Mullein things over

The garden trap has been out over the last three nights; I nearly didn't bother as it's been a bit cool and breezy overnight but whilst numbers have not been great I did pull in a couple of these ....

Mullein

I had one on Tuesday night, which by the time I'd finished photographing it and it had been in and out of the pot/fridge a couple of times had slight damage to the left forewing tip. So another one following on last night that was fresh as a daisy and fully intact was clearly another individual. Which is great, seeing as the last garden record was way back in May 2005. Actually I've never seen an adult anywhere aside from my garden, all other records I have are larval.

A few other bits but nothing too exciting. I'll be trying pheromone lures over the BH weekend hopefully.

Waved Umber

Spruce Carpet sl

It is very probably a Spruce Carpet on markings, but there are strong suggestions that antennal characteristics of males need to be checked to reliably separate Spruce and Grey Pine Carpets so I will start checking the odd ones I get. Except this one was female.

I had a quick search for a suitable link to some music, as nothing came immediately to mind apart from 'Mull of Kintyre' that was never going to happen. I found an album called All The Right Doors by The Mullins. Never heard of them, and had a quick play .... a load of Christian nonsense that made McCartney seem viable. So here's a much more tenuous link ....

 

 Of course Larry Mullen Jr is the U2 drummer ....

Tineid Tick

Back in early April I had a quick squint at the Hart's-tongue Fern in the garden that I planted last year, and I found larval cases. Though I wasn't entirely sure, I thought they must be one of the Psychoides spp. and assumed it would be P. filicivora as I've seen that in the garden literally a couple of weeks or so after planting the fern and also quite a few years ago. I bunged a couple of leaves in a pot to see what might happen. What did happen was that I noticed that one of the cases appeared to be moving about. I thought I was going mad and assumed that I'd just forgotten whereabouts on the leaf the case was last time I looked. Not really much evidence of feeding, and I never saw a larva. Eventually the leaves died up and I assumed that nothing would come from them.

Well, this evening I found a freshly emerged Psychoides in the pot. And immediately noticed that it lacked any tornal spot or purple sheen .....

Psychoides verhuella - a right bugger to photograph due to the reflective scales when fresh

Psychoides verhuella - pupal exuvia and case

So after the disappointment of the Dahlica case, this is a real winner as it's a British tick for me - and nice that it's another garden breeding record.

A slight surprise in last night's garden trap was the earliest garden record of Heart and Dart, though not a lot else in it.

Waved Umber

Heart and Dart

From the garden trap - Choccy

Had a few nice garden-trap moths over the last couple of nights, nothing new or particularly exciting but just nice to see in the garden again. The main one being ......

Chocolate-tip, only the fifth garden record, first since 2009

Waved Umber, just about annual since 2010

Why are these nearly always tattered and torn!?

More standard fare included ...

Shuttle-shaped Dart

Spectacle - couldn't decide which shot so have two

MOTHS! ... and a very smart bug

Yesterday evening I took a brief opportunity to nip ot onto the patch. Jubilee Park was remarkably dry and drained considering the recent floodwaters there, but birdwise it was pretty quiet apart from a loafing/preening Little Egret by the pool. I had a bit of a look for inverts but nothing really grabbed my attention. I then headed over to the Gutlaxton Trail with the intention of having a quick squint before having to pick up Alex from Cubs. No idea what prompted it, but as I got out of the car I noticed that a very short cut-through walkway between some industrial units and the main road was bathed in sunshine and looked very weedy. I decided to have a look there and quickly found three of these beauties ...

Corizus hyoscyami

This is, at least for the moment, still scarce in VC55 with no records prior to 2010. Mine is just the fifth record from a fourth site - and a nice tick for me to boot.

I put both garden traps out last night and I fully expected to improve on recent catches. A year-first Twenty-plume Moth before dark was a good omen. I guess it depends on what you are using as a reference: compared to typical mid-May garden catches it was pretty poor, but compared to recent events it was awsome! Needless to say most of the catch was new for the year.

