Factory

Round two with the new (un)improved editor interface ....

Today has been very sultry: warm, humid and a few torrential downpours. I had intended to get out but after a lazy post-trap lie-in I had two false starts; just as I was about to leave the rain came down like monsoon season. By the time it stayed dry it was late afternoon, so I opted for a walk down the lane. No net: it's pointless sweeping vegetation after rain as the net gets knackered. However I had a bagful of pots and managed to collect a variety of sawflies and diptera just by hand-potting them from umbelifiers. It wasn't exactly the most efficient method, but successful enough. The specimens include a large tachinid-looking fly that I think will be new to me.

The moth-trap was again busy, but I definitely missed out on a new beetle ....

This Helophorus sp. was massive compared to the usual trap-visitors - a fact that I overlooked and completely forgot about after going through the rest of the egg boxes so the specimen was chucked out with the rest of the catch. It's either H. aequalis or H. grandis - both equally likely in a garden trap in Leics. They can be separated from features on the last sternite apparently, so I definitely need to remember about this if another turns up.

I potted up a variety of moths to photograph for a change. Selecting which moths to point the camera at is arbitrary: anything new to garden obviously, anything unusual for the garden likely, but beyond that it's just what I feel like bothering with.

Elephant Hawk-moth

Burnished Brass

Figure of Eighty

Dusky Brocade

Ingrailed Clay

Small Dusty Wave

Single-dotted Wave

Teleiodes vulgella

Both of the following are, I'm sure, Notocelia trimaculana. I have no doubt about that personally, but there was a recent suggestion that this and Notocelia rosaecolana cannot be reliably separated. I think that may be true for worn specimens, but I reckon differences in the costal strigulae and general size and tone (smaller/dark vs larger/bright) will still be good. For the moment though there is a need to build up a pattern so both of these, and perhaps a couple of others through the season, will be gen detted.

Sheesh. Blogging is going to become a real chore at this rate. Once again post created in twice the time it normally takes, labels applied painfully one-by-one after saving as draft, only to then have an error with labels that prevents publication. I've also noticed that the ability to force images to higher res (?) is perhaps missing - need to look at that in more detail. Revert to legacy - publish fine.

Although as it happens from Tuesday I am back at work, actually in the Factory away from the 'home-office' (I was off on Monday anyway as this weekend we were supposed to be enjoying beer, cheer and music at the Isle of Wight Festival). At the start I was clamouring to be in the workplace; after enjoying the lockdown garden wildlife and local forays I'm starting to wish I was retired .....

Hot - Damn!

Nice and warm last night bringing a fair bit to the garden traps, albeit nothing exceptional apart from the 2nd Box Tree Moth for the garden, me and VC55. Someone somewhere near here is going to be losing their hedge shortly!

Today has been roasting hot. I nipped out with the clearwing lures but was scuppered when the first site I visited for Red-belted had been bulldozed. No joy at the second for Currant, and I gave up then as it was just too hot to think.

The ultimate irony is that the warm nights and hot days generally mean the moth traps are getting busier, but the hot days also mean that moth photography is nigh on impossible. Nothing sits still without having been in the fridge, and everything that's been in the fridge immediately tries to warm up and does so with amazing speed and efficiency. I potted up a number of species, knowing that maybe half of them would be lost before I got a shot. So here's a small selection.

Clouded Brindle

Lime-speck Pug

Elephant Hawk-moth

There was also another visitor to the traps last night - looking a bit emaciated, and I'm hoping it's not planning on fattening up on moths .....

Common Frog

Another brood ...

The Elephants are gone. They'd got to full size and were starting to show signs of needing to pupate, after getting through some ridiculous amounts of willowherb, so I released them all locally on Monday and Tuesday last week. By then they all looked like this ... click for big!

So no more collecting willowherb. But I have a new brood of these .....

Oak Eggar

27 hatched out this weekend from ova laid by the female I caught on 11th. They're feeding well on sallow, but as this species overwinters as a larva I'll only rear for a few weeks before release and let them fend for themselves naturally over winter.

Skin deep

The elephants are still going, all 28 of them. Colour and size variation even more marked today as several have undergone another instar change and the rest are just about to. Of those that have changed, there are c50% that are really quite dark like these ...

and the others are a really smart olive green like this one ...

Of those that are still to change, most are a pinky brown colour and there are three that are still the bright green; I'm guessing these will all turn to the dark brown & olive green versions but I'll find out in a day or two.

One of the drawbacks of keeping several larvae together is that they grow at slightly different rates, and so occasionally you have to disturb them at the risky time when they are just about to shed their skins. That's exactly what has happened today, though I'm sure they'll all be okay as I was careful during a complete foodplant change and cleanout.

This one has clearly not long shed its skin; you can see the shrivelled up old skin behind it and, if you look carefully, you can see the old head-plate to the side. Note the lighter head colouration between this one and the one above, this one will darken as it hardens off.

Some are looking like this, clearly about ready to go through the change .....

And a first for me, one was literally in the middle of wriggling free of the old skin. Note the '12 legs' in the top shot, and look how pale the head is when just 'exfoliated'!

Ellie Update

Another busy week, during which I somehow missed a big change in the Elephant Hawk larvae .......

Most have turned into this dark brown variation, though not entirely convinced that they've all gone through an instar change to get there. Not all have changed colour though, and the two biggest are both c35mm - one green, one brown. There is quite a big size variation now though. Rosebay Willowherb still preferred, and there are 28 still extant (the runty one didn't make it!).

