Emp Tempted

It must be getting on for a decade that I have tried and failed to lure Emperor Moth anywhere in VC55 using the EMP lure. And sporadically prior to the lure being available, I had a couple of attempts at rearing through larvae and trying to assemble males - again with no success. I'd seen one female to light years ago, and have successfully lured males in Devon and Somerset. My current lure is now 6yrs old, I got it to replace the first thinking it must be duff. Aside from trying out and about, I've left the lure in the garden many times but it's nigh on impossible to trap them coming to the lure so unless you watch it constantly you could miss something. But there again I had no reason to believe it was around here.

Yesterday afternoon though in glorious sunshine but with a stiff breeze, and it being quite a bit later than I had planned thanks to a chemo pump issue, I headed out to try a few sites in the northern Soar Valley. All sites I'd tried before, and all sites with larval records over the last couple of decades. At last success! Wanlip Meadows was the first site I tried, and I logged x4 to the lure within c10mins before pulling it. I then headed to Cossington Meadows a bit further north, x1 in a couple of mins, and then down to Watermead CP South with another x1 in a couple of mins.

All three sites are nothing like heath/moorland. They share a few characteristics: damp/wet grasslands, copious sallows, willows, bramble, hawthorn and blackthorn and likely plenty of Meadowsweet.

Wanlip Meadows

Cossington Meadows

Watermead CP South

I did manage to grab a little bit of phone video at each site, but they are pretty hopeless. Here's one from Watermead CP South seeing as I didn't grab a photo from that site:

I netted one from Wanlip Meadows for an initial in the pot shot, but any thoughts of getting a proper phot in the field were short lived and I brought it home to snap ....

Emperor Moth, Wanlip Meadows 03/04/2025

This moth is still in the fridge and marked up ready to return this evening.

Today I tried again over at Huncote Embankment but with no luck. So whilst back home waiting for the District Nurse, I stuck the lure out in the garden again - nothing seen in half an hour and then sat down to write/post this. I hear a shout from Nichola - 'what's this'....

'This' turns out to be an Emperor Moth that the cat has just presented to the back door ....  still twitching and alive but not very lively. The bleeding cat is also twitching.

What a way to break a decade long duck!

Here's a D&B interlude by some outfit called Emperor ....

The garden trap last night produced a lovely looking Powdered Quaker amongst a handful of NFY species, but biggest surprise was yet another Blossom Underwing!

Shoulder Stripe

Spruce Carpet

Shuttle-shaped Dart

Blossom Underwing

Powdered Quaker

What is Sallow Anyway ....

This morning was bright and mainly sunny, just a few high clouds in the blue. Warm enough too, and very little breeze. Just about perfect for clearwing luring ......

I headed to Cossington Meadows. To my mind, this should be pretty good habitat for Lunar Hornet Moth, with an abundance of willows and sallow. Maybe. After a couple of hours of trying the lure at four different spots around the whole reserve I decided that perhaps the site did not hold the right willows and sallows. And what is 'sallow' anyway. As a diversion I collected some leaves during the day. These leaves ....

All of these could be referred to as 'sallow' by someone. The smaller more oval leaf on the right is what I call sallow. What actually is it? Probably Grey Willow, or more likely a Grey Willow x something else hybrid. This is the tree that will be profusely covered in yellow catkins in spring that I would stand around looking for moths if I was 'sallowing'. I would also offer copious amounts of leaves from this to any larvae I'm rearing that feeds on 'sallow'. The much larger rounder leaf on the left is, I'm pretty sure, Goat Willow. Or sallow, if that's what you call that too. The one in the middle might also be Goat Willow, or not. Suffice to say these Salix spp. can be a complete pain. Essentially I've decided that if the leaves are very narrow it is an 'osier', long and pointed it is 'willow' and oval or rounded it is 'sallow'.

Anyway, Lunar Hornet Moth apparently feeds within the trunks of 'willows and sallows', which probably means any Salix sp. is possible but I've got a feeling that's not quite true.

I left Cossington and headed to Ulverscroft - there are some previous records from one part of Ulverscroft - though these are of larval workings from the 80s and 90s and I have no detail of what the larval workings were on. I tried and failed. On the way back to the car, I had one last go at a spot that looked not dissimilar from the area I had success in Northants yesterday - a woodland ride with some sapling growth of Goat Willow.

A bushy growth of Goat Willow on the right hand side, with several small saplings out of shot and a larger tree on the left hand side.

Ten minutes later and one showed up ....

Nice - and good to get one in VC55, even if I have had to work a bit for it. My gut feeling is that sites with Goat Willow will be more successful, but clearwing lures can be hit and miss so the areas with no success so far could still come good on another day.

Whilst fannying about with the leaves I found a new rust, Melampsora caprearum. Seth would have been pleased to see me looking at rust.

Here's a couple of recent flies, the stiletto from Croft Hill and a horse fly from yesterday at Eyebrook Reservoir that I subsequently netted and keyed.

Thereva nobilitata

Tabanus bromius

And here's a couple of leafmines. First up, a tenanted sawfly mine on oak ....

Profenusa pygmaea

These blotchy sawfly mines are a good source of new species so far, once you know they exist. I had another on birch today too, Profenusa thomsoni.