Total catch 16 of 8sp.
(125W MV 8 of 5sp., 22W/18W Synergetic/CFL combo 8 of 6sp.)

0409a  Argyresthia trifasciata  1 (NFY)
0608  Elachista rufocinerea  1
0998  Light Brown Apple Moth (Epiphyas postvittana)  2
1776  Green Carpet (Colostygia pectinataria)  4 (NFY)
1817  Foxglove Pug (Eupithecia pulchellata)  1 (NFY)
1834  Common Pug (Eupithecia vulgata)  3 (NFY)
1906  Brimstone Moth (Opisthograptis luteolata)  1
1936  Waved Umber (Menophra abruptaria)  2 (NFY)
2078  Least Black Arches (Nola confusalis)  1 (NFY)

Foxglove Pug

Waved Umber

Common Pug

Least Black Arches

The traps will be out again tonight ........

From the garden trap, 14/05/2010

Another generally cool night after a reasonably warm day. Again the traps were not exactly bulging, but again more new species for the year. However the oddest part of the catch was four pristinely fresh Clouded Drabs, all in the actinic - what's that all about?

Total catch 16 of 11sp. (125W MV 6 of 5, 80W actinic 10 of 6). Note that both traps held completely different species.

0648 White-shouldered House Moth (Endrosis sarcitrella) 1
1747 Streamer (Anticlea derivata) 1 [first for year]
1834 Common Pug (Eupithecia vulgata) 1
1936 Waved Umber (Menophra abruptaria) 1
1997 Sallow Kitten (Furcula furcula) 1 [first for year]
2006 Lesser Swallow Prominent (Pheosia gnoma) 1 [first for year]
2028 Pale Tussock (Calliteara pudibunda) 2 [first for year]
2078 Least Black Arches (Nola confusalis) 1
2092 Shuttle-shaped Dart (Agrotis puta) 2
2188 Clouded Drab (Orthosia incerta) 4
2243 Early Grey (Xylocampa areola) 1

Streamer

Lesser Swallow Prominent

Sallow Kitten

Waved Umber

Pale Tussock

The garden yearlist now stands at 62 species, whilst the overall yearlist is now at 100. Tonight we are spreading ourselves with traps across 2 or 3 of the East Leicestershire woodlands - so hopefully that will bring a few more species.

We've also been out to Huncote Embankent today, but I'm going to have to leave that until tomorrow to write about - need to get my traps sorted etc now.

From the garden trap, 04/05/2010

Yesterday was a relatively cool day, with temps only reaching the early teens at best, however by 20:00 it had fully clouded over and was feeling relatively mild for the evening. Even better, the wind had dropped but the forecast for the night was low temps and rain moving in. I thought I was being extremely optimistic, but I decided to get the traps on for the first time since last Wednesday and see what came in.

With low expectations, I went out to have a look at c23:00 and immediately noted a (presumed Pipestrelle) bat hawking over the garden in repetitive circular swoops. Checking the traps I found a nice Lime Hawk on the side of the MV, and a May Highflyer on the side of the actinic along with a flurry of pugs. Emptying the traps this morning in nice sunshine, with no sign of any rain, was therefore a much better experience than I imagined when I put the traps on.

Total catch was 26 of 18sp (125W MV 12 of 11, 80W actinic 14 of 10)

