hope that these omens work for our neighbour's daughter, in these challenging times.

Humming along

Penny and I were having tea in the greenhouse yesterday when a purposeful buzzing distracted us. It was followed soon afterwards by a large green and brown dragonfly zooming past our noses before darting up to the roof and trying vainly to escape.  No sooner was a complicated rescue with shoo-ing and shepherding accomplished than another, more agitated buzzing started up. 

"It's a hornet," I said, when we caught sight of the large and frustrated insect involved, making an assumption after recent visitors to the trap. Then it took off again and I realised with great delight that it was the last to arrive this year of my Regular Eight - hawkmoths that is.

The Hummingbird Hawk is not an unfamiliar sight at this time of the year and a moth which everyone has a chance of spotting because it flies by day and looks exactly like a small hummingbird, hovering over nectar-rich garden flowers as it sips with its extremely long proboscis. I first saw one as a schoolboy on holiday near Tenby and thought that it was almost impossibly exotic. I've grown used to them over the years but still get a thrill when the moment comes.

Yesterday was particularly good because I had to capture the moth in the end to ensure that it made a safe escape from what would have become a trap. When you see them outdoors, they never seem to rest. I have followed one round a garden on the Greek island of Paxos for ages, waiting in vain for it to stop flying so that I could get an unblurred photograph (though I was quite pleased with the one on the left). But the only time I've managed that was when Penny and I found a dead specimen - and that was in our greenhouse.

I didn't want this one to go the same way. And, as I followed it around the glass panes, I noticed that it was resting every now and then, presumably out of exhaustion from its vain attempts to get out. It was no surprise, therefore, when I finally persuaded it into a Tupperware box, that it settled quietly for the pictures above before finally whizzing off into freedom and the sunshine.

So my 2020 tally of hawks is complete: Poplar - much the most common, Large Elephant in second place, Eyed, Privet, Small Elephant, Pine, Lime and now the Hummingbird. How lucky we are in where we live. And there could be others to come. A friend's daughter found a Convolvulus Hawk two villages away, we famously went to see Death's Heads even nearer-by and this Summer Dave Wilton of the Upper Thames Moths blog was honoured by a visit from a Silver-striped. No one could be more deserving (apart perhaps for me).

The Hummingbird closer-to, showing the subtleties behind the initial impression of plain brown. The underwings are a soft, coral pink but I didn't chance my arm with trying to persuade the moth to show those. 

Here in conclusion is the dragonfly which started the whole excitement, I female Southern Hawker, I think.

Number four

The Clifden Nonpareil story is far from over this year; a fourth arrival surprised me this morning after a notably cold night which left my expectations of an interesting moth guest-list low. A fresher and less wingedge-damaged specimen than its three predecessors, it is an excellent sign that this wonderful moth is breeding here or nearby. Interestingly, when I was watching the trap in the dark the night before last, I saw what I am sure was a very large moth rather than a bat, flying almost at the top of our mature oak tree. So that may have been another. 

Big moths are often sluggish first thing in the morning, for example the various hawks which are consequently very easy to photograph. The Nonpareil shares this blessing. I spent a good ten minutes with it as it gradually warmed up, gently fluttering those great big wings.  In the end, I deposited it gently on a stone wall where its wing camouflage seemed most effective, against a pattern of lichen and old stone.  Here are some more pictures of a sight which always makes my day.

Another big moth is around at the moment but one which drew the short straw in terms of appearance. I found this Old Lady apparently expired in the road by the canal. But the warmth of my hand as I cradled it for a photo seemed to revive it and I left it quietly twitching its antennae and front legs on a flowerbed here at home.

The overall population of the trap was sparse last night and a couple of wine ropes which I put out experimentally (muslin steeped in a mixture of red wine and sugar) didn't have any customers (although they might have played a part in attracting the Nonpareil). But there were some interesting arrivals including my first Autumnal Rustic of the year, a seasonal harbinger as its name implies, and very smartly dressed in what looks like a military uniform.

Here's a Frosted Orange too, always a pleasure to see, a Willow Beauty on the trap cowl - quite a small one and I think second generation, and a Whitepoint.

Away from moths, the natural world also dished up this scary-looking wasp found by Penny (the Ace Indoor Insect Spotter) on our sitting room carpet, a dragonfly which I hope to ID later and what I think are snail or slug eggs: