A Good Moth Night

On Friday evening it was great to have a moth trap out at Mum and Dad's. I haven't trapped here for a few years now, after a couple of years of fairly intense trapping - so I do feel like I know the site quite well. 

The weather was perfect, and although there was no evidence of any long-distant migration it was a super catch with 427 macro moths of 44 species.  Absolutely no surprise that the most numerous three species were Heart and Dart (129), Dark Arches (102) and Large Yellow Underwing (42).  Pleasingly Hawkmoths were well represented with 18 of four species...

L to R; Poplar Hawk, Elephant Hawk, Small Elephant Hawk and Privet Hawk.

Two Privet Hawks were a bit of a surprise because I've only ever caught five here before!

Privet Hawks are so HUGE!

Poplar Hawks have the fluffiest of heads!

Elephant and Small Elephant Hawks

Same as above but a different view

Out of the rest of the catch a White Satin was the pick of the bunch. On the first night I ever moth trapped in the garden (29th June 2009) I caught five of these, so at the time thought I may have stumbled upon a local population - but no - not a sniff of another until this one on Friday night...

Silky white wings and those zebra striped legs make this moth a bit of a cracker in my books!

Hoping to get my Robinson trap repaired soon, so you have been warned - moth content is set to rise on the blog if that does happen...

A rare tern to the left of me, another to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with Moths...

...but not really stuck at all, because it was an absolute joy to dust off one my moth traps a couple of nights ago.  I have Fran to thank for that, whose interest in learning what moths were/are using her garden was all the encouragement I needed!

One Skinner trap was run all night on the evening of 25th/26th,  and although I was distinctly rusty it was great going through the egg boxes again.  I didn't have time to give the micros, pugs and minors a proper look, but the rest of the macros were made up of 184 moths of 32 species.  A very respectable catch and a credit to Frans back garden!  

My highlight was the Lime Hawkmoth, I've only caught a couple of these in Seaton in the past...

Lime Hawkmoth

And an L-album Wainscot was nice to see, a south coast special... 

L-album Wainscot

Was great just seeing some of the common ones again too...

Elephant Hawkmoth and Scalloped Hook-tip

Moths aren't the only insects causing me recent glee... the huge invasion of Painted Ladies is just incredible!  Not seen numbers like this for years...

Painted Lady upper view

Painted Lady underside

I have been birding quite a bit lately, with the main aim of finding a patch Quail.  Not had any luck yet but I did stumble upon a churring Nightjar at a new site a couple of night's ago which is great news, and the fields between Axmouth and Rousdon seem to be home to more Yellowhammers than ever!

Male Yellowhammer

I will not give up with the Quail hunt though, this year has to be our year!

Moth Mayhem

I said in my last post I was going to put the moth trap out on Monday night. I did indeed, and on Tuesday morning I had myself a whopping 266 moths of 56 species!  I wont list them all, just summarise..

Dark Arches were the most numerous, with 39 of these, followed by Heart and Dart (22).  The third most numerous species was Elephant Hawkmoth, with 19 in the trap! It was a good showing of Hawkmoth in fact, with four Poplar and three Eyed making a total of 26 Hawkmoths in the trap!

All three on this egg box

A better shot of an Eyed Hawkmoth

Some of the other highlights included:

True Lovers Knot

Green Silver-lines (had three of these)

Burnished Brass

Flame Carpet

Figure of Eighty

Lobster Moth

Common Emerald (with a Dot Moth to the left)

Plain Golden Y

The Plain Golden Y with a Silver Y

And these, although common species, were good to see for the first time this year...

Swallowtail

Light Emerald

Coronet - doesn't that look like a skull!

Even the small macros can be smart, like this Small Yellow Wave...

It's tiny but beautiful

And how about this Small Seraphim...

....what do you mean you can't see it? Try this....

...still struggling!? Well this is as close as I could get the camera...

How about that for camouflage!