0483 Epermenia chaerophyllella 1
0648 White-shouldered House Moth (Endrosis sarcitrella) 1 [first for year]
0822 Scrobipalpa acuminatella 1
1524 Emmelina monodactyla 1
1728 Garden Carpet (Xanthorhoe fluctuata) 1
1778 May Highflyer (Hydriomena impluviata) 1 [first for year]
1853 Oak-tree Pug (Eupithecia dodoneata) 3
1862 Double-striped Pug (Gymnoscelis rufifasciata) 1
1906 Brimstone Moth (Opisthograptis luteolata) 1 [first for year]
1920 Scalloped Hazel (Odontopera bidentata) 1 [first for year]
1936 Waved Umber (Menophra abruptaria) 1 [first for year]
1979 Lime Hawk-moth (Mimas tiliae) 1 [first for year]
2007 Swallow Prominent (Pheosia tremula) 1 [first for year]
2092 Shuttle-shaped Dart (Agrotis puta) 4 [first for year]
2186 Powdered Quaker (Orthosia gracilis) 1
2188 Clouded Drab (Orthosia incerta) 2
2190 Hebrew Character (Orthosia gothica) 1
2243 Early Grey (Xylocampa areola) 3

In addition to this, I potted a couple of male pugs that need their abdominal plates checking - possibly Golden-rod, and also a tiny speck of nothing Stigmella sp. - with only a 4mm wingspan and numerous similar species I have low expectations of sorting that one!

Here's a few shots taken in appalling indoor lighting after taking too long over a couple of post-work pints on the way home.

Waved Umber

Swallow Prominent

May Highflyer

Lime Hawk-moth

The conditions are similar tonight so they're out again, though I think the rain is more of a certainty.

This time tomorrow we may well know who is PM for the next five - probably one that is completely out of touch with public opinion and devoid of ideas. Nothing changes does it!?

Ketton Quarry, 27/05/2009

The weather forecast on Tuesday was suggesting that Wednesday night would be wet. By Wednesday morning, the forecast was that showers would die out, the wind would drop and it would stay overcast and cloudy all night with minimum temperatures of c13°C. Superb conditions for mothing. I joined up with Adrian Russell and we headed off to Ketton Quarry to get a few hours of light trapping in. As it turned out, the conditions were pretty much ideal until just as we started to pack up when a very light drizzle started - nothing too heavy and no problem. Despite the conditions, the results were a little mixed with a number of common and expected species failing to appear - eg only hawk-moth was Elephant, only prominent was Swallow. However overall the results were damned good with some excellent highlights. We ran 1 x 125W light over a sheet, and 3 x 125W MV traps around the compartments from 21:30 - 01:00. Actually, we ran four traps but a technical glitch with the dictaphone tape meant that the results from one were lost. Additionally one of the traps was nicknamed the 'feeble trap' as for some reason the light output was only half of what it should be - either a choke or gennie problem. The total catch was 411 of 89sp. There is an additional Agrotis sp. (female Heart and Club or Turnip?), plus we recorded c5 small Mullein larvae on, er Mullein! Main highlights: Incurvaria oehlmanniella 2 Bucculatrix albedinella 1 Bucculatrix nigricomella 2 Phtheochroa rugosana 1 Cochylimorpha straminea 2 Cochylis hybridella 1 Euleioptilus carphodactyla 1 Satin Wave (Idaea subsericeata) 1 The Tissue (Triphosa dubitata) 1 Satyr Pug (Eupithecia satyrata) 2 Grass Wave (Perconia strigillaria) 26 Orange Footman (Eilema sororcula) 1 Light Brocade (Lacanobia w-latinum) 3 Treble Lines (Charanyca trigrammica) 14 Marbled White Spot (Protodeltote pygarga) 16 Other highest counts: Common Swift (Hepialus lupulinus) 43 Green Carpet (Colostygia pectinataria) 31 Clouded Silver (Lomographa temerata) 26 Rustic Shoulder-knot (Apamea sordens) 23 Broken-barred Carpet (Electrophaes corylata) 14 Flame Shoulder (Ochropleura plecta) 14 Epiblema trimaculana 11 Satyr Pug - only the fifth modern record for VC55 (2 in 2003, 2 in 2006) Grass Wave - Ketton Quarry is pretty much the only site for this species in VC55 Satin Wave - scarce in VC55 Marbled White Spot - good numbers Euleioptilus carphodactyla - a tiny plume Ptheochroa rugosana - one of my favourite torts Waved Umber Purple Bar