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

Saturday 26 March 2022

Oaky

Apologies in advance for yet another update on pheromone luring around oaks for Pammene giganteana. Pretty much every day this week, I've nipped to a spot somewhere on the way home from work and added dots to the map. I also headed out for an hour earlier today a bit further east in the next hectad. With these records, and the couple from last year, I've recorded this now in 13 tetrads. My success rate with the lure is around 87% - and where I've not been successful I think that conditions and/or time of day are factors.


In the following maps, the bright green dots are 2022 sites and the blue dots are the two 2021 sites.

SK50

SP59

SP69

I know that Graham Calow has been recording this in SP49 (as well as the four squares in SP59 around Frolesworth and Leire), and I think Adrian Russell will have added some dots to the east of Leicester.


It still seems amazing how the perceived status of this species prior to the use of pheromones was so completely wrong. Very few records to light, and no casual daytime records. There are similarly 'rare' species that may prove to be similarly common later this year. We added Pammene suspectana to the VC55 list last year, but there were no widespread efforts made to record it and I am certain it will be common. Pammene splendidulana, Pammene albuginana and perhaps Pammene ignorata and Pammene obscurana could all go the same way. Pammene argyrana may also prove to be more common and widespread than existing light trapping records suggest.

Oaks in open damp grassland at Everard's Meadows

Oaks in hedgerow along a rural lane near to Ashby Magna

Large oak at entrance to Kilby Lodge Farm

Small oak on roadside near new housing build at Lubbesthorpe

The next oak is from the garden trap last night ....

Oak Beauty

Meanwhile, with no link to this post whatsoever, I'm very much enjoying the new album from Feeder.

Tuesday 22 March 2022

PG Tick

On Sunday afternoon, whilst I was out at the KP watching LCFC win, I speculatively left the MOL pheromone lure in the trap out in the garden. I put it out at 13:00, literally just before I got in the car and headed off to the game.

Here's a very sketchy map: the blue dot is home, the green dots are definite oaks that I know of that are closest to home, and the orange dots are a large tree that I think is oak (I can't get close to it and I've never bothered trying to look at it to see, but looks like it 'naked' from the lane) and an area on Whetstone Golf Course that I think has oaks (again to be checked). The green dots to the SW of home are those at Victory Park (see last post). There are almost certainly more oaks within this image than I can recall. Either way, as you can see there are oaks dotted about reasonably close to home (within 1km) but it is not exactly abundant.


I had no expectations, but with good sunshine, a bit of warmth and a light breeze it was as good a time to try an any. I got home at 16:30 and headed straight to the garden to check the trap. Well, blow me. x2 Pammene giganteana were within it. I am 100% certain that these are completely unrelated to the use of the trap on Saturday: the one I took to photograph was still in the fridge, and had there been any inadvertently taken into the car they would have been buzzing around the trap on the passenger seat for sure. It's perhaps not an entirely unexpected garden tick, as there are plenty of similar experiences being posted on the 'Pheromone' Facebook group of garden records. This was considered a rare moth in VC55 before last spring, but it is clearly quite common - just inconspicuous and perhaps poorly attracted to light traps.



post-script: whilst I was writing this I'd left out my new ARG lure (intended for Pammene argyrana) in the garden for the last hour of daylight. I checked just after posting - another x2 Pammene giganteana, so they're clearly not coming from too far away!

x2 from this evening on left, x2 from Sunday afternoon on right

Sunday 20 March 2022

PG Dots

I had to nip into work yesterday late morning, so whilst out I briefly stopped off at some of the large open parks that are local to my workplace and home with the MOL pheromone lure. This lure is specifically intended for Grapholita molesta (an orchard pest and non-native non-naturalised species that is not likely to be here, not yet anyway) but like many of the lure it has turned out to be very useful for attracting other species within the Tortricidae. This one is excellent for Pammene giganteana as I saw last year, albeit a bit later into the flight period.

Conditions were certainly not perfect, as although very sunny and reasonably warm the wind was absolutely blasting in persistent gusts. Nevertheless, I tried at four locations and within a few minutes at each I'd added four dots to the VC55 map which I expect will be filling out quite widely over the next year or so.


All four locations are open parkland with large oaks, but none are 'oak woodland' - in fact none are really woodland at all with large open space around the trees and at the Cosby park the oaks are actually within the boundary scrub alongside a road with housing on the other side.

Western Park

Braunstone Park - northern end

Braunstone Park - southern end

Victory Park - oaks in boundary on eastern side

This one on the trap at Victory Park ....

