Tawny Out

Yesterday was my second chemo IV session. It took 7 hours or so, including waiting time and a reduced rate/increased time administering of the cytotoxic chemical. My left arm was no less painful, and I've only started to get the use of it back this morning. PICC line being planned for the remaining x6 sessions which will alleviate this arm numbing discomfort.

As it took so long, it was properly dark and around 7:15pm as I left the building to be picked up. Just as I was between the building and car park I could hear a Tawny Owl calling, apparently from the roof of the building I'd just left. I looked around but saw nothing whilst the calls continued. The calls then seemed to drift off south-east of where I was. And where I was was here, just c100meters north of my 5MR area boundary. Still, even if the bird was in it, or flew into it, I was out of it.

That stadium is where the Tigers chase the wrong-shaped ball. Badly in recent seasons.

On the face of it, a built up hospital on the outskirts of the City is not the place for a Tawny Owl, but pulling back on the zoom shows a few places it could roost and feed ....

Left - right: Nelson Mandela Park, Welford Cemetery, Victoria Park

Actually it was good to realise that a decent chunk of the cemetery and the best birding bit of Victoria Park are in the 5MR area.

Later this afternoon, after trying my best to get some work done one-handed before gradually getting both arms back, I had a half hour potter on the front garden. I couldn't last much longer, as the chemo I'm on also makes you sensitive to cold for a few days. Even though it was mild and I had gloves on the tingling sensation increased and the inside of my nose was stinging.

I found a couple of Psychidae cases on the front garden wall - which I've not found on here before. I think one has to be Narycia duplicella, certainly the most likely species though it doesn't look quite right and actually looks a bit like a Dahlica sp. so I I'll try and pot it up to check/rear. The other was probably Luffia lapidella f. ferchaultella, but it was clearly a damaged or old case. So neither added to the list as yet.

I also remembered that I'd noticed a Vapourer egg batch earlier in Jan but forgot to snap and add. Actually today I found four more. As this species overwinters as the egg, and most of these look intact, it should be okay to add to the list.

A number of lichens that I haven't ever tried to sort out are on that wall, I've snapped some to ponder over for another day. I expect all are common and being on walls and mortar limits the candidates.

Having found one on the window ledge, I found a number of globular Dicyrtomina saundersi today on the underside of stones - never seen them in the garden before this week, which is either down to not looking hard enough or they have genuinely moved in recently.

I also snapped an Orchesella cincta that was on the wall ....

Nothing else identifiable, and it was probably a few hours too late in the day - I'll have another look around earlier tomorrow.

This small spider appeared to be carting a parasitic wasp larvae around ....

.... and there were a couple of Dipterans that would need properly keying and checking.

A Chironomid, quite possibly Chironomus plumosus.

And I believe one of the Mycetophilidae 'Fungus Gnats', possibly a Dynatosoma sp. I did try to pot this but it evaded the cack-handed effort.

Here's some proper nostalgic breakbeat stuff from before the enforced name change ....

Brown-tail On the List ....

.... tra - la la - la la

Ha, bet you can't stop singing that now. Anyways, bleary eyed early this morning I had enough wits about me to give this a second glance and bung it in a pot for later .....

Smallish, very fluffy thorax, no black mark at tornus .... must be a Brown-tail? ....

Checking it properly early this evening after work, and yes - it is. New for the garden list too.

The trap has been quite busy the last couple of nights, though apart from the above nothing unexpected. Heart and Club is now annual, Coronet has quickly become common, micros relatively thin on the ground though. Tonight likely to be good too, then I expect tomorrow will be more thunderous downpours. I'm hoping to get out at the weekend though, one day or the other - I have local targets in mind.

Marbled Beauty

Beautiful Hook-tip

Minor agg. - a nice looking individual I reckon

Heart and Club

Crambus perlella

Double Square-spot

Vapourer

Larval Life / Butterfly Bush

Blogging on here has been sporadic at best this year. Oh, you noticed? It's not that I've done nothing or have nothing to say, more that I've been more active on other forums (Facebook since a PSL group was set-up), and Twitter as that was the forum of choice for the Foot-it challenge in January). I've also been posting updates and photos on the 1000k and Garden Moth Challenge blogs. I haven't been uploading anything to my Flickr photostream, though that's just down to time.

I don't want this blog to continue to fester in the background though, and gradually as the 2013 challenges start to wane I'll be posting on here more frequently. Probably not much point trying to catch up anything, though I do now have a lot of stuff for rainy days etc.

So recent topical stuff seems appropriate, and I'll start with some larval life. Over the years I've found and reared a fair number of moth species, some with ease and success and a few with bad outcomes (anything that needs to be overwintered is usually a bad idea in particular). I'm always pleased then when I find a larva that I've not seen before, and often they'll be common species. I found this one earlier in the week ..

It was openly resting on bramble, and the head capsule looked a bit odd so I presume it was dormant pending an instar change. It wasn't familiar at all, so I brought it home to ID and rear through to final instar. I eventually sussed out that it was a Peach Blossom, probably c3rd instar. After a day or so it did change and ID was certain.

Peach Blossom

Another species I'm seeing a lot at the moment is Grey Dagger, like this final instar that I found on 9th August. This is one that I instantly recognise in later instars.

Grey Dagger

I found a very small 1st instar larva on my garden Silver Birch at the start of August and bought in to rear. It must be the slowest growing larva I've ever kept, and it is still very small. I wasn't sure what it was initially but I am now increasingly sure it is also destined to be a Grey Dagger.

Almost certainly Grey Dagger

The final larva is one that I do recognise in all instars, and again I found it as an early instar on my garden birch. It's another ubiquitous species that is commonly found in the larval stage.

