Bedstraw Hawkmoth

Thursday night was the first time since my last blog post that I've had a moth trap out (at Mum and Dad's) and would you believe it there was another garden first in there! A spectacular one at that...

Bedstraw Hawkmoth!

Wow - just wow! I actually felt it before I saw it, as it was resting on the underside of one of the egg boxes. My fingers went to pinch the box to grip it so I could turn it over, but my thumb brushed against something that was clearly large and soft!  When I did turn the box over I could hardly believe my eyes -  BEDSTRAW HAWKMOTH!!!!!

This is the ninth species of Hawkmoth recorded in the garden, and follows on nicely from the two Striped Hawkmoths I caught in June 2015.  So what will number ten be?  Well there's one immigrant species that I don't quite now how I haven't caught yet - Convolvulus Hawkmoth. But there's also a UK resident species I haven't had yet, despite pine trees not all that far away - Pine Hawkmoth.  The flight period for Pine is almost over now, so if it's going to happen this year chances are it's going to be the former - unless of course something more unexpected comes along!?  Seems like my Bedstraw Hawk was the front runner of a influx of this species, with several trapped in the UK last night - great that there's some proper moth immigration underway!  And presumably linked to this fresh wave of Painted Lady butterflies?

Anyway, back to the Bedstraw, and here's some more photos of this cracker.  It was quite active when out in the fresh air so I didn't have long for proper pics...

Love the white above the face

Just about to take off

The Bedstraw was accompanied by another 234 macro moths of 40 species in the trap on Thursday night, and came with five Silver Y for company in the immigrant moth department.  Other notables were singles of Four-spotted Footman, Crescent Dart, Dog's Tooth, Mocha (is there something going on with this species this summer!? My third ever but all the space of a week!), Iron Prominent, Small Waved Umber and four Jersey Tigers.

Another male Crescent Dart - looking a bit faded though this one

Dog's Tooth - a well marked moth and showing that distinctive black 'tooth' marking

Iron Prominent. The Prominent moths are never numerous, but I tend to catch one or two most nights

And that's that.  The bird news from the last few days I will roll on to my next blog post...

An Exciting Morning

Had a really enjoyable morning, thanks to my varied interests in the natural world. I do like July, always have, autumn migration begins in the bird world, there's young birds all over the place (or should be - there wasn't last year!), and insects are out in force.

As this is a 'birding blog', I'll start with birds, and my second patch year tick of the month. Species number 178 to be precise - just 22 to go!

Whilst checking the contents of my moth trap this morning at Mum and Dad's (more on that later), a Crossbill flew west over chipping away. Last winter there were simply no Crossbills anywhere - so I was worried about getting this species on to my patch year list, thankfully though something of a mini-influx has taken place in the UK within the past few weeks. Interestingly, roughly half of my non-Morganhayes Woods patch Crossbills (i.e. vis mig birds) have been from Mum and Dad's. Couchill Woods is just over the hill, and the height makes it a good spot for vis mig in general. Most of them have been July/August too.   

I went down to Black Hole Marsh afterwards - to coincide with the high tide. Lots of Black-headed Gulls roosting, 380 to be precise(ish!). This included 18 juvs, along with one Med Gull. Sadly no Little or Bonaparte's yet, but I can feel it coming I really can.  Just for Laurie (and anyone else who wants to play) let's have a game of Spot the Med Gull...

There's three juv Black-heads in the photo too

Plenty of other juvenile birds about too, some locally born and others not so. Some of the locally hatched juvs included lots of Shelduck families, with most the ducklings looking like this...

But also a couple of new younger families like this...

The Oystercatcher chicks are no longer chicks. What a success story this is, one young raised in 2011, none in 2012 and THREE this year.  Here's one of the adults watching out so the rest of the family can rest...

Two juvenile Redshank (with ten adults) may have been locally grown, but the juv Little Ringed Plover certainly wasn't - my first of the autumn. Other waders here included three Dunlin (also my first of the autumn, all in smart summer plumage), three Lapwing, two Blackwits and at least six Common Sands.

Random I know, but here's a Goldfinch photo. I don't usually post photos of common birds, simly because I never take good pictures of them. With the exception of the grass head in front of its tail, I'm quite happy with this one...

They've got to be one of the flashiest of the resident common birds in the UK

Right, it's moth time now.

It was much cooler last night, with a bit of breeze at times too, so I wasn't surprised to have just 96 moths of 24 species in the trap. There were some excellent species amongst them though - some really nice variety.

Best of all was the garden's fifth Hawkmoth of the year, and only my second ever Small Elephant Hawkmoth...

I don't need to tell you which one it is. Clue is in the name :-)

A Dog's Tooth was a bit of a rarity for me to. They are a marshland/estuarine species really, and this is only the third one I've trapped in the garden...

Look at those sharp pointed 'teeth' at the end of the wing

Had another Crescent Dart in the trap too, my third of the year...

All three have been males

 And although not rare, new species for the year included these...

Light Arches (with a Dark Arches for comparison)

A Shark

To finish off the post, I always like to leave moths in a safe place when I've finished with them. But I even found this Buff-tip a mate...

Or so it thinks....