Birds, Leps, Observations & Generalities - the images and ramblings of Mark Skevington. Sometimes.

Sunday 17 April 2011

First night of the proms

Ran the garden traps last night - still very low numbers though a few new for year which made it worthwhile. Before the lights were on, I had a first for the year Elachista rufocinerea flying around the garden.

Total catch 14 of 11sp.
(125W MV 6 of 4, 160W blended 8 of 8)
0483 Epermenia chaerophyllella 1 (NFY)
0688 Agonopterix heracliana 1
1524 Emmelina monodactyla 1
1746 Shoulder Stripe (Anticlea badiata) 1
1747 Streamer (Anticlea derivata) 1 (NFY)
1853 Oak-tree Pug (Eupithecia dodoneata) 1
2000 Iron Prominent (Notodonta dromedarius) 1 (NFY)
2003 Pebble Prominent (Notodonta ziczac) 1 (NFY)
2187 Common Quaker (Orthosia cerasi) 1
2188 Clouded Drab (Orthosia incerta) 1
2190 Hebrew Character (Orthosia gothica) 4




This afternoon I opted to stay local - couldn't face more assembling failure and wanted to poke around the undergrowth down the lane instead. I had my bins but they were used more for looking at hoverflies and stuff than birds. In fact the only bird of note during a good couple of hours pottering around was a smart singing Lesser Whitethroat. I hadn't heard it at all whilst walking outbound, but it was singing like mad on the way home and showed well a couple of times, albeit briefly.


Otherwise, I was very happy poking the camera at various things and then trying to ID them subsequently, like these:

This is a Pied Shieldbug (Tritomegas bicolor)

I think this is an Early Mining Bee (Andrena haemorrhoa)

This one is more tentative, but I think it is Pardosa lugubris

Haven't sussed out this wolf spider as yet Nursery Web Spider

I also had a poke around dowm the scrubby track that runs parallel with Springwell Lane and the A426 - this actually used to be the old A426 before it was beefed up to bypass Blaby.


A few butterflies about, including my first Speckled Wood of the year though I failed to get a shot of it. I also picked up a dayflying Incurvaria masculella, and a larva that I'm sure is a Clay.



It's clear and cool this evening - the traps are staying off.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mark, i think the unknown spider is Nursery web.
Cracking pics, as always.

Skev said...

Thanks Dean. You're right on the spider, right size etc - I hadn't realised how vaiable this species is.