I'll have the trap out again maybe tomorrow night. If not Friday night for sure. I might try a new trapping location too which is exciting!  

Since my last post about Black Hole Marsh autumn really has kicked off on the Axe. Although I've not seen any of it there's been a couple of Little Ringed Plovers, a Ruff and an Osprey.  Hopefully there's a biggy around the corner and hopefully I see it!

Moth Overload!

First of all, thanks to all the texts/tweets/phonecalls/emails about yesterday's TV first. If you missed it I will put up a link to the BBC iplayer page, it is worth watching for the stunning Hoopoe footage.

Now if you are a tweeter, you would have seen most of these photos already, so I apologies. And if you really don't like moths, this post won't interest you (but please give it a look!). Also if you are a moth expert there's nothing that's going to set the world alight coming up, but I just get SO MUCH excitement from these critters - I have to share it! Each moth is stunning in its own right (well most of them anyway!) so please just scroll through and enjoy the variety.

I trapped at Mum and Dads on Tuesday and Wednesday night this week. With the muggy and still conditions there's no way I couldn't - perfect moth weather.  The numbers were lower than I expected, but overall I still managed 150 moths of 42 species.

And here's some of the best. Starting with the big guns...

Elephant Hawkmoth

Eyed Hawkmoth

Only the garden's second ever Lime Hawkmoth

The Lime Hawk with a Poplar Hawkmoth (Pop's are HUGE!)

Here's some of my other favourite macro moths that I caught...

Starting with the smallest, this isn't a bird dropping it's a Chinese Character!

Another white one, a Clouded Silver

Cream-spot Tiger, a relation to the Jersey Tiger that is a moth that can often be seen by day around here

Another view of the Cream-spot Tiger - it's a very colourful beast!

There are few distinctive Pugs, but this Foxglove Pug is one of them!

A not very Green, Green Carpet

Pale Tussock

Peppered Moth - black and white always does it for me!

Love the name of this one, Scorched Wing

Small Waved Umber, compare to last week's Waved Umber

White Ermine - Buff Ermine are far more regular for me but I've not had one yet this year

Alder Moth

 I was pleased to get an immigrant species too. No surprise that it was one of these though...

A Silver Y ready to fly!

And although (as yet) I don't really 'do' micro moths, I did notice this - another immigrant species...

Rush Veener

Ok moth-haters/moth-pro's, you can look again now! Post done. 

Spring Is Fading Fast...

Colyford Scrape this morning had two Ringed Plover and six Dunlin on it. Which although poor - is twice as good as yesterday morning!

In May most years we get flocks of Dunlin in three figures on the Estuary - but not this year! It really has been woefully poor for wading birds this month - I think the distinct lack of rain has a lot to do with it. The beach is usually a really good place for resting spring migrant wading birds - I've 'endured' several morning beach walks over the past few weeks and haven't seen a single wader!

Anyway that is more than enough negativity from me in this post, so here are a few snaps I've taken over the past couple of days... (yes you can tell it is quiet because I am pointing my camera at these birds!)...

Three breeding plumage Little Egrets acquiring breakfast outside Colyford Common hide yesterday

How exciting - a Canada Goose!!

A Mistle Thrush collecting food in Axmouth - a nice juicy caterpillar and a worm for its chicks

A singing male Yellowhammer at Axmouth

Last night I had a moth trap out in that back garden, a few more new species for the year were amongst the 34 moths of 13 species...

1 Red Twin-spot Carpet
1 Silver-ground Carpet
1 Scalloped Hazel
1 Peppered Moth
2 Poplar Hawkmoth
1 Elephant Hawkmoth
2 Orange Footman
2 Shuttle-shaped Dart
9 Heart and Dart
1 Hebrew Character
1 Ingrailed Clay
8 Trebble Lines
6 Vine's Rustic

Elephant Hawkmoth

Ingrailed Clay

Off to work for me now - something I seem to be doing too much of, of late...