The Elephant Man

Back in mid-June, a work colleague found a large moth pupa in his garden and was intrigued as to what it was. I offered to rear through to confirm and after a week or so a superb fresh female Elephant Hawk-moth emerged on 19/06/2014 am. As it happened, I also caught a couple of males in the garden traps that I emptied that morning so I kept one and paired the two in the hope of trying to rear through. After a couple of days I had eggs and I released both moths. The eggs hatched out on 26/06/2014 in the evening and the newly-hatched larvae readily set about eating some fresh leaves from a garden fuschia.

They were c4mm long and were sporting a characteristic hawk-moth 'horn', but otherwise you'd be hard pressed to identify them. There were 29 to start with, and after five days all 29 were still munching away and most had grown significantly to c11mm.

At this stage there was a faint witness of future markings, and they were not far off changing to second instar. Today they are starting to look distinctive, but there is a long way to go. Main thing is that I've managed to get them off of fuschia and onto Rosebay Willowherb (they didn't seem keen on Great Willowherb).

I'm intending to rear through to final instar and then release to pupate naturally.

Charnwood Lodge - Traptastic

After a fair bit of effort last night, me and Adrian had managed to deploy no less than 16 traps between us running of 5 gennies, plus a light over a sheet on the small Honda. This morning we made a start at 5ish, which was a good 45 minutes or so after dawn but there you go. This heralded four and a half hours of collating traps, reeling in cables, collecting gennies and emptrying traps. Lots of filled pots with stuff to check and photograph, lots of bytes of digital dictation of trap contents, and of course the obligatory coffe and bacon sarnies to smooth the process. It's going to take a while to get the list sorted, IDs checked and photography finished.

In the meantime, here's some trap-porn! Phwoar - look at the filaments on that .....

16 traps x c10mins emptying = c2 hours and 40 minutes of anticipation

The MAD trap - 160W blended, 20W CFL actinic, 11W standard CFL

The CFL actinic delux - 5 x 20W (except 1 didn't work)

A 125W clear MV - more UV, less eye protection ...

The 11W Synergetic (new dual-peak green actinic) on a debut outing

The 250W metal halide, with the 80W/100W actinic/tungsten combo in the background

A 22W actinic ring with tungsten filling

This is en entirely natural occurrence, and in no way contrived. The two elephants often meet up on Rhododendron ...

From the garden trap - 14/06 to 17/06

A bit delayed as I've been busy, distracted or completely wasting my life watching the England game. Here's trapping summaries from the last few nights including a garden tick Argyresthia curvella from last night.

14/06/2010
77 of 35sp (125W MV 47 of 25, 80W actinic 30 of 15)

First for year in garden:
0937 Agapeta hamana 1
1011 Pseudargyrotoza conwagana 1
1302 Crambus perlella 1
1682 Blood-vein (Timandra comae) 2
1742 Yellow Shell (Camptogramma bilineata) 1
1941 Mottled Beauty (Alcis repandata) 1
2087 Turnip Moth (Agrotis segetum) 1
2434 Burnished Brass (Diachrysia chrysitis) 1

Highest counts:
2089 Heart and Dart (Agrotis exclamationis) 26
1376 Small Magpie (Eurrhypara hortulata) 5
1776 Green Carpet (Colostygia pectinataria) 3
1819 Mottled Pug (Eupithecia exiguata) 3

Best of the rest:
1778 May Highflyer (Hydriomena impluviata) 1
1817 Foxglove Pug (Eupithecia pulchellata) 1
2384 Vine's Rustic (Hoplodrina ambigua) 1

Burnished Brass

16/06/2010
45 of 24sp (125W MV 25 of 14, 80W actinic 20 of 15)

First for year in garden:
0970 Barred Fruit-tree Tortrix (Pandemis cerasana) 1
1115 Ancylis achatana 1
1334 Scoparia ambigualis 1
2128 Double Square-spot (Xestia triangulum) 1

Highest counts:
2089 Heart and Dart (Agrotis exclamationis) 15
2107 Large Yellow Underwing (Noctua pronuba) 3

Double Square-spot

Large Nutmeg

17/06/2010
114 of 48sp (125W MV 48 of 29, 80W actinic 66 of 31)

FIRST FOR GARDEN:
0414 Argyresthia curvella 1

First for year in garden:
0409b Argyresthia cupressella 1
0989 Timothy Tortrix (Aphelia paleana) 1
1175 Bramble Shoot Moth (Epiblema uddmanniana) 2
1293 Garden Grass-veneer (Chrysoteuchia culmella) 1
1392 Udea olivalis 2
2330 Dusky Brocade (Apamea remissa) 2
2389 Pale Mottled Willow (Paradrina clavipalpis) 1
2473 Beautiful Hook-tip (Laspeyria flexula) 1

Highest counts:
2089 Heart and Dart (Agrotis exclamationis) 31
0970 Barred Fruit-tree Tortrix (Pandemis cerasana) 5
1076 Celypha lacunana 5
2321 Dark Arches (Apamea monoglypha) 5
1083 Marbled Orchard Tortrix (Hedya nubiferana) 4
1860 Green Pug (Pasiphila rectangulata) 4

Best of the rest:
1808 Sandy Carpet (Perizoma flavofasciata) 1
1991 Elephant Hawk-moth (Deilephila elpenor) 1

Bramble Shoot Moth

Buff Ermine

Sandy Carpet

Elephant Hawk-moth

And here's one of the Dichrorampha spp. from Wednesday evening. Given the profusion of Oxeye Daisy at Huncote Embankment where I netted it, I expect it will turn out to be Dichrorampha alpinana.