.... and one potted up at Western Park for a proper shot

With the wind blasting, I managed to hand the trap from snags on the bark at most of these sites and in the process found a number of resting Diurnea fagella and Luffia lapidella (f. ferchaultella) at Braunstone Park. I shall try and get out with the lure again before the end of the month, targeting similar large parks and large mature oaks.

Meanwhile the garden trap has been out the last couple of nights, no big numbers but it's starting to wake up a bit. A couple of different Twin-spotted Quakers is nice for the garden; it has never turned up in numbers here, usually one or two a year at most and it wasn't annual but this is now the fifth consecutive season it has turned up.





Monday 14 March 2022

Thorns Inside

I've managed to dissect butcher a few more from the box of bits I'd forgotten about. I've done the Grey/Dark Daggers (3x Grey, 2x Dark). Here's an unset pile of Grey Dagger valvae for reference ....


Knowing what the key features are, and only going as far as necessary to see/confirm them is all well and good but obviously leaving the genitalia like this would be completely useless if actually trying to work out what something was (say a really knackered Noctuid with no markings).

I probably should have mentioned that I'm referring to this excellent site for guidance.

I had this next one down as a probable Lesser Common Rustic (first of the year on 03/07/2021, generally dark with clearly contrasting stigma), albeit nowhere near a classic almost black one.


Well, it was. I only looked at x3 specimens and both of the others from a week or so later were paler browner/sandier Common Rustic. If you think the butchery on the Daggers was laughable, with this pair I've not even looked at the typical genitalia parts that you see excellent photos of; for these dissecting out the thorny cornuti from inside the aedeagus is necessary. Here they are from down the barrel of my old and frankly about knackered stereo microscope - the more rounded shape of Common Rustic left, and straighter Lesser Common Rustic right:


I have no idea what purpose these cornuti serve. Looking at web images of these pair, the general form is consistent but there is clear variation in the number and size of the serrations.

Saturday 12 March 2022

Blue, Grey, Dark

I've not posted for a few weeks. It's not because I've done nothing - I've done lots, just none of it interesting for this blog although that wouldn't normally stop me posting it. I've enjoyed some Football matches home and away, I've been down to that there London for a fantastic long weekend that included seeing the Moulin Rouge! musical and some historical structures that I've not been arsed to go to before, been out for drinks and meals, and I've been out to see to Light Up Leicester festival. But I've been feeling massively despondent about a lot of things. I can't believe we still have the same Government; I can't believe how far we are all being screwed over whilst energy and oil companies turn over stupid profits, and I can't believe that our 'response' to Putin is so lame (and don't get me wrong: I mean the slow pace of muted sanctions and the reticence to open up to refugees).

If I'm really honest with myself; I'm normally quite a resilient bloke, healthily cynical of a lot of things, but just lately I feel a bit defeated. We are spiralling to hell in a handcart on all fronts, yet my Twitter feed seems full of arguments with, reference to and blatant support of complete fucking arseholes. I should just ignore social media, but tucked in and around all the nonsense are pieces about things I am interested in. I could just try to mentally and technically start blocking out the shite, but then I'm just being a bit Ostrich about it all. My go-to respite would normally be getting out and looking at something but weather, fatigue and a lack of energy is holding me back. I just need to shake myself down and force myself out.

I ran the garden moth trap for the first time in a while on Thursday night and ended up with a decent number and range of early season moths, albeit nothing exciting or unexpected except perhaps this Grey Shoulder-knot ....


Far from annual here, with the last being in November 2018.

I also found a box of desiccated Daggers, Minors and Common/Lesser Common Rustics that I put aside in June/July last year and then forgot about. I had a quick go at one (no intention of properly setting, just need to see the relevant bits to ID) - Dark Dagger. This is definitely annual here, but given that I don't check them normally I can't prove it. The last time I checked the bits of anything here myself was back in 2013.


" ... difference between a small nuclear explosion and a large one by a very simple method; the calling card of a nuclear bomb is the blinding flash that is far more dazzling than any light on earth. Brighter even than the sun itself. And it is by the duration of this flash that we are able to determine the size of the weapon. After the flash a fireball can be seen to rise sucking up under it the debris, dust and living things around the area of the explosion. And as this ascends, it soon becomes recognizable as the familiar mushroom cloud. As a demonstration of the flash duration test, let's try and count the number of seconds for the flash emitted by a very small bomb, then a more substantial medium sized bomb, and finally one of our very powerful high yield bombs ...."