Justified Ancients

We enjoyed another couple of hours out walking today, over at Bradgate Park. The car parks were all rammed, but I've been here more than enough times to know that you can quickly and easily veer away from the main drag and enjoy huge swathes of open vista with few others around. I'm sure if anyone could watch the park from high up above and create a heat map, the main pathway through the center, the car parks and the toilet/tea buildings would be burning orange, whilst the rest would barely register. There was no agenda other than fresh air and enjoying the massive ancient oaks. When we did head nearer to the ruins and the main path, it was still easy enough to maintain distance.

Some of these huge oaks are barely holding themselves together. Huge hollow centers, barkless and split trunks, and yet they continue to flourish and survive, their ancient status fully justified.

We briefly nipped over to nearby Swithland Reservoir before heading home, mainly so I could enjoy the sound of a Wigeon flock and see a few ducks for a change.

A Tenuous Case

I made use of a couple of free hours this afternoon. First off, I headed to Swithland Reservoir in glorious sunshine. I'd only just got out of the car when I noticed a few ducks close to the dam by the overflow, including two of my favourite species beginning with G ....

Gadwalls were preening and having a drink in between bouts of courtship ...

No such luck for this lone drake Goldeneye.

After grabbing a few snaps, I set about my main purpose. Staring at walls. It didn't take long to find the expected Psychidae.

Luffia lapidella f. ferchaultella

Dahlica sp. - found a good number of cases in a slightly different section of the boundary wall to where I usually look. All looked to be D. lichenella, no potential D. triquetrella.

I noticed one moving about, surprisingly. They overwinter as full-fed larvae and should be pupating by now. When I got my hand lens out to have a good look at this one I noticed something else very close by .....

Bristly Millipede - never ceases to amaze me how these are invisible when you are actually looking for them.

Whilst I was enjoying these wall-dwellers, they were not what I was actually looking for. News came through during the week that Keith Tailby and Mark Hammond had found putative silk-tube cases of Infurcitinea argentimaculella. The photos seemed compelling, if a little inconspicuous. They'd been found at Ulverscroft and along the Swithland Res walls, but I was seeing nothing. After a quick call to Keith, I decided to head over to Ulverscoft and try there.

I was soon looking at a much more promising habitat, with the dry stone wall covered in a powdery blue-grey lichen (Lepraria sp.). If you think looking for larval cases of Psychidae is tenuous, you ought to try this .....

This is likely to overwinter as a small larva, but should be starting to become active again in spring, so it seems likely that bigger cases are old and vacated. I've collected a couple to have a look at, but definitely this is one to make an effort to return to in a couple of months. With lichens generally doing better now, and with eg the spread of lichen-feeding footmen spp., seems likely that this has also done well in the last decade or so and could well be wide-spread. After all, even when it's on your radar (which it wasn't) it is not exactly jumping out at you!

Just before getting back in the car, I had a quick look at the outer wall and quickly found more Psychids.

Narycia duplicella

Being Birched

Way back on 25/03/2005 I'd headed over to Kinchley Lane that runs between Swithland Reservoir and Buddon Wood (a reminder again for the birders, it's where that Crag Martin was in 1999). Whilst there I managed to net two Eriocraniids - neither of which looked right for Dyseriocrania subpurpurella and both of which looked interesting. Turned out I was a very lucky man indeed; one was Eriocrania cicatricella, the other was Eriocrania unimaculella and both were confirmed firsts for VC55. Both feed on birch, of which there is plenty available. I managed to net a single E. cicatricella the following year, but have failed to produce any more records of either since.

Eriocrania cicatricella - Kinchley Lane 25/03/2005

Eriocrania unimaculella - Kinchley Lane 25/03/2005

Today I headed over there again for a bit of fresh air and sunshine whilst mooching about. Almost immediately after getting out of the car, I picked up a couple of Orange Underwings with my bins - no chance of one coming close enough to be netted ot photographed. Ravens were cronking, Great Spots calling and Chiffchaffs singing, all adding to the very welcome springtime ambience.

Soon afterwards I noticed a couple of butterflies nectaring on catkins, but both were backlit so I thought I'd get a couple of shots to see how they turned out.

 

Comma

Peacock

Just after taking these shots, I noticed a golden Eriocraniid on a dead oak twig just under my nose. That's just about the same time that I realised I'd made a schoolboy error ... camera battery died. I'm so used to it lasting for ages that I'd not checked if it needed charging after use yesterday. Arse. So I duly potted the moth, and as I did so I noticed a darker individual on the wall and potted that too. And I then failed to find any more over the next hour or so that I was there. I found a few bits on the walls, like Bristly Millipedes, Taleporia tubulosa, a couple of beetles to check and (oddly) a Saucer Bug. But with the camera dead there are no shots.

I did point my phone at the lane and the birches though, but I managed to screw that up too as the phone camera was set to some odd 'full screen' mode that meant the photos are an odd ratio. Still I quite liked them so some got cropped and some are almost 2:1. Something oddly nice about a birch woodland I reckon.

Later this afternoon, after the camera had been charged up, I grabbed a couple of quick snaps of the two Eriocraniids that I potted up. I'm certain one is just Dyseriocrania subpurpurella (there are a few oaks dotted amongst the birches) but the other is definitely a different species, slightly bigger and looks a good contender for Eriocrania semipurpurella which I've not seen before. One for the chop.

Dyseriocrania subpurpurella - 28/03/2019

Eriocrania semipurpurella? - 28/03/2019

A few more shots

A few more from yesterday, trying out my new Nikon CoolPix P600 bridge camera. One of the things I was keen to check out as soon as possible was that it worked okay with the Raynox macro conversion lens that I've been using with good results on the Lumix. Almost as soon as I started walking along Kinchley Lane alongside Swithland Reservoir (if you came for the Crag Martin all those years ago, it's the lane where you parked and then got blocked in ...) I found a small spider on the stone wall. An excellent subject to try it out, and all the better when I sussed out that it was new for me.

Textrix denticulata

I took this using exactly same technique as I've been using with the Lumix: autofocus set to macro, aperture priority and aperture wound up as high as possible (f7.6 for this shot), flash forced on, WB set to flash at -1, no exposure compensation, ISO fixed at slowest (100 on this camera) and this shot was 1/60 sec. Snap. Images looked okay on back of camera and I'm pleased with this one.

I then found some leafhoppers on oak whilst checking for galls on the underside of the leaves. Again, same technique, and unbelievably another tick. I can't credit the camera for two ticks in quick succession!

Eurhadina concinna

Had to zoom in a bit more for this one which makes holding the focus whilst hand-held a bit more hit and miss, especially out in the field, but this is okay.

So far so good - camera at least comparable to the Lumix with the Raynox in use using usual technique. One of this things that I don't like though is using the flash all the time. Tends to work okay for most inverts, but not good for lots of flowers. So with the cleaner image at higher ISO than I get from the Lumix I am hoping I can ditch the flash more often, especially for flowers and moths. Here's a couple of shots taken using the Raynox with flash off and WB set to cloudy.

Taleporia tubulosa at ISO 400 with 1/60 sec exposure.

Sycamore Tar Spot at ISO 400 with 1/50 sec exposure

A fly at ISO 400 with 1/200 exposure

I think with compliant subjects in the right conditions, there is more scope for useable shots without flash from this camera than I got with the Lumix.

The last thing I wanted to try out was the in-built macro without the Raynox. With the Lumix, this is only really useable with the macro zoom facility with creates a noisy image unless you are photographing something butterfly sized and bigger. I was lucky enough to find a Grey Shoulder-knot settled on the stone wall, albeit in a pretty shaded spot so I would have to use flash. Moth photos are sometimes rubbish with flash; it does depend on the lighting conditions you are in but it's the reflectivity of the scales on some moths that screw it up.

Grey Shoulder-knot

Not the best moth shot I've ever taken but certainly gives confidence that I should be able to get useable macromoth photos using this camera without the Raynox - something that I can't do with the Lumix.

All in all a good testing session, and obviously more time spent using it will improve the techniques and results.