I ran the garden trap on Monday night, not with any great expectations as the predicted minimum temps were very low but it did look like it would take until gone midnight before they completely dropped off. The trap looked pretty bare when I checked just before heading off to bed, so I was surprised with a total of 31 of 9sp, in the morning. However the only highlight, and by far and away the best moth of the year for me so far, was a NFG Blossom Underwing. Completely unexpected for the garden so all the sweeter. It happened to be the very last moth I looked at, tucked up under the lip of the backside of the trap, but as I teased it out I could see the pale hindwing shining and knew what it was. Not the best marked specimen, it is pretty subtle this one, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to mistake it in the flesh - v. slightly smaller than typical Common Quaker which it doesn't really look like at all, but noticeable larger than typical Small Quaker which I guess you could overlook it for if unwary.
Blossom Underwing 31/03/2024
Otherwise I've had more successful overwintered Phyllonorycter mines in the last couple of days ....
Phyllonorycter cerascicolella - ex-mines on Cherry from Fosse Meadows 23/10/2024
Phyllonorycter nicellii - ex-mines on Hazel from Fosse Meadows 23/10/2024
Phyllonorycter sorbi - ex-mines on Rowan from Bradgate Park 22/10/2024
Phyllonorycter esperella - ex-mines on Hornbeam from Burbage Common 14/09/2024
I could post something by The Blossoms, but I don't like them.
Stuck the garden trap out last night, first time in a few days as it's been pretty chilly overnight. But even then it was decidedly nippy when I had a quick check at around midnight. Not too much to get excited about this morning, Early Grey NFY, nice to see another Twin-spotted Quaker, a nice cloudy Clouded Drab and a couple of Small Quakers [I like Small Quakers].
Clouded Drab
Twin-spotted Quaker
Small Quaker
Small Quaker
Brindled Beauty
Early Grey
Diurnea fagella
There was also a Caloptilia sp. which I feel sure will turn into C. falconipennella when it is checked out properly.
Back in October, I kept hold of a good few tenanted mines to try and rear. Rearing anything overwinter is tricky, and although I have successfully reared quite a few leaf miners these have all been early broods or species that overwinter as adults. Keeping mines over winter needs them to be in pretty natural conditions outdoors. I picked up a tip from Bluesky about using fine mesh net bags, the sort of thing that may be used for fruit/veg. A quick look on Amazon and I found some suitable bags - albeit in a fluorescent green ....
I transferred all of the mined leaves from the tubs I usually keep them in to the bags, labelled up and promptly hung them low underneath a big trug at the bag of the garden. Here they were maybe 8" off of the ground, protected from rain and snow but in now way protected from cold and wind. Fingers crossed, and there they stayed until last weekend. There was no sign of life in any of them at that point - aside from one or two barkflies that must have been on the leaves in the first place. I brought them indoors on Sunday and they've been in the office away from the radiator though obviously warming up more than they would in the garden.
Today I've had the first successes. x3 Phyllonorycter sp. have emerged from a bag that I'd labelled as Malus? from Fosse Meadows on 23/10/2024. This is because those leaves were collected from the ground next to a naked twiggy small tree that I had no clue what it was, but the leaves looked about right for apple despite being yellowy/brown. These all had 'green island' early Phyllonorycter mines. The emerged moths are all pretty much the same and look right for Phyllonorycter blancardella - TBC via gen det as P. hostis cannot be reliably separated by the mine or adult.
Almost certainly Phyllonorycter blancardella
The other success was slightly more exciting and certainly a bit smarter looking, from Grey Alder and also from Fosse Meadows on 23/10/2024.
Phyllonorycter strigulatella
I'm hopeful of more emergences in the next week or so.
This is about emergency, which is only only letter different ....