This one had me completely bamboozled. It's on Crab Apple, and the mine is only discernible from certain angles/lighting - if backlit you can hardly see it at all. I figured it must be dipteran, and posted it to the leafminers group to check only to find that it is actually an early-stage mine of the moth Callisto denticulella. Once you read the description for that species it fits perfectly.

Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid

A couple of new-for-me species worked through last night.

First up, the long, thin & small (and frankly quite funky) sawfly I mentioned from Huncote Embankment. Turns out to be exactly in the right habitat, as the larvae feed on phragmites. It's Calameuta filiformis, with the entirely black hind tibia being key. The pictures are not pretty. Soz.

And the yellow-faced bee from the garden turned out to be exactly as expected, Common Yellow-face Bee (Hylaeus communis).

Yellow facial markings hugging the eye and not extended beyong antennae

Tergite 1 sparsely punctured and shiny, and without a pronounced fringe of white hairs along hind margin at the sides

Late this afternoon I enjoyed very peaceful walk today with Nichola. We headed to Cossington Meadows, and although there were a few cars parked up we headed on the longer circuit rather than the main path and met few people. All very nice and summery. Lots of warblers singing, Common Terns and Little Egret noted.

Of course the default position for such a walk was to head out completely net-less, pot-less and strictly no poking about for insects (apart from happening to find more Rhinocyllus conicus). So no ento-photos, but long-zoom bird photos fine apparently .....

A few Lapwings around and paired up, nice.

Sunning itself for parasite control? Or just simply drying itself?

Oystercatchers on one of the pools

Meh.

Although not my usual taste for music, for the last few weeks whilst working from home I've been listening to Radio 2 during the day - a bit mellow and sort of in the background. Apart from the pop master quiz which I've always enjoyed but rarely hear in normal times. I don't like the Jeremy Vine slot though (typical antagonistic 'debate' set-ups) and usually flip over to Absolute Radio 60s for something different. After flicking through You Tube last night for yesterday's clip, today I have been blasting lots of KMFDM loudly through my Galaxy Bud+ ear-hearers (a family thing, Isabelle coined that term for headphones when she was about four). Most of it has been a bit brash and angry sounding, the polar opposite of our walk but equally enjoyable.

KMFDM = Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid which roughly translates to 'No Pity for the Majority'.

KMFDM = Kill Mother Fucking Depeche Mode is not what it means, though that's often played on.

Their cover artwork is one of the best continual themed works out there. So here's some more - if you've never listed to KMFDM I can recommend them.

Winter Geese - Spring Day

There has been a Tundra Bean Goose and up to 19 White-fronts knocking about since late Jan/early Feb at Wanlip North Lakes. For various reasons (mainly a lack of opportunity and time, mixed with a general apathy toward a 20 minute walk to look at distant geese in crap conditions) I haven't been to look for/at them. As they were reported as still present yesterday, and having a bit of time in the afternoon with glorious sunshine, I decided to pull my finger out and have a look. So I did, and it turned out to be a very easy exercise as immediately when I got to the viewing point and looked through my scope I was on the Tundra Bean, and 19 White-fronts were strung out to its left. Very distant - no chance of anything other than really appalling record shots of White-fronts with an indistinct blob (click on these for big).

Viewing Wanlip North Lakes - distantly

There are 19 White-fonts and a Tundra Bean in there

Hmm - still not clear

Full noisy zoom - some White-fonts and a big red arrow

There was also a Little Egret milling about in a ditch. Whilst over that way I nipped across to Cossington Meadows - at least one Short-eared Owl still present as it did a very brief fly-around over Swan Meadow before heaing over towards The Moor and disappearing.

Gulls n Owls

Left work early this afternoon to sort a couple of things out, and then managed to spend an hour or two enjoying some birds. Not exactly birding, more turning up and pointing the camera in the right direction.

I headed over to Watermead CP South for another go at some gull shots - maybe the inccessant Gulling propaganda from a well know Seaton-based blogger is starting to rub off. As ever, plenty of bread-wielding wankers ensuring masses of inapproriate food for the wildfowl and plenty of scavenging opportunities for the gulls. The car park area is often awash with Black-headed Gulls, but otherwise usually just a few Common Gulls and most of these are first-winter birds. I was pleased then to find a nice adult Common Gull within reach for a few shots.

Also unexpected was this damned ugly second-winter Lesser Black-backed Gull.

Despite some searching, no sign of anything interesting (ie as usual no Med Gulls, and no sign of any Yellow-legged or Caspians amongst the larger gulls around the island) so I filled up the card with a few more Common Gull shots instead - these are all different individuals.

One thing I will say for gulls is that the variability amongst individuals is more noticeable than in many other bird groups. Have look at this short vidiclip and see how different the size and structure is of the heads on these two first-winter Commons (presume the smaller bird is female).

With time pressing I quickly headed over to Cossington Meadows to check out the wintering Short-eared Owls. I hadn't even got alongside Swan Meadow before I'd picked one up in good late afternoon daylight. After five minutes or so I had four up together, with audible calling and a few jousts and skirmishes between them for good measure - brilliant stuff, but none of which I managed to capture on the camera in any way. I did get some vidiclip footage though, which I implore you to watch. Personally I think the drifting in and out of focus and the intruding Teasel heads make it all the more evocative ......