Beat / Box

Wow. Almost two weeks to the day since I last did anything remotely like enjoying natural history. Going back to work has been good for me, but tiring. But that's not the main reason I've done nothing - it's just been such shite weather that there has been no inspiration or desire to get out. The moth trap has been dormant, and after a long spell of cold dry nights in April we've had a long spell of damp windy nights in May.

Yesterday was the first glimmer of hope though. By the time I got home and we'd eaten etc, it was looking like a really nice calm evening with low sun, few clouds and no rain. I headed down the lane with nothing but my phone and bins - I just wanted some fresh air and to take in the changes from my last walk. Whilst the rains have been crap for doing anything, they've clearly been good for vegetation. The strips that were mowed a couple of weeks ago are already recovering, and the uncut strips are now absolutely bulging with flowering cow parsley. Further into the square, alongside the main road, the biggest accessible hawthorns are blooming. It all looks very promising for a bit of effort over the bank holiday weekend when the forecast is much improved. I fully intend to spend some hours beating, bashing, and sweeping some inverts onto the square list. I will need to wash out the accumulated pile of glass tubes and pots ready.

Although I wasn't equipped for it, a few additions were noted on the walk including a couple of moths - Pammene rhediella and Nematopogon swammerdammella, both caught by hand flying around hawthorn. I also added a few more flowering plants, including Changing Forget-me-not, Dove's-foot Crane's-bill and Red Campion.

I ran the trap last night as it was forecast to stay dry (it almost did), but the catch was still woeful for late May - singles of Muslin Moth, Waved Umber, Green Carpet and Garden Carpet. I can see up and down the country that catches are low; the crazy spring weather patterns over the last few years are really starting to show an effect.

This morning, after a pre-work GP appointment, as I nipped out to the bins in the garden I noticed something on the fence. Wasn't expecting one of these to turn up here so casually ....

Box Bug - a garden tick

I suppose it could have been attracted by the light trap, but it was a good few hours after dawn and it was nowhere near the trap - more likely to have flown in from the embankment. Incredible that the first VC55 record was in 2014, and it was local to one site for a couple of years before it started popping up elsewhere. It is now pretty widespread and increasingly common in the county.

Conifer Bashing

I recently acquired another book for the shelf:

I was mainly intent on getting literature on the much smaller 'inconspicuous' ladybirds, but flicking through reminded me of a few of the larger 'conspicuous' species that I've not seen for many years. One in particular stood out, Striped Ladybird. I saw this way back on 15/08/2001, and at the time it was an interesting but not especially relevant bit of moth trapping by-catch. I'd not long started photographing moths, and it must have seemed at least nice enough to point the lens at ....

As it happens, it was just as well that I did bother as it turns out it was only the sixth record for VC55, and there has not been one since. It was attracted to a trap during a session at Martinshaw Wood, along with Eyed Ladybird - another I've not seen for a long while. The new book highlighted that both are coniferous specialists, along with a few other species, which makes sense why I've not seen them recently as this is not a habitat that I spend much time in and certainly haven't moth-trapped for a while.

I had a couple of hours spare on Saturday morning before heading off to the early LCFC kick off, and so I decided that I'd head over to Martinshaw Wood and bash some conifers in the hope of picking up a ladybird or two.

Martinshaw is a decent sized wood, bisected by the M1. It has large sections of conifer plantation but there is also a good area of mixed woodland. It would be good to get in there again for some proper mothing sometime. However as to the aim of the morning, I immediately realised that it was not really a good plan as the decent coniferous branches (ie pines) were well out of reach and the branches that were in reach were not the right type (eg cedar / cypress).

Still, I had a good bash and got some decent exercise. Whilst I drew a blank on the intended targets, I did manage to fill a few pots with a variety of stuff showing how valuable conifers can be as overwintering sites for all manner of inverts. I've got a few small spiders still to sort, and a couple of Tephritis sp. and a barkfly to try and photograph, but this fallen pine yielded the best surprise:

Box Bug

Box Bug first appeared in VC55 in 2014, and it's one I've been expecting to bump into before long as it spreads but finding one by bashing a fallen pine in winter was not what I had in mind. Amongst the spiders that I could identify was this nice one:

 Diaea dorsata

All in all a very nice couple of hours. I also got to see some bits of woodland there that I've not seen before, as I completely lost my bearings and headed energetically in the opposite direction of the car park ...