Vapourer

The last couple of weeks has brought a big increase in the numbers of butterflies locally, and later broods of Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell in particular seem to be abundan. Also a fair few Commas, and still plenty of Large Whites knocking about.

Garden buddleias are massively attractive to butterflies as everyone knows. We have a huge buddleia in our garden ..... actually, it is not in our garden but just fully overhangs and the trunk is next door. No idea what type of buddleia this is though; the flower spikes are yellow and the florets are in sort of balls. Whatever it is, it is very busy at the moment on warm sunny days with butterflies, bees and hoverflies.

We also have a more standard buddleia in our garden, but it is completely crap. I don't know why but it remains stunted and has no vigor, and yet this plant seems to be able to grow and flourish on the most bleak and infertile wasteland without any problem. The few flowers it does have are still effective though.

Given the upturn in numbers, and the presence of buddleia, I am surprised that both Painted Lady and Red Admiral have not turned up yet ths year. Also no Gatekeeper as yet. The only surprise was this Common Blue on my crappy plant, though sadly too brief to get a good photo in the breeze as it scarpered almost immediately after I grabbed this pants photo.

Larval Life

A quick nose around in the garden this evening revealed a few larvae - like these:

Lacewing sp. - camouflaged in fragments of aphid skins etc

Early instar Yellow-tail

Early instar Vapourer

Blotch mine on silver birch - haven't worked it out yet

More Garden Moths & Larval Life

Didn't get a chance to post the stuff yesterday, busy in the day and out having a few beers in the evening. So, this is all a day or two late, but with no trapping last night and nothing doing today it's all I have to share anyway!

First, let's get Firday nights garden trapping out of the way. I fully expected rain to be moving in through the night so I had no great expectations for the catch. As it turned out, the rain didn't appear until later in the morning so I managed to empty dry traps. Total catch was 58 of 22 sp (125W MV 37 of 19, 80W actinic 21 of 10).

0017 Common Swift (Hepialus lupulinus) 1 [first for year]
0409a Argyresthia trifasciata 6
0648 White-shouldered House Moth (Endrosis sarcitrella) 1
0998 Light Brown Apple Moth (Epiphyas postvittana) 3
1376 Small Magpie (Eurrhypara hortulata) 1
1727 Silver-ground Carpet (Xanthorhoe montanata) 1
1764 Common Marbled Carpet (Chloroclysta truncata) 5
1773 Broken-barred Carpet (Electrophaes corylata) 1 [first for year]
1776 Green Carpet (Colostygia pectinataria) 3
1819 Mottled Pug (Eupithecia exiguata) 6
1834 Common Pug (Eupithecia vulgata) 8
1835 White-spotted Pug (Eupithecia tripunctaria) 1
1887 Clouded Border (Lomaspilis marginata) 1 [first for year]
1906 Brimstone Moth (Opisthograptis luteolata) 4
1958 Clouded Silver (Lomographa temerata) 3
2063 Muslin Moth (Diaphora mendica) 1
2089 Heart and Dart (Agrotis exclamationis) 5
2092 Shuttle-shaped Dart (Agrotis puta) 3
2102 Flame Shoulder (Ochropleura plecta) 1
2199 Common Wainscot (Mythimna pallens) 1 [first for year]
2334 Rustic Shoulder-knot (Apamea sordens) 1
2441 Silver Y (Autographa gamma) 1 [first for year]

Common Swift

Common Wainscot

Common Marbled Carpet

- a slightly asymmetric individual that doesn't appear to be wear-related

Broken-barred Carpet

Also in the trap was this bloody big stupid Cockchafer - I still don't like these!

Moving on, I had a couple of walk along the lane on Thursday evening and Friday afternoon, mainly to collect more sallow to feed the greedy Emperor cats but also to have a swish with the net. Not a lot to write about on the flying moths front, with the only real interest being plenty of Cock's-foot Moths and an Acrolepia autumnitella. Of more interest was the larval life.

I found a number of interesting Coleophorid cases feeding on the underside of elm leaves, with a very clear serrated keel to the case from the edge of an elm leaf. I'd convinced myself they must be Coleophora limosipennella which feeds on elm (and would be new to VC55), but a posting to UK Micros soon put me right thanks to John Langmaid. I'd neglected to check if the cases were bi-valved or tri-valved. As they are tri-valved, and on the small side at 6-7mm, they can't be limosipennella and are more likely to be extreme examples of Coleophora serratella (which has a paler case when feeding on elm). This makes sense as I also found a couple of more typical serratella type cases positioned on the upper surfaces and which after collection are not feeding (so presumably pupated on the elm but not fed on it).

Presumed Coleophora serratella - pronounced serrated keel

Presumed Coleophora serratella - typical keel

Tri-valved case (basically they are the flaps that the caterpillar pokes it's back end out of to pass frass)

I found this wacky looking sawfly larva on oak - I think it's Periclista lineolata?

I also found a couple of micro (tortrix?) larvae on white clover - one in a leaf spinning and one on a flower bud. No idea what they could be as yet.

Other larvae I have in my increasing number of rearing boxes are:

An early instar Vapourer caterpillar that I found when it was absolutely tiny on sallow I collected back on 20/05/2010. Note the shed skin left on the leaf.

A Copper Underwing on the hawthorn I collected back on 11/05/2010 (which I thought may be Sprawler when very small - much more obviously patterned/shaped now).

A Red-line Quaker that I found on the sallow overhanging my garden fence on Friday night.

The garden traps are going back out tonight, and whilst not the best conditions with a very stong breeze I'll be out trapping at Watermead CP South as part of a Bio-Blitz event.