With time off of work, time on my hands and disposable income to dispose of, I've managed to be moderately productive of late playing with my virtual synths, drum machines, effects and noise generators. But I've also acquired some cheap but powerful hardware synths, all made by Behringer who produce faithfully sounding reproduction versions of older synths with modern additions (eg USB midi, some additional modulation options etc) along with unique new gear. I've bought three, all relatively inexpensive. The MS-1 (mine is red) is a clone of the first synth I owned - the Roland SH-101. I followed that with an orange Crave, another analog monophonic synth but semi-modular with CV patching. It is broadly based on the Moog Mother-32 but with unique features - it sounds massively fat for such a small box. The latest acquisition is a Pro VS-Mini, which really is tiny. It's a five-voice polyphonic vector synth based on the Sequential Circuits Pro-VS synth.
I've managed to easily midi connect and record all three for parts of recent tracks using FL Studio via a Minifuse 2 audio interface from Arturia.
I've uploaded a few new and remixed/remastered tracks to YouTube and will update my 'Tunes' page on here with links to all of them at some point, but here's a few.
Weather had been cold and crap all week so nothing new to write about. But in the vain hope of trying to maintain some blogging momentum of sorts, here's a few randomly selected leaf mines from last autumn. I was quite pleased with capturing photos using the LED light pad I have to backlight the mines, and creating two or three photo collages to show the overall mine habitus and details of the mine and/or larva. I did loads of these (see my Bluesky feed), this selection is just because they are still on my desktop rather than neatly filed away ....
Not a moth, this one is coleopteran - Rhamphus oxyacanthae
Last night, for the first time in well over a year thanks to [lack of] health etc, I ventured out with traps into woodland. I headed to Gisborne's Gorse, what is essentially mixed woodland within the Charnwood Lodge LRWT reserve. It's not 'real' woodland though, it was created in the late 19th century and part of it is more like a large-scale landscaped garden (there are a couple of old houses within the planted area). With such a long hiatus, it meant it was also the first time my 'new' car has been loaded up with traps. I've had it [Cupra Born EV] since Jan 2024, and the x3 traps, gennie and cable reels easily fitted in though I had folded the seats down just in case.
I had no great expectations for the night, although I had a couple of hoped-for species. I was only intending to run the traps for three hours or so - no point going overboard so early in the season.
And so it was that I lit up around 18:15, and ran the traps until packing the last one around 21:45. There were still moths coming in to the traps and it was still c7°C at that time, but I wasn't seeing any increasing diversity. I'm sure if I'd run for longer I would have had more Noctuids and maybe one or two more species, but the eventual total was 204 of 18sp. which is pretty fair for this early in March.
The couple of hoped-for species were Spring Usher which I'd not seen since 2012, and Yellow Horned that I'd not seen since 2013. Mottled Grey was also on the radar, though I was sure I was too early for that. No sign of any Spring Usher to the traps though, quite possibly too late this year. But Yellow Horned was bang on, I ended up with x51 of them and all box-fresh. Other highest counts were x42 March Moth and x36 Oak Beauty.
Given the abundance of fallen and felled wood alongside the track, I opted to photograph a few whilst out using the ever-reliable TG-6 and light guide. Smaller micros came home though, including a couple for dissection.
Yellow Horned
Engrailed
Satellite
Tortricodes alternella
Oak Beauty
March Moth
Pale Brindled Beauty
Brindled Pug
The only surprise as such was not the species, but the context. This female Dotted Border was sat on top of one of the traps basking in the glow of the light. The trap was not directly underneath the canopy, so the only way it could be there would be being 'flown in' whilst in-cop with a male or simply walking towards the light and crawling up. Given I only saw one male Dotted Border, and that it was in a different trap, the latter explanation seems more likely but of course it's a guess.
Dotted Border
Not too many micros aside from several T. alternella.
Ypsolopha ustella
Agonopterix ocellana
Acleris ferrugana/notana [dissection pending]
In compiling this post, I've reminded myself what an absolute pain in the arse it is to keep editing image sizes etc on Blogger. I think I'd realised this before and stuck to uploading at 'view size' only, but Bluesky seems to screw images up that are not already sized up. So going forward, it's going to be quicker and less of a pfaff to just save the images in two sizes. It will mean that anything on here will revert to what you see is what you get - no bigger image when you click on one.
I imagine one or two read the blog title and were delighted horrified that I might include a Coldplay track. Fear not.
